Educators across the state are exercising their rights, with 12,000 fewer public school employees sending dues or fees to teachers unions today than before the Janus v. AFSCME ruling.
Mailee Smith at Illinois Policy reports thousands of teachers and other public education workers across Illinois have exercised their right not to join or pay a union in the year following the U.S. Supreme Court’s landmark decision in Janus v. AFSCME.
The latest numbers come from the Illinois Education Association, which reported in a Sept. 27 federal filing that thousands have stopped paying dues or fees since June 30, 2018. While the union experienced a slight uptick in the number of full members, it lost 4,881 dues or fee payers overall – a 3% decline from the previous year.
The Illinois Federation of Teachers also saw a drop in educators sending money to the union. In 2017, the union received dues and fees from 101,046 employees in Illinois. In 2018, that number fell to just 94,229, meaning nearly 7% of educators represented by IFT in 2017 were no longer paying the union by the end of 2018.
