The nation鈥檚 largest teachers鈥� union is seeing the first signs of a membership exodus, .
The National Education Association has lost about 17,000 members since its last update in April, according to an internal document obtained by Mike Antonucci, a long-time union analyst who now writes for the 74. This membership loss is most likely due to a Supreme Court decision in June that prohibited public-sector unions from charging fees to workers who are not members of the union.
Before the high court ruling in Janus v. AFSCME, workers who didn鈥檛 want to join the union still had to pay 鈥渁gency鈥� or 鈥渇air share鈥� fees to cover the cost of collective bargaining. However, those fees often cost nearly as much as a full membership, so many people went ahead and became members. Now, workers can exit the union and not have to pay any fee as a nonmember鈥攕o unions have predicted significant membership declines.
The NEA now stands at just over 3 million members, Antonucci reported. But the membership loss is likely to continue鈥攐ver the summer, a loss of more than 300,000 members over two years.
NEA spokeswoman Celeste Busser said in an email to 澳门跑狗论坛 that the union won鈥檛 have final, updated membership numbers until the end of the year.
鈥淚t is too early to tell the impact of the Janus decision,鈥� she said.
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After the Supreme Court鈥檚 ruling, the NEA immediately lost its nearly 88,000 agency-fee payers, a blow to the union鈥檚 coffers. The NEA has already cut its two-year budget by $50 million, but Antonucci reports that union officials are looking for additional ways to reduce spending鈥攎ainly by shortening the annual convention.
While the NEA鈥檚 Representative Assembly, in which union delegates policy statements, and the budget, would continue to last four days, the union plans to eliminate or consolidate some of the meetings and activities beforehand. Cutting two days of the annual convention would save the NEA $1 million, Antonucci wrote.
鈥淚t is correct that we have for some time now been working to ensure the RA is what it is intended to be, a business meeting,鈥� Busser said. 鈥淗owever, throughout the years, more and more has been added [to the schedule]. This shortened agenda is intended to allow us to focus more intentionally on the actual business of the RA.鈥�
Attracting and retaining members will be a priority for the union. NEA President Lily Eskelsen Garc铆a that she hoped to encourage former agency fee-payers to become full members through individual conversations. However, union officials have some competition: Conservative groups to convince teachers to drop their union membership.
There is also a rash of legal challenges facing teachers鈥� unions鈥攖here are at least 15 lawsuits against the NEA and its affiliates. Some of these challenges are pushes for teachers to be reimbursed for the agency fees they paid before the Supreme Court decision, and others are challenges to time-limited windows during which teachers can opt out of having membership dues deducted from their paychecks. It will be expensive for the NEA to fight these cases in court.
Unions have been preparing for the anticipated loss of members through and by pushing for friendly legislation that gives the unions better access to potential members鈥攆or instance, by requiring that new teachers meet with their union representatives within a month of being hired or by providing unions with teachers鈥� contact information.
Still, researchers have suggested that in the wake of the Supreme Court decision. To adapt, researchers wrote, unions will likely become more political and renew their focus on teacher voice.
Image of NEA鈥檚 annual convention, by Scott Iskowitz/National Education Association