蜜桃影视

One year after the Supreme Court鈥檚 Janus ruling, most teachers don鈥檛 know of the decision and the right it recognized of public-sector employees to opt out of union membership and corresponding dues, a new finds.

That knowledge gap, despite widespread media coverage and active union campaigns, may explain why a long-predicted drop in union membership post-Janus hasn鈥檛 materialized, one advocate said.

鈥淲hy haven鈥檛 more teachers opted out of the union? The survey shows they don鈥檛 know that they can,鈥� Colin Sharkey, executive director of the Association of American Educators, a non-union teachers鈥� association , said on a call with reporters Monday. AAE鈥檚 foundation sponsors the Teacher Freedom Project, which commissioned the poll.

Media representatives for the American Federation of Teachers and the National Education Association, the two largest teachers unions, did not respond to a request for comment. Union leaders have said they redoubled their efforts to recruit and retain members ahead of the Janus decision, and that teachers are seeing the value of membership.

YouGov conducted the online survey of 1,000 teachers between May 29 and June 9.

More than three-quarters of the 1,000 teachers hadn鈥檛 heard of the case Janus v. AFSCME, and slightly more than half, 52 percent, didn鈥檛 know that the ruling ended mandatory union dues for public-sector workers.

The survey also found that less than a quarter of respondents had re-evaluated their union membership in the wake of the decision, handed down a year ago on Thursday.

Of the 22 percent of respondents overall who had re-evaluated their membership, 16 percent stayed in the union, 5 percent said it made them more likely to leave the union, and 1 percent said they left.

The level of knowledge about Janus wasn鈥檛 dramatically different between so-called Janus states, like New York, California and Illinois, where state law mandated that dissenting members continue paying part of their dues, and non-Janus states, where state law already permitted dissenting members to opt out, Sharkey said.

In California, where state unions worked on the issue extensively, 27 percent of teachers knew the Janus decision by name, Sharkey added 鈥� just 5 percent more than the national average.

Many teachers don鈥檛 know about the decision because little information has reached members, and they鈥檙e focused on other things, two Minnesota teachers, both of whom have opted out of union membership, said on the press call.

鈥淢ost teachers, they want to focus on teaching. They want to focus on their students … That鈥檚 the key part of it, but I think some of those things on membership and opt-out period need to be adjusted,鈥� Daniel Elo, an elementary STEM teacher, said on the call.

Mistaken beliefs about union benefits, and limitations on when dissenting members may withdraw, may also be factors in why more teachers aren鈥檛 leaving unions, Sharkey said. Those limitations are being challenged across the country.

Some teachers responding to the poll also incorrectly believed that they would lose various benefits if they left the union, including seniority status (12 percent), health insurance (18 percent), tenure protections (23 percent), pay increases negotiated by the union (25 percent) and other terms of the union-negotiated contract (32 percent).

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