WHY IS UNION MEMBERSHIP BLEEDING WHERE THE RED STATE TEACHER REVOLTS TOOK PLACE?
Michael Antonucci is no friend of teacher unions.
He’s a libertarian who has covered the teacher union beat for years. He has his own blog and pens the Union Report for The 74.
When I was a regular delegate to the NEA Representative Assemblies, I would sometimes drop by the reporter coral (they weren’t allowed on the convention floor) and exchange views.
We differed on politics but his facts were dead on. Even a high-level NEA staffer confided in me that they often turned to Antonucci’s reports to find out what was really going on inside the NEA.
His latest data shows that in blue states Janus has had very little impact on union membership.
In red right-to-work states, membership is bleeding.
The biggest losers were Arizona, Arkansas, Georgia, Louisiana, Michigan, Nevada, North Carolina, Oklahoma, South Carolina, Tennessee, Utah, Virginia, West Virginia and Wisconsin. Each was a right-to-work state or became one during this period.
If some of those states seem familiar to union teachers it is because they notice that some of these states saw major state-wide teacher strikes in recent years.
If that seems contradictory it shouldn’t.
Most of those strikes were organized by militant teachers independently of the NEA CONTINUE READING: Why is union membership bleeding where the Red State Teacher Revolts took place? – Fred Klonsky