Put another way, I think current unions are far too entrenched and disconnected and that perhaps gutting them could lead to reinvigorating a labor movement in America where people actually want to join up instead of being forced to. Of course, that may mean working conditions first getting worse in order to reach that point.

^ Unions issue is they insulated themselves too much and did not need their people. THey quit listening to the rank and file and the rank and file became just a revenue stream for leadership and their activities. It is not the bottom up approach that allowed them to thrive in their early days. They did not have to listen to their members because, after all, everyone had to join anyway to work for that employer. If you want to teach in the public schools, you have no choice to be in the Union. While the Union feels the offer a ton of value to the employee, the employee quit seeing the value and Unions did not care.

 

The AFSME case arose because there were lots of Union members who tried speaking out to leadership about the Union not taking care of their needs and no one was listening.

What I think Unions will need to move toward in order to survive in the era of Right To Work and Janus is that they will become more benefit management and apprenticeship training programs. If you are in the Union and on furlough, you will be able to get your skills current and be able to slide into open positions with a company before a non-union employee would, you would have a higher level of training (value to the employee). You would also be part of collectives to manage benefits and pools resources to get better pensions, etc which would nto be available to non members. Collective bargaining would become much less important and the benefit will be the pooling of resources on the benefits side.