National union membership numbers may explain why organized labor officials support forced dues or agency fees for workers who do not want to be represented by unions.

Michigan’s unions rejoiced in March when Lansing repealed right-to-work.

“After decades of anti-worker attacks,” Michigan AFL-CIO President Ron Bieber wrote, “Michigan has restored the balance of power for working people by passing laws to protect their freedom to bargain for the good wages, good benefits, and safe workplaces they deserve.”

In Michigan, private sector workers now have no choice but to pay fees or dues if their workplaces are organized.

Current membership numbers show that many workers do not believe the union is their best workplace representative. Once Michigan’s public sector workers could freely leave their union, many did so.

The American Federation of State, County and Municipal Employees is the largest union for state and local government employees. It had 1.3 million members and fee payers in 2017, the year before the U.S. Supreme Court ruled in Janus v. AFSCME that public sector employees cannot be forced to pay or join a union. But it has shed dues and fee payers ever since. 

Since the Janus decision came out, the union’s total dues and fee payer membership has gone from 1.3 million to 1.05 million members — more than a 16% drop.

Other unions, such as the National Education Association and the American Federation of Teachers, have also shed dues and fee payers. In total, the NEA, AFT and AFSCME have lost 550,000 dues and fee payers since 2018. That’s more than 10% of the 5.3 million workers who were paying before the Janus ruling.

In a May 3 letter to colleagues, Sen. Veronica Klinefelt, D-Eastpointe, seeks co-sponsors for a pending bill to allow lawmakers to participate in meetings and votes remotely, from the comfort of their own homes.

Klinefelt cites no reason for this desire to partake remotely. Not the COVID-19 pandemic. The COVID emergency was terminated last month by an act of Congress, which President Joe Biden signed. Not fear of climate change spurred by 148 lawmakers and their staffs driving to Lansing three days a week. Not concern of driving over potholed roads, or through construction zones. Nothing.

Read the letter for yourself. It was obtained by the Michigan Freedom Fund, a conservative advocacy organization.

Klinfelt wrote the letter to seek co-sponsors for an amendment to section 3 of Michigan’s Open Meetings Act, which requires a “physical quorum” of lawmakers for those lawmakers to take action.

The law reads that public meetings must be “attended in person by every participating member of the public body in a physical place available to the general public.”

That law, and the requirement that bills in Michigan pass with a majority of lawmakers — not just a majority of those present — is why multiple Michigan representatives, all Democrats, have voted this year after testing positive for COVID-19. With only a 56-54 majority in the Michigan House and a 20-18 majority in the Senate, Democrats don’t have a vote to spare.

Under the Klinefelt amendment, “one or more members may attend the meeting remotely and fully participate in all deliberations and decisions that may occur at the meeting.”

This means that, in the absence of any specific emergency, public meetings and even legislative sessions would no longer happen in one room, or even in Lansing. Lawmakers could log on from wherever they may be, for any reason or no reason.

The Michigan Freedom Fund sees the proposal as problematic.

“As Michiganders have returned to work in person, Democrats are finding ways for elected officials to stay home from work and vote from bed”, said spokeswoman Mary Drabik. “Those who hold public office should be held to the highest standard. Therefore, they are expected to show up to work, in person, like the rest of us, and face the public.”

As of Wednesday afternoon, Klinefelt had yet to submit the bill.