Dunleavy’s attack on collective bargaining

Gov. Mike Dunleavy has made so many unprecedented and unpopular decisions that one has gotten relatively little scrutiny: His attack on public employees’ collective bargaining rights.

Dunleavy recently sued the Alaska State Employees Association and issued an Attorney General opinion that twists the U.S. Supreme Court's Janus decision to gut hard-working Alaskans' rights on the job.

The Janus decision is essentially a right-to-work-for-less national mandate for public employees. It says public employees must affirmatively consent to be members of a labor union. That was already the case since Janus was decided and the state updated its employee relations policies under the previous administration.

Gov. Dunleavy and the Attorney General are not trying to follow the law. In fact, no other state has claimed (as Dunleavy has) that Janus gives politicians carte blanche authority to block employees’ union dues even when employees choose to be part of a union.

It is not surprising that Dunleavy is using Janus as a cudgel to bludgeon civil servants into submission. Public employee members of ASEA blew the whistle on corrupt attempts by Dunleavy to sole-source privatize API. Unions provide basic protections for ferry workers who have been fighting to protect ferry service in the face of an assault by Dunleavy. It appears that Dunleavy is attacking employees' unions because unions act as a check on his autocratic abuse of power. In addition, attacking unions is a central goal of the Koch Brothers, who still have high-ranking staff in the Governor's office.

Alaskans have always supported unions, regardless of our party affiliation. Polls regularly show a large majority of voters support collective bargaining rights, and when the Anchorage Assembly tried to strip collective bargaining rights several years ago, voters reversed that unpopular ordinance with an initiative.

It's not surprising that Alaskans support unions. Collective bargaining rights help ensure safe workplaces, which is critically important in high hazard industries like construction and oil and gas. Unions negotiate wage and benefit increases for employees, ensuring workers get a fair share of profits. In the public sector, unions ensure employees can do their jobs without partisan interference. Efficient and fair public administration is a result of a unionized public workforce, so Dunleavy--who's tried to stack state government with patronage positions--would want to eliminate civil service protections.

Most Alaskans are aware of these economic and public policy benefits of unions. Fewer people may be aware of unions’ long-standing and central place in the Civil Rights movement. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. was an ardent supporter of unions and was murdered while in Memphis to support sanitation workers who were on strike. Unions funded civil rights leaders and volunteers’ training for decades and funded many important civil rights events including the 1963 march on Washington, D.C., at which Dr. King gave his “I have a dream” speech. Unions ensured Blacks, Hispanics, and Asians could get high paying jobs with benefits in industries that had excluded them. Data indicate that unionized public employers often provide minorities with an entry into the middle class.

Civil rights and economic rights, protected with our unions, are inseparable. Gov. Dunleavy and his lawless attorney general have demonstrated their autocratic tendencies over and over, such as their attack on the court system’s independence. Since unions have been one of the many Alaska institutions that have fought back in defense of our state, now Dunleavy is attacking unions themselves. As Alaskans have demonstrated over the last year, we’re all in this together to save our state from Mike Dunleavy. Our jobs, the rule of law and our civil rights are all at risk from the governor’s abuse of power, and his use of the Janus case to attack working people is just the latest example.

Kevin McGee is president of the Anchorage NAACP.

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