Bill Scher is a contributing editor to Politico Magazine, and co-host of the Bloggingheads.tv show “The DMZ.”

The Supreme Court just delivered a death blow to the labor movement, with its 5-4 ruling in Janus v. AFSCME. Democratic politicians and progressive policy architects now have to face a harsh reality: The path to middle-class prosperity will not be going through the nation’s union halls.

It’s a bitter pill to swallow. New York Times columnist Paul Krugman once summed up progressive economic thought with the lede, “Once upon a time, back when America had a strong middle class, it also had a strong union movement. “ The left breathlessly touts every new economic paper offering further evidence that the widening wealth gap is correlated to the decline in unionization. Sen. Bernie Sanders and several of his Senate colleagues (and fellow presidential aspirants) are backing the “Workplace Democracy Act,” designed to boost unionization in part by giving workers the option of organizing via petition, or “card check,” instead of secret ballot election.


The economic populists have a solid argument backed by plenty of evidence. Scandinavian countries, as well as nearby Canada, have long showed that high unionization rates are compatible with high wages and sustainable growth. There’s little question that if unions were alive and well in the United States, they could do wonders.

But they are not alive and well; they are flat-lining. Only 10.7 percent of American workers are union members, down from 20 percent in 1983 and nearly 30 percent in 1964. Private-sector unionization is at a practically nonexistent 6.5 percent. Keeping the labor movement afloat has been the public sector, with a workforce that’s more than one-third unionized.

Now the Supreme Court just took a sledgehammer to that pillar. The ruling in Janus v. AFSCME declared that public-sector unions cannot collect “fair share fees” from non-unionized workers, even though those workers benefit from collective bargaining agreements. The court decided that such a requirement would force workers to subsidize speech with which they do not necessarily agree, thereby violating the First Amendment

Without a requirement that workers pay union dues or fair share fees, these unions lose more than just a revenue stream; they lose unity. Workers now have an incentive to become “free riders” and reap the benefits of collective bargaining without paying for it. As more workers ditch unions, labor negotiators are stuck with weaker hands that can’t exert as much pressure on management. As labor lawyer Joe Burns wrote in the socialist magazine Jacobin, “Janus is an attack on the very foundations of unionism—an assault on the solidarity and internal cohesion within a work site.”

Burns is far from alone among labor activists in his pessimism. They have been fatalistic about Janus ever since Neil Gorsuch, and not Merrick Garland, reached the court. The ticking judicial time bomb has sparked discussion of several solutions for reviving the labor movement.

But much of the conversation involves desperate schemes for resuscitating a suffocated movement, instead of coming to grips with political and legal reality.

Organizer Shaun Richman has suggested unions embrace the end of exclusive representation and the rebirth of a “multiple competitive union” model, in which more than one union is present on the work floor, as that would make it easier for some of the unions to call for strikes, slowdowns and “malicious compliance.” Burns shares Richman’s desire for more militant tactics but frets that competing unions amounts to “minority unionism” that would only weaken bargaining power. Burns, instead, points to the West Virginia teachers—who struck in violation of state law and without the initial support of their own union leaders—as an example of how militant leadership can entice others to follow and foster worker unity. However, while the West Virginia teachers won a raise, as did Arizona teachers after following suit, other teacher strikes inspired by West Virginia weren’t as successful.

It’s not just the militant wing of the union movement heaving Hail Marys. The Democratic establishment think tank Center for American Progress is advocating for “national wage boards,” in which the federal government works with representatives of management and labor to set industrywide worker standards. And one Service Employees International Union local president wants to import the Belgian strategy of tasking unions with administering the nation’s unemployment insurance system, which has shown to significantly boost unionization rates.

Yet, it’s extremely hard to see how the political momentum is generated for handing unions such great powers when so few people are actually in unions, and thanks to Janus, the number will soon drop even lower.

With such thin union membership, full Democratic control of all federal branches of government wouldn’t ensure sufficient votes to pass union-friendly legislation. Remember that in 2009, when Democrats had a 60-vote Senate supermajority, they couldn’t secure a vote on the “Employee Free Choice Act,” which also had the “card check” provision. Several Democrats withheld support in the face of furious pressure from business groups, which proved more potent than what unions were able to muster.

And it’s not always moderates who balk at abandoning secret ballot union elections; in British Columbia, Canada, today, the ruling union-backed New Democratic Party can’t enact “card check” because of opposition from its coalition partner, the Green Party.

Even if all the stars aligned and Democrats could pass legislation to ease organizing, it would take years, perhaps decades, to reverse the near-total collapse in the national unionization rate. If Democrats want to keep power after they regain it, they will need to deliver tangible economic gains for the working-class on a much faster timetable.

“So are you seriously saying Democrats should throw unions under the bus?!” many of you are probably screaming into your screens right now.

I am not saying that, because for Democrats to abandon unions would be political suicide. Labor groups punch well above their weight when it comes to elections. In the 2016 campaign, unions donated nearly $60 million to the Democratic Party and its candidates, and more than $130 million to super PACs. And unions field critical ground troops; the labor movement’s main 2016 super PAC funded 4,000 canvassers who knocked on 9.5 million doors. Despite all that effort, Hillary Clinton’s share of the union household vote in 2016 was 7 percentage points worse than Barack Obama’s four years earlier. Kicking unions to the curb will only feed further decline.

I’m also not saying it’s a bad idea to join a union. The recent wave of teachers’ strikes shows that even when the rate of unionization is low, organized action by workers can still yield real results even though the success of strikes is never guaranteed.

What I am saying is Democrats need a policy vision for strengthening and expanding the middle class that is not predicated on the extremely unlikely scenario of a unionization surge. That includes ideas that are already embedded in the party platform, such as a higher minimum wage, a more progressive tax code, universal health insurance, universal preschool and debt-free college. And it includes deeper exploration of ideas that address the changing nature of work, such as regulations to prevent exploitation of “gig economy” workers, who will always struggle to collectively bargain.

Do we need more guarantees? Guaranteed “basic” income? (That’s now in the California Democratic Party platform.) Guaranteed jobs? (Sens. Sanders, Cory Booker and Kirsten Gillibrand are for that.) Many Democrats are for expanding Social Security, but what about reforms that would move us away from risky 401(k)s and bring back guaranteed “defined benefit” pensions?

Democrats can discuss and embrace these sorts of ideas without publicly dumping on unions. They don’t need to shun pro-union proposals like the “Workplace Democracy Act.” But they should quietly recognize that union-oriented proposals can’t be the linchpin of a strategy to revitalize the middle class.

There’s no political upside in telling unions that their best days are behind them. Unions are to the left what coal is to the right: nostalgia. A powerful symbol of past glory, offering tantalizing hope for today’s problems despite slowly dying in front of our eyes.

But symbols are just that—symbols. Sure, Donald Trump’s love of coal helped get him to the White House, but Trump still can’t stop coal’s decline. After he ordered the Energy Department to engineer a coal industry bailout, Allentown, Pennsylvania’s Morning Call newspaper reported this week that “Coal Plants Keep Shutting" anyway. What you say to win elections and what you can actually do to help voters is not always the same thing.

Just as coal buoyed Trump, unions may still do the same for the next Democratic president. But after Janus, Democrats should have no illusions that unions can provide a quick fix to what ails the middle class. The party’s challenge now is to craft a policy agenda that will, without throwing union members under the proverbial bus.