But a recent exper­i­ment by AFSCME may point the way to how unions can reduce the harm­ful effects of Har­ris.

Many ana­lysts saw the court’s rul­ing last month in Har­ris v. Quinn as a pro­found blow to pub­lic sec­tor unions such as AFSCME. In a case involv­ing work­ers who receive state funds to pro­vide home care for peo­ple with dis­abil­i­ties, the court found that the Ser­vice Employ­ees Inter­na­tion­al Union (SEIU) could not col­lect ​“fair share” pay­ments from work­ers who declined to join the union. A sig­nif­i­cant share of pub­lic work­ers — espe­cial­ly in home care work, where work­ers are spread out over var­i­ous work­places — have been required to pay these reduced dues to com­pen­sate unions such as AFSCME and for their bar­gain­ing and rep­re­sen­ta­tion work. Unions fear that in future rul­ings, the Supreme Court will even­tu­al­ly nix fair share fees for all pub­lic work­ers, or even all workers.

The just-released results of a six-month ini­tia­tive by the Amer­i­can Fed­er­a­tion of State, Coun­ty and Munic­i­pal Employ­ees (AFSCME) sug­gest that the dark cloud cast over pub­lic sec­tor union­ism by a recent Supreme Court deci­sion may not be so threat­en­ing after all.

In Jan­u­ary, lead­ers of the 1.6‑million-member union set a tar­get of becom­ing ​“50,000 stronger” by the start of the con­ven­tion through ​“inter­nal orga­niz­ing” — that is, recruit­ing work­ers who were pay­ing ​“fair share” dues or noth­ing at all to become full-fledged, dues-pay­ing mem­bers. What was notable about the union’s approach was that, rather than bring in pro­fes­sion­al orga­niz­ers, AFSCME used vol­un­teer mem­ber orga­niz­ers (VMOs). These vol­un­teers approached their co-work­ers, or those at sim­i­lar work­places, to make the case for join­ing the union. AFSCME, like many oth­er unions, has used VMOs before, but nev­er on such a large scale.

​“We found that when VMOs went to work­ers, espe­cial­ly co-work­ers, and made the ask, peo­ple were sign­ing up at a fan­tas­tic rate,” says AFSCME spokesper­son Chris Fleming.

AFSCME unveiled the out­come of its ini­tia­tive on Mon­day at the union’s annu­al con­ven­tion, held in Chica­go this week. With 800 VMOS doing out­reach for six months, AFSCME’s inter­nal orga­niz­ing dri­ve brought in near­ly twice the goal — 92,155 new, ful­ly dues-pay­ing mem­bers, includ­ing 20,000 home care work­ers in California.

At a prison in Tole­do, 60 employ­ees were non-mem­bers at the start of the inter­nal orga­niz­ing cam­paign. At the end, only two were still hold-outs.

AFSCME is also accel­er­at­ing its new-mem­ber orga­niz­ing — using VMOs when­ev­er pos­si­ble — in occu­pa­tions such as emer­gency med­ical ser­vices (pub­lic and pri­vate), home care, child care and, in a few areas, such as New Orleans and Chica­go, taxi dri­vers. The union has been orga­niz­ing the first three occu­pa­tions for sev­er­al years, but the taxi dri­vers rep­re­sent a new departure.

​“We may be under attack, but we are not about to raise the flag of sur­ren­der,” Unit­ed Domes­tic Work­ers mem­ber Viviana Saave­dra, a Cal­i­for­nia home care work­er, told the rough­ly 4,000 con­ven­tion del­e­gates and alter­nates on Mon­day. ​“No mat­ter what the chal­lenges are, we must grow our union.”

​“In state after state, extrem­ist politi­cians are look­ing for any oppor­tu­ni­ty, and every oppor­tu­ni­ty, to destroy us,” AFSCME pres­i­dent Lee Saun­ders said in a speech at the con­ven­tion. ​“But, AFSCME, their oppor­tu­ni­ty will not come. This is our time.”

AFSCME’s suc­cess in inter­nal orga­niz­ing with VMOs shows that even in the face of hos­tile legal and polit­i­cal attacks, unions have reser­voirs of strength. Har­ris v. Quinn may even turn out to back­fire on the Right by ener­giz­ing union mem­bers to become much more involved in bring­ing in new mem­bers, both in orga­nized and unor­ga­nized workplaces.

AFSCME is a spon­sor of In These Times. Spon­sors have no role in edi­to­r­i­al content.