Bounded Unions: Policy Feedback Effects of Restrictive Labor Policies

• In Event: Accountability, Inequality in the Administration of Education Policy

Abstract

The Janus v. AFCSME (2018) fundamentally changed the institutional context for public sector unions in the United States by generating new labor restrictions across the country. Although teachers’ unions are largely considered the most powerful public sector union and the strongest group in education politics, little evidence exists to predict the consequences of this sweeping change. A substantial body of literature examines policies facilitating teacher unionization; however, only a few, recent studies have considered the effects of laws hindering teacher unionization. This literature has been dominated by two theoretical frameworks, teacher voice and rent seeking, which are often pitted against each other in an oversimplified and yet unresolved, normative question about whether teachers’ unions are good or bad. I argue, however, that teachers’ unions may matter for more than just narrow education outcomes due to their political advocacy, alliances with other labor unions, and other activities that represent teachers’ interests while simultaneously supporting or conflicting with the broader public good.

I develop a third framework to conceptualize the implications of teachers’ union strength, which I dub progressive coalition building. This framework conceptualizes teachers’ unions as organizers that can mobilize to pressure politicians to advance redistributive policies that might be unpopular with economic elites. Under this framework, one of the most important components of labor policies would be how they generate policy feedback by shifting the rules of the game and, over time, the relative advantages of teachers’ unions, other progressive groups, and their opponents. Although effects of progressive coalition building activities may take more time to manifest and are likely more difficult to detect, they are potentially as important as education-specific outcomes.

Therefore, I use a difference-in-differences/event study approach with a unique longitudinal dataset spanning 1942 to the present day to consider the research questions: 1) To what extent have restrictive labor policies affected progressive coalition building activities? 2) How if at all have these policies interacted with each other to produce differential or compounding effects? 3) To what extent do the effects of restrictive labor laws vary depending on the time period of adoption?

To answer my first research question, I examine the effects of laws prohibiting agency fees, collective bargaining, and strikes for teachers’ unions on both education-specific outcomes and broader policy successes and losses. Education outcomes include teachers’ union membership, pupil/teacher ratios, per pupil expenditures, and teacher salaries. Broader policy outcomes focus on the social safety net (gender pay policies, state minimum wages, unemployment insurance, and the Aid for Families with Dependent Children program), tax policies (state income tax, the existence of an earned income tax credit, and corporate tax rates), and gun restrictions (requirements for gun manufacturers or dealers to obtain licenses, background checks on private gun sales, gun registration, and waiting periods). Then, to answer my second research question, I further leverage my historical database to examine the differential and compounding effects of the three types of restrictive labor policies using both an interaction term and a dosage model. Finally, to answer my third research question, I allow the effects of the restrictive labor policies to vary depending on if they were adopted in the following three generations of public sector labor: Early Unions (1940-1964); Union Expansion (1965-1989); Resurgence in Anti-Union Advocacy (1990 to present).

This paper provides the first comprehensive, quantitative look at the effects of policies hindering teacher unionization and moves beyond education-specific outcomes into the broader political landscape. I find that laws hindering teacher unionization lead to declines in teachers’ union membership and teacher working conditions as well as reductions in progressive policymaking at the state level. These results provide empirical evidence on the prediction that Janus (2018) will lead to teachers’ union membership declines and additional challenges in advocating for resources not just for teachers but also for students and families. Importantly, this paper goes even further to examine how, by altering the “rules of the game,” Janus (2018) may affect the relative power and strategic decision making of teachers, their unions, progressive groups, and their opponents state level. This can help to explain why, in the wake of declining union muscle behind teachers, teachers and their unions have seemed to increasingly shift venues from state legislatures and local bargaining tables to protests and strikes and how, if at all, this is accompanied with new energy and different types of policy successes or losses.

Author

• Melissa Lyon, Brown University