About one in ten workers in the US is a member of a union. In Georgia, the rate is less than one in 20.
Nationwide, public sector workers are leaders in union participation. Across the country, about one in three teachers, librarians, other educators, police officers, prison guards and firefighters wear a union badge, according to federal figures as of 2021.
But Georgia’s law takes some of the luster out of solidarity for public sector unions.
In Georgia, teachers and police officers can join professional groups such as the Georgia Association of Educators or the International Brotherhood of Police Officers. And these groups can campaign for or demand better employment conditions.
But these groups can’t build the kind of muscle that unions can.
In Georgia, under state law, any police officer, educator, or government employee who goes on strike has quit their job. So this is the most iconic action of a union.
Collective bargaining – when a union negotiates wages, hours and working conditions on behalf of all its members – is taboo for Georgian teachers and police officers. (Oddly enough, firefighters can have such a deal, and a national union is working to get more people in red to follow Atlanta’s example and activate their collective bargaining rights.)
And Georgians cannot be forced to join a union if they join a workplace – it is a “right to work” state.
This leaves a worker in a unionized workplace with a good question: Why join the union and pay dues when there is an option to get all the benefits without the cost?
That may be good for an individual worker, but overall the law means unions will have fewer members, less money and less say.
