Union membership rates drop among California state workers during COVID-19 pandemic

Union membership among California state workers declined slightly this year as recruitment has gone remote due to the coronavirus, according to state data and interviews with union leaders.

In August, the most recent month for which data is available, 67% of state workers were dues-paying union members, according to State Controller’s Office data. That’s down 2% from February, the month before the virus began to spread in California.

The slight decline came amid pay cuts for state workers and momentous changes in working conditions, including risks of COVID-19 infection and rapid shifts to remote work.

The pay cuts, which the unions negotiated with Gov. Gavin Newsom’s administration over the summer, left some workers feeling dissatisfied with their representation, according to a survey of state workers by The Sacramento Bee. But union representatives also have been more present in many workplaces, filing grievances, demanding protective equipment and meeting with managers to negotiate changes to working conditions.

The biggest factor in the slight decline appears to stem from a reduced rate of new employee sign-ups.

The state’s total union-eligible civil service workforce grew by 5,596 people from February to August, while the number of union members dropped by 682 people.

“This does not look like people are dropping, it looks like they did not bring on the same share of new people coming in,” said Ken Jacobs, a professor at the UC Berkeley Center for Labor Research and Education.

Union leaders said recruitment by computer or by phone just isn’t the same as meeting in person.

“It’s sort of difficult to recruit new members on Zoom; you miss that person to person sort of connection,” said Ted Toppin, executive director of Professional Engineers in California Government.

Local 1000

Shifts in membership have been more pronounced among specific unions and worker groups.

Membership declined most among registered nurses, who are represented by SEIU Local 1000. The state added 431 nurses from February to August but the union lost 143 nurse members, resulting in an 8% drop that left the unit with a 75% membership rate, according to the Controller’s Office data.

Across all nine units of employees Local 1000 represents, membership dropped from 57% in February to 54% in August, according to the data. The union lost 1,248 members while the total pool of potential members grew by 3,277, according to the data.

The union, the state’s largest, represents workers at the Employment Development Department, which has been rapidly hiring people to process unemployment insurance claims. In August, Local 1000 represented 100,864 workers, including union and non-union employees ranging from nurses to custodians to analysts and secretaries.

A Local 1000 spokesman declined comment for this story.

Two of Local 1000’s smallest units, representing librarians and educators, were among three groups that saw 1% to 2% gains during the pandemic. In each of the two units, drops in the size of the total workforce were the most significant factor in the percentage gain.

The union representing state attorneys and administrative law judges, which represented 4,195 workers in August, grew by 1%, adding 63 new members as the pool of state attorneys grew overall.

Others held steady. The California Association of Highway Patrolmen, the California Correctional Peace Officers Association, the California Association of Professional Scientists and the International Union of Operating Engineers all had the same percentages of members in February and August, according to the data.

After Janus

Membership numbers took on new significance after the U.S. Supreme Court ruled in June 2018 that public workers who aren’t union members don’t have to pay anything to their unions.

Before the court’s ruling in Janus vs. AFSCME, non-members had to pay “fees” equivalent to a percentage of what members pay in dues. After the ruling, unions with low membership rates experienced the biggest losses in revenue.

Across California state government, union membership dropped from 71% in July 2018 to the pre-pandemic figure of 69%, staying relatively stable.

“The question all along has been over time would new workers continue to enroll at the same rate or would some people drop off,” said Jacobs, the UC Berkeley professor. “And so far we’ve seen union membership hold pretty steady.”

Unions adopted new strategies to recruit and retain members, including reserving some benefits for members that had been available to non-members before the ruling.

By law, the contracts the unions negotiate with the state — which include pay and benefits — must apply equally to non-members and members. But some unions stopped representing non-members in disciplinary proceedings and blocked non-members from their websites.

The California State Legislature helped out the unions by passing batches of union-friendly laws.

Among the new laws was a requirement that state departments notify unions of new hires and give unions access to new employees as part of state orientations.

The state has honored the law even during the pandemic, union officials said, but the meetings look very different.

In the past, union representatives would be in a room with groups of new workers. They could answer questions and hand out copies of contracts, business cards and union-branded swag such as calendars, notepads and pint glasses, said Toppin, with the engineers’ union. The union had an 83% membership rate in August, down 1 percentage point from February.

While the unions can mail those things to new members, first impressions aren’t as strong when made by computer or phone, Toppin said.

The California Association of Professional Scientists is making the same pitch to new employees as before the pandemic, said Bianca Petzold, the union’s staff director.

“We basically say, ‘if you have a question, call CAPS,’” Petzold said. “If it’s not under our representational purview, we can help identify where you should go.”

The union still offers the service it has found to be one of the most effective in recruiting scientists: reviewing their work history and experience to make sure they’re in the highest job classification for which they are qualified, Petzold said.

Public safety unions

State unions representing public safety employees have been the least impacted, retaining high membership rates despite taking similar pay cuts as other groups and facing some of the most difficult working conditions in the pandemic.

The CHP officers’ union retained a 100% membership rate in August, while the correctional officers’ union stayed at 99%. The union representing psychiatric technicians working in prisons and state hospitals had an 89% membership rate, according to the data, although a spokesman said the union’s numbers show the rate was 91%.

The state firefighters’ membership data is difficult to evaluate, since Cal Fire hires a lot of seasonal workers each year. The union had a 94% membership rate in February and it signed up about 500 of 770 seasonal firefighters, union president Tim Edwards said.

The firefighters’ union has been able to continue much of its in-person recruitment since the new hires have to do their training in person, Edwards said.

AFSCME, which in August represented 5,232 health and social services professionals in state government, including many in state prisons, had a 65% membership rate.

Cliff Tillman, a senior business agent for the union, said the union hasn’t done its annual membership blitz because it is in contract negotiations with the state.

“Once we do it, I guarantee our numbers will rise,” Tillman said.