California and Illinois Flunk on Worker Freedom Report While These 7 States Earn A-Pluses

A new Commonwealth Foundation report grades all 50 states on public-sector labor law, finding seven states earned A+ grades for worker freedom while six states received F's. Senior Director of Labor Policy David Osborne explains that Arkansas, Georgia, Indiana, Mississippi, North Carolina, South Carolina, Tennessee, and Texas earned the top marks by protecting workers' right to opt out of union membership and dues, while California, Illinois, Maryland, Oregon, Rhode Island, and Washington received F's for laws granting unions broad access to public employees' personal data. Osborne also discusses how union membership at AFSCME and SEIU has rebounded to pre-Janus v. AFSCME levels eight years after the Supreme Court ruling, driven largely by new organizing in previously non-union sectors like home care work.