A Bad Lesson: More than 63% of Fairfax County's Educational Staff Did Not Vote. However, more than 27,500 will now be unionized.
More than 17,000 of FCPS staff did not vote. However, they will now be represented by the AFT and NEA.
By Peter List, Editor | June 11, 2024
“Voting is how we participate in a civic society – be it for president or municipal election. It is the way we teach our children – in school elections – how to be citizens, and the importance of their voice.” – Loretta Lynch, former U.S. Attorney General
On Monday, headlines and press releases announced that “more than 27,500 workers in Fairfax County Public Schools—the ninth-largest school district in the country—are now represented by a single entity able to collectively bargain on their behalf.”
While nearly every article proclaimed the Virginia Education Unions' (a joint coalition of Virginia-based AFT and NEA locals) significant victory, with most touting the “97 percent voting yes in the instructional unit and 81 percent in the operational unit” margins, very few reported the actual number of educational staff who voted.
As it turns out, the Virginia Education Unions’ overwhelming victory may largely be due to the fact that the large majority of affected education staff did not vote at all.
More than 63% did not vote at all.
In fact, according to Patch.com, of the 27,500 eligible voters, only 10,108 FCPS educators and support staff voted. That number represents a mere 36.75 percent of those eligible to vote.
In other words, more than 63 percent of the now-unionized educational staff did not participate in voting at all.
Here is the breakdown:
Instructional Staff
Yes - 7,779 (96.92 percent)
No - 247 (3.08 percent)
Operational Staff
Yes - 2,318 (80.68 percent)
No - 555 (19.32 percent)
Mandatory union dues are not possible in Virginia.
While the more than 27,500 FCPS educators and support staff will now be unionized, Virginia is still a Right-to-Work state, which means none of the employees can be required to pay union dues.
Moreover, under the U.S. Supreme Court’s Janus decision, public-sector workers cannot be required to pay union dues as a condition of employment.
As a result, the FCPS workers will have no need to worry about losing their jobs for refusing to pay union dues. This may, in part, have impacted the decision of 17,000 educational staff not voting.
Whether one supports a union or not, as with all elections, not voting is the equivalent of voting for the other side—be it a union or a political candidate.
As educational workers, the lack of participation in the democratic process is a dangerous lesson for Fairfax County’s students.
