It’s been five years since the Supreme Court ruled in Janus v. AFSCME that all state, local, and federal government employees have a right not to pay dues to a labor union. Unions have tried their best to violate the ruling, but the Mackinac Center in Michigan reports more than one in five government workers have exercised their right to resign fully from their unions since Janus.

That means over 1.2 million government workers have resigned or declined membership – keeping nearly $1,000 per person in union dues from being spent on politics.

The Freedom Foundation also tells us that last year, four states – Arkansas, Florida, Tennessee, and Kentucky – stopped allowing governments to deduct from paychecks dues on behalf of public-sector unions, forcing them to do their own billing.

The union bosses keep crowing that union power is on the rise, but it isn’t despite highly publicized union organizing efforts at companies like Starbucks and even the New York Times. Even a recent headline from the USA Today conceded:

We will answer that question. More Americans have the right to choose whether they want to join a union. And more are saying “no thanks.”