For most states — those that already have right-to-work protections on their books — the impact of the expected ruling in Janus v. AFSCME, which the U.S. Supreme Court heard on Feb. 26, will be minimal. But in organized, labor-dominated enclaves like Oregon, the landmark case will bring major, and overwhelmingly positive, changes.

Unless, that is, you happen to the leader of a government employee union or a politician whose political fortunes depend on the dues-skimming operations of one. In which case, the fallout from Janus will be potentially fatal.

In 28 states, public-sector employees can already decide for themselves whether it makes sense for their unique situation to affiliate with a labor union. And if not, they can decline without fear of losing their job.

After Janus, government workers in Oregon will have the same right.

Since 1977, as a result of a compromise struck in a previous case, public employees who don’t agree with their union’s political agenda have had the right to pay a reduced “agency fee” that, ostensibly, doesn’t include their share of what the union spends on politics. But workers who opt out are still required to help fund the union’s collective bargaining.

Since unions are required to represent even nonunion workers, they argue everyone should help bear the costs of negotiating a contract from which all benefit.

It’s an argument with fatal flaws.

Attorneys for the petitioner in Janus note that employment in government is fundamentally different from a private-sector job in many ways, not the least of which is that pay raises and benefit enhancements don’t come out of corporate profits. They come from public revenue and require either tax increases or service cuts to pay for them.

Consequently, everything a union does is, by definition, a political activity, and workers who have a different agenda can’t be forced to pay for any of it.

What does this mean for Oregon? For government employees, it means they can no longer be bullied into turning over hundreds of dollars a year to a union that, in turn, funnels much of it to candidates and causes they don’t support.

It also means the unions will have little choice but to behave more like a private-sector business and start providing service its consumers consider worth paying for rather than simply being handed a government-enforced monopoly.

How many workers will ultimately choose to leave their unions is a question no one can answer now. But in other states with right-to-work protections, at least 30 percent of members have ceased paying dues to their designated union.

For the three largest public-sector unions in Oregon, that would mean approximately $22.5 million less revenue annually — money heretofore used largely to line the pockets of its leaders and shape the state’s political landscape.

Predictably, the unions aren’t taking this development lying down. But instead of reinventing themselves as free-market service providers competing for the allegiance of the consumers they claim to represent, labor leaders are doing what they’ve always done when their golden goose is threatened — they’re hatching schemes to keep workers from knowing about their rights and make it harder to exercise them.

And when that fails, they’ll pressure the politicians whose strings they pull to rewrite the laws to inoculate themselves against the coming reforms.

None it will work, of course. At worst, it will only delay the inevitable.

At best, the unions’ actions will only serve to further expose the utterly corrupt special interest politics that have unfortunately defined this state’s government and leave Oregonians wondering why they’ve put up with it for so long.

— Aaron Withe is the Oregon director for the Freedom Foundation, a think tank that filed two amicus briefs in support of the Janus petitioner.