Dive Brief:

• Michigan's largest teachers' union, the Michigan Education Association, lost fewer than 5,000 members during a small opt-out window last month .
• The opt-out period was prompted by an administrative judge's ruling that said membership to unions should not be mandatory.  
• The MEA had 112,000 active members last year, which means it lost less than 5% of its members during the August period.  

Dive Insight:

The Mackinac Center, a public policy organization that supports free markets, points out that 50,000 union members were unable to opt out because their contracts had not expired. This fact calls into question what the true opt-out number would have looked like had everyone truly been free to leave. Union members, however, view the low dropout rate as a success. MEA President Steve Cook told the Associated Press that members were not affected by "outside rhetoric".