Mark Janus

Mark Janus is a Senior Fellow at the Liberty Justice Center, where he serves as an advocate and spokesperson for workers’ rights.

Mark spent the last 11 years of his career as a child support specialist for the Illinois state government, ensuring that children get all the resources to which they are entitled. It was during that time that Mark courageously took on one of the most powerful political forces in the country: the public employee unions.

Mark fought for his First Amendment rights – and the rights of more than 5 million other government workers – all the way to the U.S. Supreme Court with his case, Janus v. AFSCME.  Mark’s bravery resulted in the single greatest victory for First Amendment rights in a generation.

Over the years Mark had a career in both the private sector and in
government. In the 1980s, he held a government
job. He then left for a private company and returned
to the public sector in 2007. That’s when he learned that Illinois politicians had granted AFSCME — a politically powerful government union — the power to exclusively represent more than 90 percent of state workers in Illinois. This type of injustice went on for decades all across the country and affected millions of public workers. That is, until Mark stood up and fought to stop it.

Now, Mark serves as a leader spreading the message of worker freedom through his personal story. Mark has been and will continue to be a tremendous advocate for government workers.