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Page Number: 71.0

16  JANUS v. STATE, COUNTY, AND MUNICIPAL EMPLOYEES 

KAGAN, J., dissenting 

that,  at  Pickering’s  first  step,  “union  speech  in  collective
bargaining” is a “matter of great public concern” because it 
“affect[s] how public money is spent” and addresses “other 
important matters” like teacher merit pay or tenure.  Ante, 
at 27, 29 (internal quotation marks omitted).  But to start, 
the majority misunderstands the threshold inquiry set out 
in  Pickering  and  later  cases.  The  question  is  not,  as  the
majority  seems  to  think,  whether  the  public  is,  or  should 
be,  interested  in  a  government  employee’s  speech. 
In-
stead,  the  question  is  whether  that  speech  is  about  and 
directed to the workplace—as contrasted with the broader 
public  square.    Treasury  Employees  offers  the  Court’s 
fullest  explanation.  The  Court  held  there  that  the  gov-
ernment’s  policy  prevented  employees  from  speaking  as 
“citizen[s]”  on  “matters  of  public  concern.”    513  U. S.,  at 
466 (quoting Pickering, 391 U. S., at 568).  Why?  Because 
the  speeches  and  articles  “were  addressed  to  a  public 
audience, were made outside the workplace, and involved
content  largely  unrelated  to  their  Government  employ-
ment.”  513  U. S.,  at  466;  see  id.,  at  465,  470  (repeating 
that analysis twice more).  The Court could not have cared 
less whether the speech at issue was “important.”  Ante, at 
29.  It instead asked whether the speech was truly of the 
workplace—addressed  to  it,  made  in  it,  and  (most  of  all) 
about it. 

Consistent with that focus, speech about the terms and
conditions of employment—the essential stuff of collective
bargaining—has  never  survived  Pickering’s  first  step. 
This Court has rejected all attempts by employees to make
a  “federal  constitutional  issue”  out  of  basic  “employment 
matters,  including  working  conditions,  pay,  discipline, 
promotions, leave, vacations, and terminations.”  Guarnieri, 
564  U. S.,  at  391;  see  Board  of  Comm’rs,  Wabaunsee 
Cty.  v.  Umbehr,  518  U. S.  668,  675  (1996)  (stating  that
public  employees’  “speech  on  merely  private  employment 
matters  is  unprotected”).    For  that  reason,  even  the  Jus-