As the UFT’s vice president for non-Department of Education members, I oversee more than 50 union chapters of various sizes and in different types of workplaces. Although some of the chapters may be small, they are still very powerful for one important reason: They are part of a much larger union, the UFT.

We know from history and our own experience that small groups of workers have little power to push back against their employers, but joined together in a union they can move mountains. And these 50 small units, together in the UFT, have just that power.

Our strength derives from our numbers. With more than 200,000 members, the UFT is a force to be reckoned with.

Our need for unity across our many chapters, and the strength that this unity affords us, have rarely been more important in our recent history than now. The U.S. labor movement — including the UFT — is under concerted attack from far-right conservatives who have as their end goal the destruction of unions and the rights we defend and the total privatization of the public services we provide.

At the crux of this attack is a court case, Friedrichs v. California Teachers Association, now before the U.S. Supreme Court. The case, brought by anti-union conservatives, seeks to abolish the agency or “fair share” fee that public sector workers covered by a union contract must pay regardless of whether they choose to join the union. There is a real threat that the Supreme Court will eliminate these fees.

The plaintiffs argue in Friedrichs that requiring nonmembers to pay such agency fees violates their First Amendment rights. That is patently false. Agency fees are never used for political activities like elections or legislative campaigns. Those are paid for with contributions through the Committee on Political Education (COPE), the union’s political arm. Agency fees are used exclusively to pay for collective bargaining, representation and union services.

I thank you for your support if you are a UFT member, and I urgently encourage those of you who have not joined the union and instead pay an agency fee to join today. The union-provided services on which you rely — or may someday need — depend on your active support. You can join the union online at www.uft.org/enrollment-info.

Some of you may ask why nonmembers should be required to pay fees to unions. The answer is simple. Unions have a legal responsibility to represent all of the workers who fall under their jurisdiction. The UFT, for example, must represent all teachers in New York City district public schools, whether or not they choose to join the union.

If agency fees are abolished, those nonmembers will still receive the services they currently get, but won’t have to pay for them. Does that sound fair to you? The cost of providing services to these so-called “free-riders” will fall on those of you who have joined the union because you believe in its power and in a better life for yourselves, your children and the middle class as a whole. And with less money being contributed to the union, services for everyone will inevitably decline.

The ramifications will be particularly dire for weaker unions across the rest of the country. But just as your strength as individual units within the UFT depends on the overall union’s strength, so our strength as the UFT depends in large measure on the strength of the greater labor movement. A decision by the Supreme Court to eliminate agency fees for public-sector unions could decimate that strength.

That’s why organizing is so important. Each of us needs to commit to talking with our co-workers about the union and why it is important to get — and stay — involved. If you’ve got co-workers who aren’t yet members, sign them up! We need thousands of these conversations taking place. That way, whatever decision is handed down from the court, we’ll be informed and mobilized and ready to tackle the challenge head-on.