F R E E D O M F O U N D AT I O N TA K E S ON 5 S TAT E S [5] DIS A BIL I T Y DUE S S C HE ME H A LT E D [4] C A MPA IGN F IN A NC E C O M P L A I N T TA R G E T S W S C C C E [ 1 0 ]
LIVINGLIBERTY A PUBLICATION OF THE FREEDOM FOUNDATION | JULY 2019
SETTLING UP SEIU AGREES TO SETTLEMENT IN FORGERY SUIT, WRITES OUT HEFTY CHECKS By CARL HOROWITZ Reprinted from the NATIONAL LEGAL & POLICY CENTER
Electronic Service Requested
Freedom Foundation PO Box 552 Olympia, WA 98507
May 30, 2019 Service Employees International Union Local 775, it seems, would do anything for a buck, including collecting dues from a former member. It’s now learned its limitations. On March 29, the Seattle-based union reached an out-of-court agreement with a Spokane home caregiver, Cindy Ochoa, following its admission that one of its canvassers had forged her signature on a membership card. Ochoa, with the help of a nonprofit legal group, the Freedom Foundation, had filed a lawsuit in federal court in October alleging the union had violated her First Amendment rights, unlawfully withheld part of her wages, and caused emotional distress. Local 775 agreed to pay $15,000 in damages to her and $13,000 to the foundation to cover legal fees, plus send her a written apology. SEIU Local 775 represents more than 45,000 long-term health care providers in
Washington State and Montana, many of them operating out of their homes on behalf of family members. One of them was a Spokane woman named Cindy Ochoa who had grown dissatisfied with her representation. A June 2014 U.S. Supreme Court decision, Harris v. Quinn, gave her the means of exit. The court ruled in that Illinois case that nonunion private-sector home care workers could not be forced to pay “fair share” dues to a public-sector union simply because some or all of their wages are derived from a state-run Medicaid program. Not long after that ruling, Ochoa left the union. Yet the union continued to deduct dues from her paycheck. She wondered how that could be. The reason, it turned out, was that in 2016 a union representative had visited her home and pressured her to rejoin. Though Ochoa refused, the canvasser had signed her name on a membership card and turned it into the union. And the union, with seemingly willful blindness, assumed the signature was legitimate. Meanwhile, the dues deductions from Ms. Ochoa’s paychecks resumed. She attempted to persuade the union to end the deductions via phone and mail, but to no avail. Then she contacted the Freedom Foundation in early 2018. The Freedom Foundation, which has handled numerous worker liberty cases over the See FORGERY Page 10
VOLUME 30 | ISSUE 7
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LIVING LIBERTY
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A PUBLI CAT I ON OF T HE FREED OM FOU NDATION
CONTENTS
Our mission is to advance individual liberty, free enterprise, and limited, accountable government.
PAGE 4
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THE CASE FOR FREEDOM
LEADERSHIP MEMO Publisher: Tom McCabe Editor: Jeff Rhodes
CONTACT Freedom Foundation PO Box 552, Olympia, WA 98507
(360) 956-3482 FreedomFoundation.com
“Quote” ~ of the month ~
By JEFF RHODES Freedom Foundation to Take on Five States in Lawsuit Over Trump Administration’s Crackdown on Unions’ Medicaid Dues Skim.
By TOM McCABE A Year After Janus, It’s Clear Our Tactics are Working and the Unions are Still Lying.
PAGE 5
By BILL McMORRIS Reprinted from the WASHINGTON FREE BEACON
Administration Halts Disability Dues Scheme.
What They Said & What They Meant
LITIGATING FREEDOM By REBEKAH MILLARD Suit Argues Unions Must Advise New Members of Their Opt-out Rights. By MAXFORD NELSEN Freedom Foundation Files Campaign Finance Complaint Against WSCCCE.
PAGES 6-7
making sense of the Janus
numbers With the Supreme Court’s historic right-to-work ruling a year old this month, the true number of government workers who’ve opted out remains tough to pin down. But one thing is indisputable: The unions were lying then, and they’re lying now.
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OREGON UPDATE
By JASON DUDASH Unions Fail in Attempt to Buy School Board.
“Today is just the latest event in a long line of frivolous lawsuits the corporate-backed, national anti-worker Freedom Foundation has filed. This fringe group consistently opposes values Oregonians hold and has never lifted a finger to support students, educators or improve conditions in Oregon classrooms.”
By AARON WITHE 2020 Dem Hopefuls Courting Labor, And That’s Not Good
PAGE 9
BEST OF THE BLOG
PAGE 10 FREEDOM IN ACTION
By SAMUEL COLEMAN California Residents Refuse to Pay for Union Over-Reach.
By TREY KOVACS
Reprinted from the Competitive Enterprise Institute
JOHN LARSON
President, Oregon Education Association June 12, 2012
Nothing in this publication should be construed as an attempt to aid or hinder the election of any elected official or candidate.
Federal Bill Would Boost Unions’ Coercive Powers.
Freedom Foundation’s Friends, Foes Weigh in On Our Actions.
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FREEDOM IN THE NEWS
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ACTION TIMELINE
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A PUBLI CATION OF THE FREED OM FOU NDATION
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A YEAR AFTER JANUS, IT’S CLEAR OUR TACTICS WORK AND
THE UNIONS ARE STILL LYING
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ne year ago last week, the U.S. Supreme Court issued a ruling in Janus v. AFSCME that combatants on both sides of the divide knew would be a difference-maker. All that’s changed in the subsequent months is that, despite all the caterwauling government employee union leaders did back then about how it would unleash Armageddon, their story changed almost before the ink on the Janus decision was dry and now they’d have you believe it changed nothing. As you’d expect, they were lying then and they’re lying now. Janus, just to refresh your memory, concerned an Illinois public employee who didn’t want to be a member of the American Federation of State, County and Municipal Employees — the union designated by the state to represent him in contract negotiations. Nor did he wish to opt out in name only, while still paying AFSCME a so-called “agency fee” to advocate for things he didn’t support. All Mark Janus wanted was to be left alone. And keep his job, of course. But government employee unions can’t be satisfied — and arguably couldn’t exist at all — relying solely on the financial support of workers who actually value the services they provide enough to pay for them. Unions demand total compliance, and for decades they got it. The first crack in the wall erected between public-sector unions and freedom for the workers they claim to represent appeared in 2014, when the Supreme Court ruled in Harris v. Quinn that home care aides and daycare providers paid by Medicaid were not full-fledged public employees and could not be compelled to pay union dues or agency fees. While the ruling affected only a relatively small number of workers, it set the stage for a more comprehensive case two years later, Friedrichs v. California Teachers Association, that aimed to affirm right-to-work protections for the entire public workforce. Sadly, Friedrichs ended in a 4-4 deadlock when Justice Antonin Scalia died just weeks after hearing oral arguments. Union moguls hoping his seat would be filled by a nominee handpicked by Hillary Clinton, however, were bitterly disappointed when Donald Trump choice Neil Gorsuch in June 2018 voted with the Janus majority that compulsory dues and/or fees violate a worker’s First Amendment rights. Union fearmongers lied before the ruling was issued about the intent of the ruling and the motives of those who supported it. Simply put, Janus was never about putting unions out of business.
It was merely a way to make them more accountable and transparent by giving workBy TOM McCABE, CEO ers the same choice all consumers have about whether to buy a product. If a union can win the workers’ trust and persuade them to give their support voluntarily, it has nothing to fear. If not, no one but the union is to blame for its own fate. Nothing in Janus prevents workers from joining or remaining in a union if they so desire. It merely ensures the choice will be made by the worker, not by the union or the allies in elected office it corrupted with someone else’s money. Predictably, the lying has continued in the aftermath of Janus as union spinmeisters attempt to downplay the impact the ruling has had on their membership numbers. Nationwide, it’s difficult to quantify because there is no one definitive source that keeps track of union comings and goings, let alone a worker’s reason for doing so. We do know two things, though. First, whatever government employees are doing, it isn’t yet completely their choice. During the four years in between Harris and Janus, union leaders saw the handwriting on the wall and responded by taking numerous actions, including tightening up their membership rules, ordering their allies in state legislatures to preemptively pass anti-Janus laws and filing a blizzard of pettifogging lawsuits designed to prevent workers from even hearing about, let alone exercising, their newly affirmed rights. Secondly, we know conclusively that while the number of union members paying dues nationwide has dropped by a relatively modest 2 to 6 percent since Janus, we’ve seen declines of 20 to 30 percent on the West Coast — in states where the Freedom Foundation operates. Look at it this way: Janus pried the lid off a great big jar of marbles. Unfortunately, the jar wasn’t upside down when that happened, so the marbles can’t fall out all by themselves. They clearly want to. They just need a little help. And no one in the country is doing more to scatter those marbles all over the unions’ floor than the Freedom Foundation.
LEADERSHIP
MEMO
LIVING LIBERTY
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Janus pried the lid off a great big jar of marbles. Unfortunately, the jar wasn’t upside down when that happened, so the marbles can’t fall out all by themselves.
”
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THE CASE FOR FREEDOM FREEDOM FOUNDATION TAKING ON 5 STATES
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Ggroup of 10 West Coast home caregivers — five from California, three from Oregon and two from Washington — today took legal action to end the deduction of union dues and political contributions from their Medicaid payments. With joint legal representation from the Freedom Foundation and National Right to Work Legal Defense Foundation, the caregivers filed a motion to intervene in federal litigation brought by a coalition of states — including California, Oregon, Washington, Connecticut and Massachusetts — against the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) in the Northern District of California. “The determination of these caregivers is truly inspiring,” said Maxford Nelsen, the Freedom Foundation’s director of labor policy. “It takes a lot of guts,” he said, “to stand up to the repeated attempts of thuggish unions like SEIU and AFSCME and their political cronies to bully and exploit those selflessly caring for the most vulnerable among us. Yet caregivers continue to courageously fight back.” The underlying lawsuit was filed by the California-led coalition after HHS in May formally repealed an illegal regulation that allowed states to divert money to unions from Medicaid payments to home caregivers serving elderly and disabled clients. It marked the 50th lawsuit California’s Attorney General, Xavier Becerra, has filed against the Trump administration. Since 1972, federal law has required that Medicaid payments be made only to the indi-
By JEFF RHODES Managing Editor
vidual providing the service contracted for. Beginning in the 1990s, however, some states began allowing home caregivers to be unionized and subsequently began deducting union dues and political contributions from their Medicaid payments. In 2017, at least eight states deducted $147 million in union dues from the Medicaid payments of of nearly 360,000 caregivers. Between 2000 and 2017, about $1.4 billion was diverted to unions in this manner. When the U.S. Supreme Court in 2014 struck down states’ mandatory union dues requirements for home caregivers in its Harris v. Quinn ruling, states and unions adopted additional coercive schemes to continue withholding funds from caregivers’ Medicaid reimbursements against their will. For example, each of the caregivers filing to intervene currently has union dues and/ or political contributions skimmed from their Medicaid payments against their will while their requests to cancel the deductions have been rejected by their union. Many of the caregivers only authorized the deductions in the first place after being misled or pressured by union organizers at state-mandated, captive-audience meetings. If the court grants their motion to intervene in the new case, the caregivers will contend the 2014 administrative regulation adopted by
HHS was illegal to begin with because it contradicted a clear federal statute prohibiting the “reassignment” of Medicaid provider payments to third-parties like unions that provide no services to Medicaid clients. They will further seek to defend HHS’s decision to rescind the regulation. On the other side, two unions — SEIU Local 503 in Oregon and United Domestic Workers/AFSCME Local 3930 in California — and nine caregivers (mostly current or former union officers) from various states have moved to intervene on behalf of the state coalition and seek to preserve states’ ability to divert funds from providers’ Medicaid payments to unions. If states and unions are forced to stop skimming funds from caregivers’ Medicaid payments via payroll deduction, nothing will prevent caregivers from choosing to pay union dues via credit/debit card, check or electronic funds transfer, just as most Americans pay most bills and memberships. “It’s heartening to see federal regulators finally taking action to put a stop to the coercive and illegal practices enabled by payroll deduction of union dues from Medicaid payments,” said Nelsen. “Assuming federal courts find the law means what it says and HHS takes meaningful action to enforce it,” he added, “caregivers will soon have more control over their money and taxpayers can have greater confidence that Medicaid dollars are serving the intended beneficiaries and not subsidizing special interest groups.”
ADMINISTRATION HALTS DISABILITY DUES SCHEME By BILL MCMORRIS Reprinted from the WASHINGTON FREE BEACON MAY 6, 2019
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abor organizations will no longer be allowed to skim dues money from the checks of Medicaid patients under new rules adopted by the Trump administration. The Department of Health and Human Services’s Center for Medicare and Medicaid Services adopted a new regulation that will prohibit states from siphoning money from caregiver reimbursements to third parties. The rule takes direct aim at state policies enacted to enrich union coffers. “State Medicaid programs are responsible for ensuring that taxpayer dollars are dedicated to providing healthcare services for low-income, vulnerable Americans and are not diverted in ways that do not comply with federal law,” CMS Administrator Seema Verma said in a release. “This final rule is intended to ensure that providers receive their complete payment.” Several states have used forced dues schemes in the past to automatically deduct union fees from the reimbursement checks intended to pay for the care of disabled citizens. In many cases that money has gone to family members who serve as full-time caregivers to their severely disabled relatives. The new rule will prevent states from enforcing those policies in the future. “This final rule removes the regulatory text that allows a state to make Medicaid payments to third parties on behalf of an individual provider for benefits such as health insurance, skills training, and other benefits customary for employees,” the regulation says.
The issue gained national prominence when the Supreme Court struck down a coercive dues scheme adopted by imprisoned former Gov. Rod Blagojevich in Illinois. The court ruled in Harris v. Quinn that the state policy was unconstitutional because it treated home health aides as government employees for the purpose of paying labor giants Service Employees International Union and American Federation of State, County, and Municipal Employees, but otherwise received no other benefits or services from state government. The 5-4 ruling, however, only struck down the scheme in Illinois, leaving other states free to continue similar policies. Labor organizations collected more than $50 million from home health aides over a five-year period following Blagojevich’s policy. CMS found that tens of millions of dollars continued to flow from disabled clients to unions despite the Harris ruling, thanks in part to an Obama administration rule that allowed state governments to direct payments to third parties. Of the 7,000 public comments filed to the agency in the wake of the proposal, one estimated that more than $1.4 billion has been redirected since 2000. “We estimated that unions may currently collect as much as $71 million from such assignments,” the regulation says. “We estimated that the amount of payments made to third parties on behalf of individual providers for the variety of benefits within the scope of this rulemaking could potentially be in excess of $100 million.”
The new rule would still allow caregivers to voluntarily pay labor organizations if they choose to be represented. The key difference is that those payments will come from the caregiver directly, rather than an automatic withholding by state government. The Freedom Foundation has successfully challenged forced union dues schemes at the local level. The pro-free market think tank based out of Washington state said the rule will ensure that taxpayer dollars end up in the pockets of the disabled and their caregivers, rather than politically powerful interest groups. “Repealing this illegal regulation is a major victory for caregivers and those who care about protecting Medicaid from being looted by special interests,” Maxford Nelsen, the foundation’s director of labor policy, said in a statement. Trey Kovacs, a labor expert at the Competitive Enterprise Institute, said such schemes were only made possible by backroom deals negotiated by unions and their political allies and “stealth organizing campaigns.” In no case did unions win exclusive representation rights with the support of more than half of caregivers. When federal courts began putting an end to state schemes, many caregivers encountered obstacles and red tape when they tried to cut off dues payments, according to Kovacs. “Labor unions made it difficult for homecare providers to cancel the state’s deduction of dues from their pay,” he said. “This final rule finally ends dues skimming, ensuring Medicaid funds reach their statutorily required destination—to fund care for the elderly and disabled.” The new HHS rule is scheduled to take effect after 60 days.
LIVING LIBERTY
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A PUBLI CATION OF THE FREED OM FOU NDATION
LITIGATING FREEDOM SUIT ARGUES UNION MUST ADVISE NEW MEMBERS OF THEIR RIGHTS June 11, 2019
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he Oregon Education Association (OEA) is the subject of a new lawsuit challenging whether teachers seeking to opt out of their union must be accommodated immediately or whether they can be delayed by arbitrary provisions inserted into membership contracts that may be invalid in the first place. The suit, filed during June in Federal District Court in Medford, also names Portland Public Schools and Eagle Point District 9 as defendants and alleges three educators represented by the statewide teachers’ union sought to leave it in the wake of last year’s U.S. Supreme Court ruling in Janus v. AFSCME that eliminated mandatory dues and/or agency fees for public employees. The union, however, denied their request, arguing the “individual contact sheet” signed by the plaintiffs makes membership irrevocable until September of each year.
By REBEKAH MILLARD, Litigation Counsel
Attorneys for the Freedom Foundation, a nonprofit free-market policy organization that filed the lawsuit on behalf of the teachers, argue the membership agreements are invalid because they violate provisions of the Janus ruling. Specifically, Janus makes clear that workers have a Constitutional right to decline union participation and still keep their jobs. Choosing to join the union and pay dues in the wake of the Janus ruling may be a waiver of the right not to. But unions can’t simply assume the worker knows this. For a membership agreement to be legal, the union must prove he or she affirmatively and knowingly agreed to waive their First Amendment rights.” This case is similar to
several other cases handled by the Freedom Foundation in Oregon, Washington and California challenging “revocation windows” contained in the fine print of union membership cards, but OEA’s practices are unique in that they force employees to remain members until September of each year. Labor unions cannot unilaterally wipe out public employees’ Constitutional rights during the other 11 months of the year. This case has enormous implications for public-sector unions because there are literally millions of government employees across the country being told they cannot opt out immediately because their membership contracts are still in force. A decision in favor of the Oregon plaintiffs has the potential to devastate the unions virtually overnight by freeing every public employee from union dues except the relatively few who have signed, or will sign, legally valid waivers.
FREEDOM FOUNDATION FILES CAMPAIGN FINANCE COMPLAINT AGAINST WSCCCE May 21, 2019
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uring May, the Freedom Foundation filed a complaint against the Washington State Council of County and City Employees/AFSCME Council 2 (WSCCCE) with the Washington Public Disclosure Commission (PDC) alleging the union failed to report tens of thousands of dollars in contributions to its political committee and consistently reported other contributions and expenditures late. WSCCCE represents thousands of municipal government employees in Washington. State records indicate the union’s political committee is funded almost entirely with general dues collected from its members. In 2018 alone, the committee reported receiving $90,750 in cash contributions from WSCCCE itself. It received only $200 from other sources. However, as documented in the complaint, WSCCCE has consistently failed to disclose the value of administrative services it provides to the political committee. There are two ways for services provided to a political committee to be reported. If a person or entity provides services to the political committee at no cost or below fair market value, the political committee must report receiving in-kind contributions from the person or entity. If the services are purchased by the political committee at their fair market value, the political committee should disclose purchasing the services as an expenditure and list the vendor. In this case, the committee received substantial administrative services from WSCCCE. The committee is managed by union staff from union premises. However, the committee did not report receiving the union’s services as in-kind contributions, nor did it report reimbursing WSCCCE for the fair market value of the services provided.
By MAXFORD NELSEN, Labor Policy Director
Using federal tax records, the complaint estimates that just the time spent by union president Chris Dugovich administering the political committee was probably worth about $36,000 from 2014-18. To make matters worse, the complaint uncovered that, over the course of the five-year statute of limitations, WSCCCE’s political committee reported receiving at least 35 cash contributions totaling at least $379,566 after the disclosure deadlines established by law, totaling at least 893 late days. Over the same period, the fund filed at least 16 forms regarding its expenditures after legal deadlines, totaling 79 late days and reflecting $163,167.52 in expenditures. The complaint is the latest in a series of Freedom Foundation investigations that have discovered government unions violating state election laws. While, in prior years, state law has permitted the Freedom Foundation to bring enforcement litigation against the offending unions directly if state authorities do not act, changes in state campaign finance laws made by Washington’s legislature in 2018 and 2019 have largely centralized enforcement authority in the PDC, an administrative agency whose commissioners are appointed by the governor. Hopefully the PDC treats the violations committed by WSCCCE as seriously as it should. Under current state law, the PDC has 90 days from the submission of the complaint to determine how to proceed. The complaint has been assigned Case No. 51086.
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What They
&
What They What she said: “There is nothing free about the Freedom Foundation. They are all about holding the worker down and breaking unions. A reason why unions are important.” KAREN-ANN
What she meant: WILLIAMS-OLSON Everett, Wash. “Unions, on the Retired School other hand, are District Employee renowned for Facebook post, their commitMay 31, 2019 ment to freedom — just so long as workers express it by handing over a portion of every paycheck to line union leaders’ pockets and bankroll their radical leftist political agenda. But let them decide to do what’s in the best interests of themselves and their family instead and we’ll crush them. That’s what freedom means to us.” n n n
He said: “The so-called ‘Freedom Foundation’ actually desires the freedom to pick your pocket for the benefit of the organization’s wealthy donors. Join a union.” He meant: “And let the union leaders pick your pocket to benefit themselves and the corrupt politicians they pay with your money to advance a political agenda half their members don’t support. Join the Freedom Foundation.”
MARK PARRENT Former US attorney Seattle, Wash. Facebook post, May 27, 2019
n n n
She said: “Freedom Foundation. The name is certainly misleading. Sounds like their agenda is to take away our freedoms.” She meant: “For example, our freedom to take away CANDACE REDMAN Beaverton, Ore. people’s jobs Facebook post if they don’t April 19, 2019 agree to have their paychecks garnished to support Lefist political candidates and causes whether they agree with them or not.”
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making sense of the Janus
numbers With the Supreme Court’s landmark right-to-work ruling a year old this month, the true number of government workers who’ve oped out remains tough to pin down. But one thing is indisputable: The unions were lying about it then, and they’re still lying now. By JEFF RHODES,
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ne year ago this month, the U.S. Supreme Court issued a ruling in Janus v. AFSCME that should have allowed Melissa Belgau to sever ties with the Washington Federation of State Employees (WFSE) and still keep her job as an emergency medical services administrator in the Washington State Department of Health. But she discovered that, in the bareknuckle world of government employee unions, having the law on your side is one thing; forcing your tormenters to comply with it is another matter entirely. Belgau has long been at odds with WFSE over how it spent the hundreds of dollars in dues money the state deducted from her paycheck every year on the union’s behalf. Like many political conservatives working in the public sector, she didn’t support WFSE’s far-Left agenda, but for many years her only choices were to: n stop paying dues — which would almost certainly result in her firing; n opt out of full membership, but still pay a so-called “agency fee” — determined by the union — that ostensibly only paid for WFSE’s collective bargaining costs but not its political activities; or, n shut up and just go along. Janus, however, gave her a fourth option. On June 27, 2018, the court ruled that mandatory union dues and agency fees are a violation of a public employee’s First Amendment rights of free speech and association. Further, the majority opinion also adopted a provision suggested in an amicus brief written by the Olympia-based Freedom Foundation that prohibits the deduction of dues until the union obtains the worker’s affirmative consent and informs him or her that paying dues constitutes a waiver of their rights. Belgau informed WFSE the day after the Janus ruling was issued she wished to leave, but the union denied her request, citing a current membership card and its own newly self-imposed rule limiting opt-outs to only a few days each year. Belgau then turned to the Freedom Foundation for legal assistance and, on Aug. 23, 2018, she and six other Washington state employees filed a lawsuit against AFSCME Council 28, Gov. Jay Inslee and the heads of the state agencies for whom the employees work demanding the union(s) recognize their rights under Janus to opt out and refund all illegally confiscated dues with interest. The lawsuit notes that even a membership agreement already in force when the Janus ruling was issued, or executed since, is invalid unless the union can show proof the worker affir-
“THIS WILL DESTROY PUBLIC-SECTOR LABOR UNIONS!”
Managing Editor
“THIS IS JUDICIAL ACTIVISM AT ITS WORST!” matively and knowingly waived their rights. The case is currently before the 9th Circuit Court of Appeals and may yet find its way to the U.S. Supreme Court, where a new majority will doubtless take a dim view of WFSE disregarding its handwork. When that happens, the case has the potential to finally do what the justices intended in Janus — limit union participation to only those who don’t require coercion to join. In the meantime, the Freedom Foundation has already helped more than 50,000 government employees in Washington, Oregon and California opt out of union dues and fees, and there are almost certainly many more eager to follow their lead once the union-erected wall of obstruction and obfuscation has been toppled once and for all. Belgau is one of 55 union-related cases currently being litigated by the Freedom Foundation — a number that puts the lie to union claims that Janus had little impact on their membership numbers and that workers are joining up and paying dues in record numbers. If that were true, why are the unions paying millions of dollars a year to suppress the truth and bully members who might consider straying from the fold? At the end of the day, however, Janus wasn’t about workers opting out. It was about freedom. In that light, it was a decision worth reaching no matter what the final numbers look like.
“THIS MUST B UNCONSTITUIO
LIVING LIBERTY
A PUBLI CATION OF THE FREED OM FOU NDATION
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AFTER JANUS:
BEFORE JANUS:
“THIS DOESN’T CHANGE ANYTHING !”
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BE ONAL!”
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“OUR MEMBERS LOVE US MORE THAN EVER !” Treating workers Dishonest-Lee since 1932
“WE WERE LYING THEN, BUT YOU CAN BELIEVE US NOW !”
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UNIONS FAIL IN ATTEMPT TO BUY SCHOOL BOARD
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or too long, unions have been putting their noses — and, more pointedly, dues money confiscated from unwilling workers — into political races in hopes of buying government influence. In spectacular fashion, their latest attempt to purchase three seats on the Salem-Keizer School Board was a miserable and expensive failure. In the three contested races for Oregon’s second-largest school board, unions pooled together a combined $64,500 to funnel into the progressive candidates’ campaigns. Raul Marquez, a recent high school graduate and legislative intern for state Rep. Diego Hernandez, was gifted about $4,500 directly from
By JASON DUDASH, Oregon Outreach Coordinator
unions, which amounted to about 17 percent of his total contributions. Marquez was defeated by incumbent Marty Heyen, who raised and spent less than half what Marquez did. Likewise, David Salinas, a union electrician, was handed over $17,000 from his union compatriots, accounting for almost half of his total campaign contributions. In the battle for the only open seat, Salinas was defeated by Satya Chandragiri, a renowned psychiatrist.
Oregon Update
Highlighting the successes being achieved by the Freedom Foundation’s office in the Beaver State.
Most satisfying, however, was the defeat of the longest-serving board member, Chuck Lee, who has been on the board since 2007 and has made several union pals throughout his service. So much so that they dumped over $42,000 into his reelection campaign, accounting for more than 67 percent of his total campaign contributions and making his the most expensive campaign of them all, raising and spending over $62,000. Still, Lee was swiftly defeated by Keizer Chamber of Commerce Executive Director Danielle Bethell, who raised and spent just $20,000. Over the past decade, there has been a nationwide shift considering the importance of these nonpartisan seats from school boards all the way down to seats on fire and water boards. Liberals have begun using these positions as grooming grounds for their next generation of regressive politicians. In some cases, these nonpartisan and non-salaried seats have cost more than state House or Senate races, and with essentially unlimited funds at their disposal, unions and the Left generally have no trouble at all purchasing them. After a year of the Freedom Foundation attacking the bottom line of the state’s largest unions — SEIU, AFSCME, and the OEA — it seems they decided to largely sit these races out, leaving it to the smaller and mostly private unions to take the reins. Despite radically outspending their conservative counterparts, unions once again come up short in a post-Janus Oregon.
2020 DEMS COURTING LABOR, AND THAT’S NOT GOOD Reprinted from FOX NEWS
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s we draw closer to Election Day, 2020 candidates on the left are continually jostling to outflank each other to win endorsements. Chief among these has been the fight for the almighty support from the nation’s labor unions. From Sen. Kamala Harris, D-Calif., promising teachers a pay raise to Sen. Elizabeth Warren, D-Mass., releasing a budget-busting climate plan that goes out of its way to secure union power, candidates are doing anything they can to appease the unions. No wonder Warren received a “make America union again” hat from a union boss last month. But this all begs the question, what will unions do if they do get back in power? Well, a look at their policy proposals and a new bill that is about to become law in Oregon answers that question, and it isn’t pretty. Big tax increases, stifling regulations on businesses and individuals, cap-and-trade legislation, and freeing violent criminals are all part of the labor-backed agenda to continue the state’s descent into socialism while enhancing the influence of public-employee unions over government at every level. However, since the U.S. Supreme Court issued its landmark right-towork ruling almost 12 months ago in Janus v. AFSCME, advocates of freedom have implemented a full-scale outreach strategy to inform all public employees about their rights to leave their unions. The success of the effort has been well documented on the West Coast, with the state of Oregon reporting
By AARON WITHE, Oregon Director
that 26 percent of state employees are no longer paying dues to the Service Employees International Union (SEIU). Elsewhere in the Pacific Northwest, Washington is reporting 24 percent of its state employees have left the Washington Federation of State Employees (WFSE). All in all, more than 50,000 public employees have left their unions in Oregon, Washington and California since Janus — more than any other region in the U.S. is reporting. These rapid declines for government unions on the Left Coast have left them with some large holes in their budgets. Consequently, they’re ordering their brought-and-paid-for henchmen in elected office to pass their losses on to the taxpayers. Exhibit A is Oregon House Bill 2016, better known as the Union Wish List. The bill was approved by the Senate on June 6 and sent to Gov. Kate Brown for her signature. And since she’s in hock to the unions right up to her eyeballs, too, there’s little question how she’ll respond. HB-2016 has several objectives: n exempting unions from liability when they collect dues illegally from employees who have either not consented to them or demanded they cease; n allowing taxpayer dollars to be used to fund union activities;
n allowing unions to authorize dues deductions over the phone while requiring hand-delivered hard copy documents when they request to opt out; n requiring government agencies to turn over all member contact information to the unions with no limits to them sharing that information with their PACs or any other liberal group. At the same time, it would prevent the state from disclosing that information to anyone else; allowing unions exclusive time with all new hires during which employees can be pressured to authorize dues deductions and allowing the union to determine what is reasonable conduct in those, and all, union meetings. All of these are brazen attempts to circumvent the Janus decision and continue the reign of government unions over politicians. And Salem’s uber-liberal lawmakers will, of course, do their bidding, because their campaign cash depends on it. Oregon has become an incubator for bad liberal ideas, meaning you can expect to see versions of this bill coming to a state near you — wherever unions are fighting to remain relevant and losing. It’s high time for unions to emulate other private-sector benefit providers who compete in the free market by offering customers a service worth paying for, rather than buying a monopoly with someone else’s money. And it’s long past time to remind lawmakers they were elected to serve the people, not the union special interests that bankroll their campaigns.
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BEST OF THE BLOG Reader Comments: From the online discussion on the Fox News webpage at the conclusion of Oregon Director Aaron Withe’s June 10 guest opinion, “2020 Dems are courting unions and it doesn’t bode well for regular Americans”: n
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Unions are the antithesis of capitalism. Work hard or hardly work, get the same pay. Be a dedicated employee or a high absentee slacker, get the same pay. Take initiative or sit and hope you’re not told to go do some work, get the same pay.
CALIFORNIA RESIDENTS REFUSE TO PAY FOR UNION OVER-REACH JUNE 5, 2019
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easure EE, a parcel tax proposal dreamed up by the United Teachers of Los Angeles (UTLA) and Los Angeles Unified School District (LAUSD), was defeated at the ballot box earlier this week. The proposal would have levied a 16-cent tax on every square foot of developed property in Los Angeles and was counted on to generate more than $500 million per year in tax revenue. Measure EE required two-thirds majority vote to become law and fell massively short of reaching that goal. With 304,321 votes cast, 54.32 percent of the California electorate voted against the measure. Only 45.68 percent were in support of the tax increase. The measure was a response to the impending UTLA contract, which was widely believed to be unsustainable and unfunded. The UTLA contract was, in fact, a lavish give-away to unions, fully endorsed by LAUSD. The agreement includes a 6 percent salary increase, a promise to lower class sizes, increased support staff hirings, caps on charter school growth, reduced working hours and a promise from district and county officials to support measures that would increase funding for education. The contract came with an $840 million price tag, which district residents knew they couldn’t afford. LAUSD has been on the brink of financial collapse for the past three years, and the tax was supposed to be its life raft. Unfortunately for the district and its union cronies, the public has rejected in no uncertain terms its attempts to siphon more wasteful dollars from their paychecks. School board members are under no delusion of the coming financial collapse, either. Board member Kelly Gonez, originally quoted in the Los Angeles Times, said, “There’s a disconnect between the rosy, short-term picture and what we know is coming.” Board member Nick Melvoin, also quoted in the Times, minced few words. “We’re in a death spiral,” he said. Asked by the Times if UTLA believed it
By SAMUEL COLEMAN, California Outreach Coordinator
was imperative to demand sacrifices from its members to avoid a fiscal nightmare, Alex Caputo-Pearl, the current president of UTLA, said that he wouldn’t consider the question because he expected the state will give the district more money at some point in the future. “If we take it off the table,” he said, “ we’re acknowledging that the public district system is going to go off a fiscal cliff, which I’m not willing to acknowledge.” This problem, and many like it, could have been avoided if school districts focused on transparent collective bargaining instead of the antiquated model of locking the public out of the process. Seeing this trainwreck coming more than six months ago, the Freedom Foundation published an op-ed piece in the Los Angeles Times warning of the destructive practice of failing to fully inform the public about what unions’ and school districts truly bargain for. Unfortunately for LAUSD and the public at large, secretive collective bargaining processes continue to bankrupt school districts, misinform the public of the true cost of collective bargaining agreements and lead to greater tax increases as school districts scramble to close spending gaps. While UTLA may not be willing to acknowledge that the district is in trouble, the State of California has actively investigated a takeover of the Los Angeles education system. Showing up unannounced at several board meetings over the last year, county and district officials have made it clear that LAUSD is not making smart choices with the public’s dollar. If LAUSD continues at this pace, conservative estimates say the district will be out of money by 2021. If UTLA has its way, residents of Los Angeles may be looking at insolvency much sooner.
Unions do not believe in free markets for labor or anything else. AKITASRULE n
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There should be no public-sector unions. When you work for the government and you have unions lobbying there is a definite conflict of interest. Public-sector unions are another ballgame. And let’s face it, most of them are corrupt as the day is long. KOBY1000 n
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Unions want it to be harder for public employees to know their rights — i.e. that membership is optional — and also tighten the restrictions on opting out, making it nearly impossible to cancel dues payments. And they’re supposed to be helping workers? This sounds more like a trap to me. VIVALDI95
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Judging by their membership losses it sounds like they need to trap employees in order to secure their revenue. Must not be offering very good services if you have to force people to buy into it. BKULTRA
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Been a union member for decades and I never vote for anyone they support. All they do is line their own pockets. JSANDS
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A P U BL IC AT I ON OF T HE FREEDOM FOUNDAT I ON
FREEDOM IN ACTION FEDERAL BILL WOULD BOOST UNIONS’ COERCIVE POWERS By TREY KOVACS Reprinted from the COMPETITIVE ENTERPRISE INSTITUTE April 30, 2019
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emocrats in Congress are pushing the Protecting the Right to Organize (PRO) Act HR-2474, which seeks to strip workers of long-held protections and bolster the coercive power of labor unions. On May 8, the House Subcommittee on Health, Education, Labor, and Pensions held a hearing to discuss this union wishlist bill. A key talking point from Democrats on why this bill is necessary is that the economic prosperity of Americans is linked to high union membership levels. As Rep. Frederica Wilson (D-FL) put it in her opening statement, “as union membership declined, the link between rising productivity and rising pay was eroded…. This shift has undermined the financial security of workers and their families and contributed to the severe income inequality we face today.” This is an inaccurate portrayal of economic conditions for workers. It is true labor unions have faced a decades-long decline in membership, but that has not resulted in workers moving down the economic ladder. Rather, household incomes are rising and workers are moving up. The American Enterprise Institute’s Mark Perry performed an analysis of U.S. Census Bureau data that found median household income is at its highest level ever and that “(the) typical U.S. household in 2017 had an annual income of $61,372, which is $12,464 more (in 2017 dollars) than the typical household in 1975 ($48,908).” Moreover, while the middle class is shrinking, it is because more Americans are getting rich and moving into the upper class, according to a Pew Research Center survey. Rep. Joe Courtney (D-CT) also viewed labor unions as key to fighting income inequality. He referenced the recent United Food and Commercial Workers strike against Stop & Shop, a grocery store chain primarily located in the Northeast. Courtney said the strike “paid off big time for them” and spoke about how unions can improve wages and benefits. Courtney’s claim is accurate as it pertains to current Stop & Shop employees. The contract that was agreed upon did preserve pay new hires.
This kind of contract is known as a two-tier wage system, and it highlights the downsides of unionization for some workers. In a blog post on the Stop & Shop strike, I wrote that a two-tier wage system “creates a permanent sub-class of union members and non-members who earn inferior wages and benefits. It denies future hires fair representation and cuts against the union principle of ‘equal pay for equal work.’” Worse, new hires have no say in the ratification of a contract that will provide them with worse pay and benefits than their colleagues who perform the exact same work. Democrats may tout unions as a way to fight against income inequality, but as seen from this contract unions may actually be widening the gap. Another point of contention at the hearing was employers’ ability to hold so-called mandatory captive audience meetings, which the PRO Act would make voluntary. A witness at the hearing, AFL-CIO President Richard Trumka, said all employers do at these hearings is intimidate workers and “bash unions.” When speaking on captive audience meetings, Trumka was particularly animated and upset with the purported conduct of employers. Trumka’s passionate opposition to such meetings only makes his hypocrisy worse. Labor unions frequently lobby state governments to pass laws that force workers to attend so-called union orientation meetings at which unions persuade workers to join. In practice, these union meetings are no different than employer mandatory captive audience meetings. Further, as I previously wrote: “Union orientation meetings have proved problematic in other states. In Washington state, public records obtained by the Freedom Foundation reveal that union organizers for the Service Employees International Union used tactics that were ‘aggressive,’ ‘rude’ and ‘coercive.’ The
workers who attended the orientation felt ‘pressured,’ ‘misled,’ ‘tricked,’ ‘coerced,’ ‘intimidated’ and ‘forced’ to sign up with the union.” Unions should be able to make their pitch to workers, but it should be the worker’s choice to hear the union out, not a job requirement. Democrats at the hearing failed to mention certain aspects of the PRO Act. For example, the bill would strip workers of the right to a secret-ballot in certain union elections. Under the PRO Act, the National Labor Relations Board (NLRB) is granted authority to set aside the results of an election (when a union has lost) if the employer cannot prove that allegations they interfered with the election are untrue or did not affect the outcome of the election. Instead of holding another secret-ballot election, the NLRB would certify the union as the employee representative if they could produce signed authorization cards from a majority of workers. This alternative to secret-ballot elections is known as “card-check,” where unions confront workers and use deception and intimidation to coerce employees to sign a card in favor of unionization. What makes this backdoor card-check provision so nefarious, aside from prohibiting workers to vote their conscience in private, is that more than 82 Democrats recently wrote a letter to U.S. Trade Representative Robert Lighthizer that demands secret-ballots in union elections in Mexico. It is unclear why secret-ballot elections are necessary for Mexican workers, but not for American workers. Other provisions of the PRO Act compound the problems associated with card-check organizing efforts. The bill requires employers to hand over workers private information—home address, cell phone number, and email address—to unions. Workers would not have the option to opt out of sharing their private information. And, unions are known to use workers’ private information to harass and intimidate them at their homes in order to coerce workers into signing authorization cards. Union intimidation tactics deployed during card-check organizing are so abhorrent that a former United Steelworkers union organizer quit when another union official asked him to “threaten migrant workers by telling them they would be reported to federal immigration officials if they refused to sign check-off cards.” Overall, the PRO Act is misguided legislation that weakens worker rights and strips workers of choice. The bill represents a blatant attempt by Democrats to increase dues-paying union members at the expense of worker freedom.
FORGERY: SEIU SETTLES, PAYS VICTIM AND FREEDOM FOUNDATION Continued from page 1 years, contacted SEIU Local 775 and insisted the collections cease. Union officials admitted the signature on the membership card was not that of Ochoa, and soon stopped the deductions. Yet less than a month later for unspecified reasons, the union resumed its dues deductions. In response, the Freedom Foundation
last October filed a suit in U.S. District Court seeking monetary compensation for lost wages and emotional duress. The union settled on March 29. So eager was the union to get this case out of its hair that it invoked an order of judgment, effectively conceding the loss of confidentiality in the settlement. This case may be an extreme example, but it underscores a common tendency on the part of public-sector unions to employ deception against reluctant workers.
That the Supreme Court ruled against public-sector union monopoly power in Harris v. Quinn in 2014, and then more comprehensively in Janus v. AFSCME last year, appears not to have fazed certain unions. Hopefully, this settlement will serve as a brake against organized labor’s zeal for revenues without regard for the law or the workers’ rights. In the end, the decision to pay union dues is up to the individual worker.
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FREEDOM IN THE NEWS ON LINE
May 29, 2019
UNIONS, STATES CONFRONT TRUMP HOMECARE WORKER RULE
May 23, 2019
UNION DUES DEVELOPMENTS
“Independent home care workers began to unionize and agitate for better wages in the 1990s. Today at least eight states have recognized independent home care worker unions and allow the unions to make dues and benefit deductions from workers’ Medicaid paychecks, according to the Freedom Foundation, an anti-union, free-market think tank with offices in Washington state, Oregon and California.” ONLINE
ON LINE
May 8, 2019
LABOR CMS finalizes rule to end skimming of in-home caregivers dues “In a report released last year, the Freedom Foundation estimated that $1.4 billion were diverted from home caregivers’ wages since 2000. It also shows that in 2017, unions in eight states skimmed over $150 million from caregivers.”
“Last week, Oregon AFSCME Local 75 inserted provisions substituting union loyalty over workplace seniority in its new collective bargaining agreement. It gives newly hired union members vacation preferences over long-time employees who are not union members. The Freedom Foundation sent a cease and desist letter, putting the Department of Corrections on notice and threatening to file suit if it accepts the agreement.” ON AIR
May 22, 2019
PRO-UNION BILL ADVANCES IN SALEM “But Aaron Withe, Oregon Director of the Freedom Foundation, says the bill is a clear conflict of interest because everything a union does is inherently political. He believes HB 2016 is, essentially, a union wish list. ‘It changes state law in a multitude of ways. Everything that it does exists to try and give unions continual power.’ ”
We’re in his head. A year ago this month, within hours of hearing the U.S. Supreme Court’s ruling in Janus v. AFSCME, AFSCME President Lee Saunders told his members: “They have chosen ... to facilitate a political attack on the labor movement and attempt to ‘defund and defang public-sector unions.’ Those are the exact words used by the CEO of a right-wing think tank.”
Guess which one.
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A P U BL IC AT I ON OF T HE FREEDOM FOUNDAT I ON
ACTION TIMELINE SPOTLIGHTING SOME OF THE FREEDOM FOUNDATION’S NOTEWORTHY ACCOMPLISHMENTS OF THE PAST MONTH
June 6
June 12
The Freedom Foundation files a lawsuit against the Washington State Public Disclosure Commission, accusing the agency of mishandling a campaign finance complaint against the Service Employees International Union’s Political Education and Action Fund (SEIU PEAF). The action stems from a complaint the Freedom Foundation filed in February 2019 documenting how SEIU PEAF — one of the two political committees operated by the national SEIU headquarters in Washington, D.C. — consistently violated the state’s Fair Campaign Practices Act throughout 2018.
The Freedom Foundation, working with the National Right to Work Legal Defense Foundation, scores a victory as SEIU 1199NW issues to a pair of nurses working for Kaiser Permanente in Western Washington a refund with interest of their illegally confiscated dues money and agrees not to treat other “members” with the same disrespect.
Identical twins James and Tyler Dunning have been interning this summer with the Freedom Foundation, helping out with research for the organization’s policy analysts.
June 19
Residents of Olympia, John and Tyler attend Patrick Henry College in Purcellville, Va.
The Freedom Foundation joins forces with the National Right to Work Legal Defense Foundation to intervene in a lawsuit filed by five states — including Washington, Oregon and California — to challenge the Trump administration’s recent decision to crack down on union dues-skimming from the paychecks of Medicaid caregivers.
Said Tyler, “The opportunity to join the ranks of those fighting for much-needed reform in Washington has been an enjoyable and growing experience. It’s a privilege to witness the passion the staff here at the Freedom Foundation have for protecting workers’ rights and bringing about change in our state.”
June 10 The Oregon Education Association (OEA) is the subject of a new Freedom Foundation lawsuit challenging whether teachers seeking to opt out of their union must be accommodated immediately or whether they can be delayed by arbitrary provisions inserted into membership contracts that may be invalid in the first place. The suit alleges three educators represented by the statewide teachers’ union sought unsuccessfully to leave it in the wake of last year’s U.S. Supreme Court ruling in Janus v. AFSCME that eliminated mandatory dues and/or agency fees for public employees.
June 27 The U.S. Supreme Court’s landmark Janus v. AFSCME ruling, which frees public employees from mandatory dues and fees, celebrates its one-year anniversary. The ruling includes language lifted almost word for word from an amicus brief submitted by the Freedom Foundation in support of the case.
“Throughout my time here,” James echoed, “I’ve thoroughly enjoyed working alongside the Freedom Foundation staff. So far, the internship has both broadened and deepened my understanding of Washington policy, as well as trained me in the practical skills of handling data and breaking down large projects into bite-sized pieces.”
Nationally syndicated radio host and Fox News commentator
Laura Ingraham will be the keynote speaker for the Freedom Foundation’s annual banquet
Sept. 21, 2019, at the Bellevue Hyatt Regency. For ticket information, call (360) 956-3482, or visit our website:
www.freedomfoundation.com