Seattle Times Editorializes Against HB-1888 .........
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Forgery Lawsuits Filed in Washington, Oregon ........
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Unions Spend $92,000 on a School Board Race .....
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MARCH 2020
LIVING LIBERTY A Publication of the Freedom Foundation
Freedom Foundation National Director Aaron Withe and Pennsylvania Outreach Director Joe Mandrusiak on the steps of the Pennsylvania State Capitol.
The Freedom Foundation brings proven union-fighting expertise to Pennsylvania
Electronic Service Requested
Freedom Foundation PO Box 552 Olympia, WA 98507
P
ausing only briefly for the holidays after opening a new office in Ohio during late October, the Freedom Foundation continued its eastward expansion by opening an office in neighboring Pennsylvania on Jan. 26. The Freedom Foundation was encouraged to locate there because of its proven formula for combatting out-of-control government employee unions. “Our full-scale campaign seeks to inform every single public employee of their right to opt out of union membership and cease paying union dues,” said Freedom Foundation National Director Aaron Withe during a news conference on the steps of the State Capitol Building in Harrisburg. “We’re excited to get to work helping Pennsylvanians keep more of their money in their own pockets,” he said. “It’s a cruel irony to see the mockery being made of liberty here in the step where the concept was practically invented,” added Joe Mandrusiak, the Freedom Foundation’s Pennsylvania outreach director. “If the Founding Fathers had intended for important policy decisions to be made by elected leaders whose allegiance had been bought by government employee unions
By JEFF RHODES Managing Editor
with dues money forcibly taken from someone else, you’d think the Constitution would have mentioned it.” In fact, he noted, allowing government at every level to be compromised by a powerful but illegitimately financed special interest is precisely what the framers didn’t want. That’s where the Freedom Foundation comes in. “It’s only been a year and a half since the (U.S.) Supreme Court ruled in Janus v. AFSCME that mandatory union membership and dues are unconstitutional for public-sector workers,” Withe said. “But the job now is to make the unions comply. “In states where the unions aren’t constantly challenged, the opt-out rate is much lower,” he said. “But in Washington, Oregon and California, where the Freedom Foundation is active, nearly 70,000 workers have escaped union oppression during that span. We want Ohio and Pennsylvania to be like those states.” Not surprisingly, news of the Freedom Foundation’s continued expansion set off alarm bells in the world of organized labor — and with good reason. Eric Rosso, executive director of the Pennsylvania Spotlight — an AFL-CIOfunded news website, immediately issued a press release warning, “The Freedom Foundation is a billionaire-funded front group trying and failing to destroy labor unions.” “Much like Pennsylvania’s Commonwealth Foundation,” he said, “they are simply not a credible organization to workers, and their efforts to get workers to drop their unions have largely failed in their other states. Pennsylvania will be no different.” Challenge accepted.
[2 ] Our mission is to advance individual liberty, free enterprise, and limited, accountable government.
Publisher: Tom McCabe Editor: Jeff Rhodes
CONTACT Freedom Foundation PO Box 552, Olympia, WA 98507
(360) 956-3482 FreedomFoundation.com
“Quote” ~ of the month ~
LIVING LIBERTY
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A PUBL ICAT ION OF THE FREEDOM FOUNDATION
CONTENTS PAGE 3 LEADERSHIP MEMO By TOM McCABE Forgery Lawsuits Prove Unions Engaged in a Pattern of Fraud.
PAGE 4
THE CASE FOR FREEDOM EDITORIAL Reprinted from the SEATTLE TIMES Legislature must resist fearmongering, secrecy.
PAGE 5
What They Said & What They Meant
LITIGATING FREEDOM By REBEKAH MILLARD Freedom Foundation briefs expose unions’ duplicity in claims of ‘voluntary’ membership.
PAGES 6 & 7
UNIONS
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OREGON UPDATE
Organized Labor Pays $92,000 to Flip a Centralia School Board Seat Just Because the Incumbent, Jami Lund, is a Freedom Foundation Staff Member.
PAGE 9
SPOTLIGHT ON CALIFORNIA
By JASON DUDASH Legislature Still Doing Unions’ Dirty Work.
“Right-to-work laws protect individual liberty by guaranteeing that no employee can be compelled to join or pay dues or fees to a union as a condition of employment. People are free to join a union ... and we trust the individual worker, rather than anybody else, to decide if a union deserves his or her financial support.” GEORGE ALLEN ,
Former Virginia Senator & Governor, Op-ed, Washington Times Feb. 3, 2020 On a bill proposed in the Virginia Legislature to ban right-to-work.
Nothing in this publication should be construed as an attempt to aid or hinder the election of any elected official or candidate.
By BEN STRAKA Big Labor Remains Transparency’s Main Obstacle.
By JEFF RHODES Devereux opts out — a choice too few WFSE members were ever given.
By SAM COLEMAN California Teachers Opt Out, Then Share Holiday Cheer with Their Liberators.. By MARIAH GONDEIRO Public Employee Unions Just Keep Right on Ignoring Janus Ruling Like Their Lives Depended On It.
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FREEDOM IN ACTION By TJ MARTINELL Reprinted from THE LENS Legal Battle Over PublicSector Union Membership Waged in Olympia.
Freedom Foundation’s Friends, Foes Weigh in On Our Actions.
By JASON RANTZ Reprinted from KTTH.com Lawsuit Argues UW Made It Difficult for Workers to Opt Out of Membership, Dues.
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FREEDOM IN THE NEWS
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ACTION TIMELINE
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A PUBL ICATION OF THE FREEDOM FOUNDATION
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LEADERSHIP
Forgery lawsuits prove unions engaged in a pattern of fraud hen government employee union leaders went from warning of Armageddon in the days leading up to the U.S. Supreme Court’s June 2018 ruling in Janus v. AFSCME to positively cocky before the ink was even dry, most chalked it up to bravado. After all, the landmark decision, which affirmed that forcing government employees to financially support a labor union against their will amounted a violation of their First Amendment rights, had the potential to cost public-sector unions millions of members and billions of dues dollars. But in retrospect, it could be they knew far better than the rest of us how extensive — even criminal — measures unions had already put in place to thwart its enforcement would be. The Freedom Foundation in January filed two lawsuits in Washington and a third in Oregon alleging public employee unions in both states not only denied workers their constitutionally protected right to opt out of union membership and dues but also, knowing the Janus decision was coming, simply forged their names on documents re-authorizing paycheck deductions indefinitely. And it wasn’t an isolated case. The Freedom Foundation already had two ongoing forgery cases — one in California and the other in Washington state. The Washington case settled in part for $28,000 this past year. But wait, there’s more. At least six more examples of union forgery have already been identified, and additional lawsuits will soon be filed. In the Oregon case, our plaintiff worked for the Oregon Health Authority for 10 years — all the while paying dues to Service Employees International Union (SEIU) 503. Last September he inquired about leaving the union. He was told the earliest he could leave was July 2020, based on the language of a membership card he had signed. This was highly suspicious, however, because he had made a point of never signing any union membership documents. He demanded to see a copy of the card and, when it arrived, his suspicions were confirmed. The card was riddled with factual errors and omissions, and his signature was clearly forged. When pressed on the matter, the union produced a copy of a second membership card that had also been forged. Prosser, Wash., resident Sigifredo Araujo had a similar experience. He had pointedly never joined his designated union, SEIU 775, in the seven years he has spent providing Medicaid-subsidized in-home health services to his disabled mother. However, in mid-2018 he noticed for the first time that union dues were being withdrawn from his salary. When he asked how this could be, Araujo was told he’d
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signed a union membership card. He asked to see the document but never reBy TOM McCABE, CEO ceived it. Over a year later he called again. This time the card was provided. However, when he inspected it, Araujo was shocked to discover his signature, too, had been forged. What’s more, he also found out he had been making contributions to SEIU’s political committee, the so-called Committee on Political Education. Another plaintiff, Sharrie Yates, has been employed as a medical assistant by Washington’s Healthcare Authority (HCA) since 2004 and previously paid dues to Washington Federation of State Employees (WFSE). In October 2018 — four months after the U.S. Supreme Court in Janus v. AFSCME affirmed the right of all public employees to decline union membership and dues — Yates requested to opt out of WFSE. Her request was denied when the union asserted she had signed an electronic renewal form on June 21, 2018 — literally just a few days prior to the Janus ruling being issued. Yates can prove she never submitOne case of forgery ted an electronic signature and the Freedom Foundation is now assist- is a crime. Two ing in getting back her money by asserting her First Amendment rights. cases could still be And the union leaders wonder a coincidence. But why workers don’t want anything to 10 or more start to do with them. In each lawsuit, the Freedom look like a pattern Foundation is seeking a refund with interest of all dues payments illegal- of indifference to the ly taken from the workers, plus dam- law orchestrated by ages and court costs. union leaders who One case of forgery is a crime. Two cases could still be a coincisimply can’t get used dence. But 10 or more start to look to the idea of workers like a pattern of indifference to the making up their own law orchestrated by union leaders who simply can’t get used to the idea minds and keeping of workers making up their own minds and keeping their own mon- their own money ey. Frankly, the forgery in each of these cases is so blatant that law enforcement should step in and file criminal charges against the union leaders and their operatives. But until they do, the Freedom Foundation will continue to litigate on behalf of workers being betrayed by those for whom pilfered dues dollars are more important than Constitutional rights.
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A P U B LICAT ION O F T HE FR EED OM FOUNDAT ION
THE CASE FOR FREEDOM
Legislature must resist fearmongering, secrecy
By EDITORIAL STAFF Reprinted from the SEATTLE TIMES FEB. 5, 2020
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he Seattle City Council is close to passing several ordinances, championed by Councilmember M. Lorena González, overhauling the city’s campaign-finance rules — but not for the better. Democrats in Washington’s Legislature surely were moved by their Congressional colleagues’ eloquent impeachment arguments. They should keep in mind the stirring words of U.S. Rep. Adam Schiff as they consider House Bill 1888, a misguided proposal that would bring secrecy to state government, making it harder to hold government employees accountable and protect the public from misbehavior. “The American people do not agree on much, but they will not forgive being deprived of the truth and certainly not because it took a back seat to expediency,” the California Democrat said during his concluding statement. Legislators should reject HB 1888 because Washingtonians also hold open government dear. They passed a citizen’s initiative in 1972 that says “the people insist on remaining informed so that they may maintain control
over the instruments that they have created.” When legislators tried to exempt themselves from that Public Records Act in 2018, tens of thousands of citizens rose up, successfully demanding Gov. Jay Inslee veto that effort. The act protects privacy. Material that “would be highly offensive to a reasonable person” or “is not of legitimate concern to the public” may not be released. That includes truly sensitive personal information. That was affirmed by the state Supreme Court in October, when it ruled that disclosing birth dates of public employees is in the public interest and does not constitute a privacy violation. Sadly, that didn’t end a destructive battle between public-employee unions and the conservative Freedom Foundation. The public seeking open government and news organizations are collateral damage. The foundation tries to contact union members and let them know they aren’t required to join or pay dues. Unions, worried about losing revenue and members, try to prevent members from being contacted by the foundation. After losing before the high court, unions
are pursuing a nuclear option, seeking to blow holes in the Public Records Act with HB 1888, making it harder to identify public employees. They’re fearmongering, exploiting concerns about identity theft. This is making members unnecessarily fearful and pushing them to advocate for HB 1888. Don’t forget — birth dates have been public records for years. They’ve been routinely disclosed on voter rolls and court records to identify individuals, with no complaints about privacy or concerns about misuse. Politicians themselves use these records when campaigning. News organizations rely on birth dates for accurate reporting, including stories about misbehavior. This newspaper used birth dates and public records to reveal misconduct by former Seattle Mayor Ed Murray, public-school coaches abusing students and state employees double-dipping on pensions. Legislators considering HB 1888 must weigh the public interest that such transparency and information provides, and the actual harm prevented by birth-date disclosure, with hypothetical and unproven threats alleged by the bill’s proponents. The vast majority of public employees do good things. But with 512,100 state and local government employees working for the people of Washington, there will inevitably be a few problems. To inform the public of these problems and hold government accountable, birth dates are necessary public records. Some lawmakers are considering a compromise on HB 1888 that would preserve access for news organizations but not the general public.
Devereux opts out — a choice too few of WFSE’s members were ever given
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reg Devereux, longtime director of the Washington Federation of State Employees, Council 28, in late February confirmed rumors that had been swirling for months about his impending retirement. According to a press release posted to the organization’s website, Devereux stepped down in January after nearly 40 years in the labor movement. “His leadership,” it boasted, “made (WFSE) one of the strongest AFSCME councils in the nation …” Note the use of past tense. It may be true WFSE was once a force to be reckoned with, but it’s also true the union of today is a shadow of its former self. And Greg Devereux — like his cohorts at several of the state’s other government employee unions — decided the time had finally come to start spending his Golden Years in the sort of lavish style befitting someone who’s spent 40 years bleeding the paychecks of working men and women whose interests he pretends to care about. Or maybe it was Devereux’s superiors in the other Washington who strongly suggested he take the rest of his career off. If so, there would certainly be recent precedent for it. Kim Cook, for example, was replaced by Karen Hart as executive director of SEIU 925 in 2016, and David Rolf turned over the reins of SEIU 775 in September 2018 at the tender age of 49. It could be just a coincidence, of course, but all three seem to have slithered away on the heels of major U.S. Supreme Court decisions making it impossible to continue taking dues deductions for granted as they had been for decades. In Cook’s case, her union represented homebased childcare providers who were freed — on paper, at least — in 2014, when the justices affirmed in Harris v. Quinn that they weren’t full-fledged public employees and, thus, could
not be compelled to join or support a union. Rolf’s union, too, was heavily impacted by Harris because SEIU 775 represents — among other workers — Medicaid-funded homecare providers, who were also classified under the ruling as “partial-public employees.” But what really got Rolf’s attention was the court’s June 2018 decision in Janus v. AFSCME, which did away with mandatory union membership and dues for all public employees. So much so that he either left or was pushed out the door barely two months later. To his credit, perhaps, Devereux managed to hang around for a year and a half after Janus. But it couldn’t have been a very pleasant wait for him, because in addition to anything else the three former labor oligarchs have in common, they also all had the misfortune of being situated in Washington state — under the watchful eye of the Freedom Foundation. In the wake of Harris, and later Janus, public employee unions adopted a policy of strict noncompliance. They didn’t inform their “members” of their opt-out rights, and when the workers tried to exercise them anyway, the unions did everything in their power to gum up the process. And in other states, they get away with it. But not in California, Oregon or, most especially, Washington. The Freedom Foundation was founded almost 35 years ago in Washington, and it’s still our headquarters — as well as Ground Zero for both our outreach and litigation efforts. In no state are the unions under more scrutiny than Washington. In no state are more public employees informed of their rights or provided with pro bono legal representation when unions drag their feet. And not surprisingly, in no other state are government workers opting out of their unions in greater numbers.
By JEFF RHODES, Managing Editor
By the time Cook left SEIU 925, for example, the union had lost more than 65 percent of its dues-paying members. No wonder she spends her time now traveling the country warning other unions about what to expect when the Freedom Foundation hits them, too, with a full-court press. As for Mr. Devereux, we estimate his union — WFSE — has lost nearly a third of its dues-paying members in just the year and a half since Janus, and the Freedom Foundation had a hand in virtually all of the defections. You think he wants to keep watching as the organization he’s guided since 1993 hemorrhages members and money? You think the people he works for want to let him? The news release announcing Greg Devereux’s retirement described him grandiosely as an “example of what a labor leader should be.” In the Freedom Foundation’s experience with the man, however, we would rephrase this to say an “example of what too many labor leaders have become.” Ruthless, vindictive and thoroughly compromised, Greg Devereux has been mouthing the same empty union talking points for so long he’s actually started believing them himself. The legacy Devereux leaves behind is more than his union — that vast, parasitic growth living on the life energy of the very people whose welfare he claims to represent. It’s also the countless budget-busting, freedom-consuming payback schemes passed into law by politicians in the back pocket of his union. And all of it financed with someone else’s money. Enjoy your retirement, Greg. Meanwhile, we’ll keep slogging along, doing battle with your successor to make things right for all those your actions have injured for so long.
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A PUBL ICAT ION OF THE FREEDOM FOUNDATION
LITIGATING FREEDOM
Briefs expose unions’ duplicity in claims of ‘voluntary’ membership
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overnment unions have always been fond of claiming their ‘members’ join voluntarily rather than as a condition of public employment. Legally speaking, that’s now true – thanks to the U.S. Supreme Court’s ruling in Janus v. AFSCME. Yet even now, union leaders resist any effort to test those claims and are all too eager to profit from keeping public employees in the dark and misinformed about their rights. Case in point, the Freedom Foundation is currently representing three Oregon teachers in a lawsuit against the Oregon Education Association (OEA) for return of union dues wrongfully taken from their pay after they opted out of union membership. Unsurprisingly, union leaders argue they’re entitled to keep taking money from non-member employees as long as they have a signed authorization on file – even if the employees didn’t know they could refuse to sign the authorization in the first place. What’s worse, the OEA never informed the employees of the restrictive terms placed into the fine print.For teachers and other school employees seeking to resign their union membership and stop having union dues taken from their salaries, the OEA’s answer is no. The fine print of the union’s membership agreement conveniently restricts the right to end dues payments until the month of September — and union leaders enforce every syllable to ensure they can keep squeezing as much money as possible from teachers’ hard-earned paychecks before inevitably accepting that yet another ‘member’ has left their ranks. In newly filed briefs supporting the union’s motion for summary judgment, the OEA’s attorneys strenuously resist any effort to present ev
By REBEKAH MILLARD, Litigation Counsel
idence of the teachers’ mistaken belief that they were required to sign union membership agreements. Furthermore, they claim that whether the teachers had any knowledge of their rights under Janus before they signed these membership authorizations is irrelevant. Instead, they insinuate that the OEA bears no responsibility for making sure employees know their rights and that teachers’ decisions regarding union membership are truly “voluntary.” It doesn’t take a lawyer to see that those two claims are mutually exclusive. Thankfully, the Freedom Foundation is gladly accepting the responsibility the OEA refuses to by ensuring that public employees truly do know their rights and by offering legal protection when those rights are violated. The OEA is far from the only government union in Oregon to demonstrate utter contempt for public employees’ rights and a willingness to profit from fostering ignorance and misinformation. Unfortunately, the Freedom Foundation receives regular reports of union representatives flat-out lying to employees, in some cases telling them that signing membership cards is a mandatory part of their employment, and in others forging signatures on so-called “authorizations.” When it comes to the constitutional rights of individual employees vs. government union leaders’ desire for — well, to be frank, money — their priorities are evidently clear. They will use any means necessary — including stretching the meaning of the English language — to keep taking it from hard-working public employees.
What They
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What They What he said: “The Freedom Foundation (is) very anti-labor. Nothing would please .... them more than to see all Washington employees live in poverty.” What he meant: DANIEL PRICE Teacher “There’s a big Kennewick difference between ‘labor’ and Facebook post, Jan. 4, 2020 ‘workers.’ Nothing would please organized labor more than to confiscate 100 percent of its members’ wages in the form of dues because they only care about money and power, not their members. The Freedom Foundation is very much opposed to that kind of representation. But it’s very much in favor of workers. And what better way to prove it than by fighting to let the workers themselves decide whether to be in a union?” n n n
She said: “The Freedom Foundation is in this for itself.”
UW employees just the latest to sue union, alleging it suppressed their opt-out rights
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he Freedom Foundation on Jan. 20 filed a class-action lawsuit on behalf of a class of University of Washington employees whose attempts to exercise their Constitutionally protected right to opt out of union membership and dues are being thwarted by the school and the union, Service Employees International Union (SEIU) 925. Charlene Wagner, lead plaintiff in the newest suit, is a fiscal specialist who has worked at UW since 1999. She signed a membership agreement with SEIU 925 when she was hired, having been told union membership was mandatory. Shortly before the U.S. Supreme Court issued its 2018 ruling in Janus v. AFSCME banning mandatory union membership and dues in the public sector, union representatives urged Wagner to sign a new membership and dues-authorization form. She questioned why, but was assured it was merely to bring “uniformity to the membership cards.” In fact, the new agreement contained several revised provisions, including one that limited optout requests to a narrow two-week window coinciding with the employee’s hire date – a provision the old membership card did not contain. In October 2018, however, Wagner learned of the Janus ruling from a mailer she received from the Freedom Foundation and immediately requested to opt out, only to be told SEIU 925 would continue to instruct the university to deduct dues from her paycheck until she sent in another opt-out request between April 29, 2019, until May 14, 2019. Wagner refused, knowing that acquiescing to the union’s demands would imply she accepted them, and she emphatically does not.
By JEFF RHODES, Managing Editor
In addition to the union, Wagner’s lawsuit also names UW as a defendant because the school, as her employer, continues to deduct dues from her paycheck based solely on the union’s word that the deductions are lawful, as the University is required to do under Washington law. “The whole point of Janus is to protect the First Amendment rights of public employees to not support a labor union,” said Freedom Foundation Senior Litigation Counsel James Abernathy. “State laws that try to limit those rights are unconstitutional regardless of whether they were passed before or after Janus.” In the case of Wagner, the Freedom Foundation is arguing the dues are being seized under an unconstitutional law that gives the union sole discretion over who the university — a state actor — is and isn’t authorized to deduct dues from. The Freedom Foundation further alleges a union cannot impose an irrevocability provision, containing a narrow opt-out window, on union nonmembers without a knowing First Amendment waiver. “The wording of the Janus ruling is unequivocal,” Abernathy said. “We shouldn’t have to keep relitigating the same issues, but SEIU 925 apparently believes it can disregard laws it doesn’t like. “Maybe that used to be true,” he said. “But it isn’t anymore, and the Freedom Foundation will keep taking them to court and winning until they get the message.”
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She meant: “The people who work there and fund the organization get to decide what to support rather than having us decide for them. ”
KATI THOMPSON Olympia Facebook post, Dec. 15, 2019
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She said: “This kind of attack by Freedom Foundation must stop. If you haven’t already done so, please consider sending a letter to your lawmakers asking them to protect us from people and groups like the Freedom Foundation.” She meant: “When your whole world view is built WENDY CONWAY on a lie, the Roy, Wash. introduction WSLC member of truth Facebook post seems like Dec. 6, 2019 an attack. And how else would a socialist respond to such an attack than by using the weapon of government to suppress the views of those who disagree with you?
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Jami Lund was recently the target of a vindictive campaign by the Washington Education Association and other government employee unions as they spent more than $92,000 to buy his seat on the Centralia School Board. Lund has targeted due to his concerns about the impact of WEA money influencing our children’s education and our political system. Lund is also senior policy analyst with the Freedom Foundation, where he helps lead the effort to inform government workers of their rights as the result of the U.S. Supreme Court’s 2018 ruling in Janus v. AFSCME..
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YY Your Centralia School Board re-election campaign was the target of an unprecedented attack from the Washington Education Association and other government employee unions. For a position where a few thousand dollars is enough to mount a strong campaign, the government unions collected over $90,000 in an independent expenditure against you. What are your thoughts about this episode now that you have had a couple of months to reflect?
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WI’ve been an advocate for sensible education policy for 15 years and a whistleblower about the WEA’s agenda for more than 20 years. Not much surprises me. The actions of the union in this case show its true priorities. Most of the time, union executives maintain a façade that their actions are motivated purely by concern for children. This case makes clear, though, that unions are angry power brokers with enough money and insulation from consequences to be petty on a grand scale. The main problem with the current monopoly approach to public education is that the incentives are all wrong. The “clients” must come to our schools or else we send the police. The taxpayers must pay for our schools or else we take their homes. The public school system, as a monopoly, has no incentive to consider the interests of families or taxpayers. The only interest that provides an incentive for change is the self-interest of employees who are allowed to bully school administrators. On top of that, the state gives the union enterprise a monopoly franchise on being the voice for the self-interest of employees — for which they are handsomely paid. As a result, the public school system is primarily operated as best suits the interests of employees as determined by the union. The union works to increase the cost, decrease the workload and minimize accountability for the quality of services. I have lifted the curtain and documented the evidence of these truths to the chagrin of the power brokers who grow wealthy running the union enterprise. So I’m not at all surprised at their action, but I’m flattered that they thought it worth more than $92,000 to unseat me. I will continue to inform and advocate for schools that make services to families the highest priority, and no amount of money can take away what I learned as a school board director. Besides, if WEA spends $90,000 every time I run, perhaps I’ll do the state a favor and run every two years from now on.
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W What message do you think the WEA’s actions sends to school board members (and other elected officials) across the state?
W Very few who serve on school boards are there to pursue changes in school operations. Most on school boards are either those who like to be seen as popular figures or those who aspire to higher office. Many if not most on school boards came from within the status quo system and were union-backed to get elected. None of these kinds of people have a strong interest in bucking the “business as usual” culture of public education. Their inclination to smile and go along existed before my school board race, and I am sure they see the union tactics as proof they should continue on the safe path of letting the union dominate school policy. Years ago, I created a “Student-Focused Caucus” for school board members to inform and motivate directors and candidates to implement conservative or libertarian values into their school operations. Very few are on school boards who have an interest in changing the school system to focus on values. I’ve known a dozen or two over the years, but they often quit when they realize how heavily the deck is stacked against schools that put families first.
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W The Freedom Foundation has been at the forefront of the efforts to stop public unions from automatical ly taking dues from workers’ paychecks. Can you explain why this is important and why more citizens should be concerned about the money government unions are pouring into the political process? WWThe power of the Left to dominate policies in schools and other government operations relies upon a fundamental injustice — unions’ ability to get paid to be the monopoly voice of public employees. If a woman wants a job to teach children how to read,
she must partner with a multimillion-dollar union enterprise that expects to be paid $100 per month over her entire career for its services. Meanwhile, these union enterprises are exempt from consumer protection and antitrust laws. Nearly all the extraordinary far-Left policies getting traction in Washington are funded by people in public service who would not have funded those causes without the payroll deductions pressed on them by government unions. Until the recent Janus v. AFSCME decision, unions could force public employees to pay for their services, charge as much as they want, do as little as they wish and spend members’ dues however they wish, including investing heavily in far-Left politics and ideological causes. Thankfully, this violation of civil rights was struck down by the U.S. Supreme Court in the Janus decision.
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WW What kind of impact do you expect the Janus decision will have on the government unions con trolling the Democrats in our state and controlling public policy at many levels across the state?
UUUnfortunately, the union operators are not acquiescing. Their multimillion dollar empire of power, money and influence is very dear to them. They employ bully ing, fear-mongering, litigation, trickery, new laws, and information suppression to maintain their influence. Since the Janus ruling, they have secured laws to give them scary amounts of power over their “clients.” Freedom Foundation has lobbied against and written about these extensively. Unions have also used multiple lawsuits to suppress the Freedom Foundation’s ability to even inform public employees about their rights. However, people trapped in union workplaces have a choice now, and that is already having an effect. A few unions are already looking at their cost to their (now) customers and needing to scale back or hide their more extreme inclinations. Some major unions have lost as much as 20 to 30 percent of their members.
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RRRRecently the Washington State Supreme Court shot down the unions’ attempts to keep the birth dates of government employees from the public. Why was this an important? What have you been able to do this with this information?
HHHaving a date of birth is a fact of living in a civil society. It is used regularly to prove eligibility for age-defined privileges. It is part of the voter list and other lists to distinguish between the many John Smiths in Washington. It is not sufficient to steal identity or commit fraud. But in demonizing the Freedom Foundation’s work and to make it difficult for the Freedom Foundation to provide information to public employees, union scare tactics have created the impression that birthdays are private, sensitive information. In addition, they harry and delay the Freedom Foundation’s requests for information even though they lose consistently. I am still waiting for records requested two years ago even though the Supreme Court has ruled with us. In spite of these efforts, nearly all public employees in Washington have received email, mail and even visits at their home to simply provide information about their rights as explained in detail at https://www.optouttoday.com/
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W What are your thoughts regarding legislative Democrats seeking to overturn the court’s decision with a proposed bill to hide the birthdates of state employees?
WIt is telling that the bill to shield unions’ cash flow is heard on the second day of the legislative session and scheduled for a vote on the fifth day. Could it be because a third of all Democrat money comes from wage garnishment of public employees and is channeled to candidates by union king-makers? Last year, Democrats passed laws prohibiting public employers from honoring the requests of workers who want union deductions to end. They also passed laws making public employers allow unions a tax-funded marketing opportunity for all new public employees to pressure them into signing up for nearly irrevocable dues deductions. Remember, the agenda of the unions is to make government grow bigger, cost more, do less and remain immune from accountability since union cashflow depends on these objectives.
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A PUBL ICAT ION OF THE FREEDOM FOUNDATION
Organized labor spends $92,000 to flip a Centralia School Board just because the incumbent works for the Freedom Foundation
UNIONS
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Legislature still doing unions’ dirty work
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uch uncertainty looms in the air surgovernment and increasing taxes. rounding the start of Oregon’s 2020 Last year alone, the Oregon Education AsBy JASON DUDASH, legislative session. One thing is clear sociation (OEA) and the Service Employees Oregon Director however: Oregon taxpayers should prepare to take International Union (SEIU) 503 were two of out their wallets and bend over. the loudest advocates for one of the largest tax Again. increases the state has witnessed in the past deFrom the now-infamous carbon tax (SB1530/SB1574), to increascade — the poorly named Student Success Act, better known as the es on hotel (HB4047) and car sales taxes (HB4151), as well as new corporate activity tax. taxes on construction (HB4084), home sales (HJR203) and even the Supporters promised the tax would generate an extra $2 billion per very mattresses we sleep on (SB1564) — Salem Democrats are once biennium for Oregon’s desperately underfunded public schools. What more shaking the public piggy bank in search of a paltry couple bilthe voters weren’t told is that the legislation didn’t dedicate a single lion more dollars. dime to towards education. Didn’t they pass more than $3 billion in new taxes just last sesTo make matters worse, the scheme has already cost numerous sion? Didn’t the state just bring in record revenue, $2.1 billion more districts more than it promised to return. than originally expected? Why are they raising taxes again, and why This year will likely be no different, with the American Federaon earth is there still a projected $623 million budget shortfall? tion of State County and Municipal Employees (AFSCME) Local 75 The answer to each of these is that Oregon’s lawmakers have hawking around a hardly less-than-scientific poll geared towards getspending problem, and I submit they’re being egged on by one of the ting elected Republicans to swallow the new Cap and Trade carbon state’s truly bad actors — public employee unions. tax. It’s no secret government unions have a hand and vested interest And what’s the money being used for? A huge and growing in local, state and federal government. After all, it quite literally is amount will be used to fund pensions for retired state workers. their lifeline. Oregon, the nation’s 27th largest state with just over 4 million resGone are the days where public employee unions like SEIU, idents, nonetheless has its fourth-largest state government spending AFSCME and their ilk can pretend they serve a legitimate purpose. per capita and is the proud owner of what the PERS director Kevin Today, government unions exist to perform two functions —growing Olineck describes as the second-most complex pension system in the United States. This liability grew by $2.5 billion in 2019 alone according to the latest annual forecast report. For those struggling to keep up, that means in just the past year this deficit consumed over 250 percent of the corporate activity tax that had been promised for the children. As obvious as the problem is, government unions resist every effort to fix it. Oregonians witnessed this phenomenon firsthand during the 2019 session when government unions across Oregon vowed that any elected official who voted in favor of SB 1049 — a very modest attempt to avert the looming train wreck — was sabotaged by Democrats and government unions. Maintaining this liability and passing new taxes is the last hope government unions have of preserving the few shreds of credibility they have left. As these numerous new taxes are passed, the scope of government continues to expand into most aspects of our lives, meaning more public employees hired. And more dues flowing into the unions’ coffers. A closer look at the successes being achieved by the Fortunately, this scheme doesn’t work like it used to. SEIU 503 has recently claimed in blog posts and podcasts Freedom Foundation’s office in the Beaver State. it has grown from 52,000 members to around 72,000. What they don’t tell you is that 44,000 are dues paying members.
Oregon Update
Big Labor remains transparency’s main obstacle
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n light of this week’s oral arguments before the U.S. 9th Circuit Court of Appeals in Boardman v. Inslee — a Freedom Foundation lawsuit challenging a Service Employees International Union-funded, wildly deceptive 2016 ballot measure in Washington state aimed squarely at preventing the Freedom Foundation from speaking to statepaid caregivers about their constitutional rights — it’s worth emphasizing once again the various attempts SEIU’s counterparts in Oregon have made to hijack the state’s open government ideals and actively work against equal protection of the law in pursuit of their own special interests. The most recent example is last year’s legislation mandating that public employees’ personal contact information be handed over to union leaders without question, even though Oregon’s public records laws effectively prohibit such disclosure to everybody else. When you consider the unions themselves are responsible for the latter — they and their cronies first broke, then weakened those public records laws in a whopping three out of the last five years — it becomes clear their only goal is to suppress all communication to public employees except their own. That goal hasn’t succeeded, but it’s not for lack of effort. Competence, maybe, but not effort.
By BEN STRAKA, Policy Analyst
Or perhaps it’s because most Oregonians recognize the unions’ true intentions. At the very least, they’ve been called out when the examples are so egregious that even the state’s newspapers jump in. And thanks to the Freedom Foundation, they’ve been challenged. The 2019 legislation, for example — although it ultimately passed with the above-mentioned provisions — failed to round out the unions’ wish list after fierce public testimony led to several amendments removing the worst components. According to union leaders themselves, their preferred version of the bill would have gone a step further by expressly prohibiting the Freedom Foundation from contacting public employees about their constitutional rights. Thankfully, that’s not going to happen anytime soon. Yet there’s still a major problem with union leaders’ efforts to grant themselves exclusive access to employee information. It remains to be seen whether similar constitutional arguments to those in Boardman v. Inslee can be made, but even temporarily setting aside those issues, the unions’ hypocrisy is
worth addressing. When not openly professing their desire to keep the Freedom Foundation from telling their members the truth, SEIU’s rationale for assaulting Oregon’s transparency laws is twofold: n First, they’ll make the unsubstantiated claim that disclosing public employee contact information – like addresses, emails and phone numbers – increases threats of identity theft and harassment, and thus should be off-limits to virtually anybody seeking it. n Then they’ll say, “Except for us.” But wait a minute – isn’t SEIU the one that illegally confiscated dues, refused to honor employees’ constitutional rights, engineered a sham election to prevent its members from communicating with each other, was caught forging public employees’ signatures in the past and is now being sued for forgery again? That’s quite a rap sheet, and it certainly doesn’t lend one to view SEIU as the trustworthy workplace representative it would have its ‘members’ believe. With bad actors like SEIU in Gov. Kate Brown’s inner circle, it’s no wonder her gilded attempts at public records reform in Oregon have gotten off to a rocky start. After all, her biggest ally happens to be transparency’s biggest enemy.
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A PUBLICATION OF THE FREED OM FOU NDATION
California teachers opt out, then share holiday happiness with their liberators
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uring the holiday months, the Freedom Foundation reached out to thousands of teachers across California to give them a simple message — give yourself a holiday bonus by ceasing your union dues deduction. For teachers in the Golden State, union dues are no small matter. Teachers pay the most of any public employee in the state — between $1,200 to $1,500 every year to three different unions — so it’s no wonder the Freedom Foundation campaign yielded more than 200 opt outs in just six weeks. In addition to giving themselves a welcome Christmas present at no further expense to taxpayers, the effort had the added benefit of weakening the unions. Based on an initial estimate, the campaign will take $260,000 out of the union coffers and put it back where it belongs — inside teachers’ pockets. And opt-outs weren’t the only thing pouring in during
By SAM COLEMAN, Outreach Director
this campaign. California office staffers were surprised by the number of Christmas cards and words of encouragement from teachers deciding to exercise their constitutional rights. One newly retired teacher wrote, “If only opting out (of the union) had been possible during my working days! Best wishes for your important work.” – D.P Another current teacher said, “This is great news! Please keep fighting these evil unions. Keep going & Good Luck!” G.H These teachers join the thousands of other teachers who’ve already used our services to opt-out of their union membership. We’re ecstatic that we’re able to share the gift of financial savings with teachers and couldn’t have found a better way to ring in the new year.
Public employee unions keep right on ignoring Janus ruling like their future depended on it
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wyear and a half after the fact, America’s government employee unions are still in denial over the extent of their defeat in Janus v. AFSCME. While many grudgingly concede the landmark 2018 ruling by the U.S. Supreme Court eliminated mandatory union membership or dues in the public workplace, paving the way for state and local public employees to opt out of union participation altogether, they still haven’t come to terms with the reality that simply rewriting union rules or passing new state laws can’t spare them the pain of compliance. This is mostly because public-sector union leaders are either unwilling or unable to grasp the full scope of what Janus requires. But a series of cases being litigated in California, Oregon and Washington could very well give them a much-needed wakeup call. The latest of these cases is Marsh v. AFSCME 3299, filed in California in November. Terrance Marsh and his nine co-plaintiffs in the lawsuit work for the University of California and, until very recently, had little choice but to pay up to $1,000 in annual dues to AFSCME 3299 — the union recognized by the state as their exclusive representative. But after learning about Janus, they notified the union of their desire to opt out. AFSCME 3299, however, declined their requests, citing a California state law that allows dues deductions from a government employee’s paycheck to continue as long as the collective bargaining agreement be
Spotlight on
California
By MARIAH GONDEIRO, Litagation Counsel
tween his or her union and the state agency they work for remains in force. But that law is invalidated by the informed consent language in Janus. Like the other lawsuits, Marsh v. AFSCME 3299 focuses on an often-overlooked provision in Janus that requires unions to fully inform prospective members of their rights before they join. Writing for the majority in the ruling, Justice Samuel Alito was unambiguous:
“Neither an agency fee nor any other payment to the union may be deducted from a nonmember’s wages, nor may any other attempt be made to collect such a payment, unless the employee affirmatively consents to pay. By agreeing to pay, nonmembers are waiving their First Amendment rights, and such a waiver cannot be presumed. Rather, to be effective, the waiver must be freely given and shown by ‘clear and compelling’ evidence. Unless employees clearly and affirmatively consent before any money is taken from them, this standard cannot be met.”
Thus, it doesn’t matter whether the union’s CBA with a given worker’s employer is still in force or not. Unless AFSCME 3299 can prove he or she was fully informed that signing a dues authorization card amounted to a waiver of their First
A closer look at the successes being achieved by the Freedom Foundation’s office in the Golden State.
Amendment rights, any subsequent membership agreement between the two parties is invalid. Such an arrangement would fundamentally alter the government workplace by shifting the burden of proof. That is, unions will have to start persuading consumers they provide a service worth trading their hard-earned dues dollars for — and then actually provide it. Not surprisingly, unions dispute whether Janus imposes this burden. And until now, they’ve successfully convinced lower court judges that Justice Alito didn’t say what he meant or mean what he said. But the Freedom Foundation, which is representing the Marsh plaintiffs, has several similar cases in various stages of litigation, including one on the verge of consideration by the Supreme Court. When it gets that far, it will be gratifying to see who knows more about Janus — the justices who wrote it or the unions whose very existence depends on it never being fairly enforced.
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A PU B L I CAT I ON O F T H E F R E E D OM FOU N DAT I ON
FREEDOM in ACTION
Legal battle over public union membership waged in Olympia By TJ MARTINELL Reprinted from THE LENS
FAN MAIL
JAN. 21, 2020
I saw the term “Regulatory Capture” used in an article in Wikipedia and had to look it up. (https://enwikipedia.org/wiki/ Regulatory_capture) My first impression was that it describes the process by which the public sector unions spread their control to almost the entire government of the State of Washington. The process is at least traceable back to some of the “stealth legislation” that took place when Gary Locke was governor, and is the most concise explanation for why Jay Inslee is so obedient to their wishes. It would be nice if the example of Washington State could be added to the Wikipedia definition of the term, but short of that I think it would productive for the Freedom Foundation to introduce the term in its newsletters and then begin to make general use of it. Just a suggestion, but one I would ask that you pass along to whoever it is in your organization that may want to act on it. Again, I offer you my sincere thanks for all of the wonderful work you continue to do. MIKE FARLEY n
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From the (Vancouver) Columbian Feb. 18, 2020: Jeers: To hiding public records. A House of Representatives committee has carved out an exemption for the media when it comes to public information. In October, the state Supreme Court ruled that birth dates of public employees are subject to disclosure. The issue stemmed from the Freedom Foundation seeking records of union-represented employees in order to pursue anti-union efforts. A bill in the Legislature would keep birth dates under wraps but allow access for the media, which frequently uses public records to identify individuals and ensure that reports are accurate. While that can help the media hold government accountable, the records should be made available to all citizens. The Legislature must stop its ongoing efforts to prevent public information from being public.
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ince the 2018 U.S. Supreme Court Janus decision ruling that public employees cannot be compelled to pay union dues, the Washington state legislature has passed legislation intended to “soften” the blow of Janus that are now under legal scrutiny. Among them is SSHB 1575, which allows unions to obtain membership consent via audio recording, but members who want to opt out must do so in writing and under whatever stipulations the union creates. Unions have also responded by adding new provisions to membership cards severely restricting when employees can opt out. The Freedom Foundation has now filed a class-action lawsuit on behalf of several University of Washington employees who have attempted to leave their union but continue to have dues taken from their paycheck by UW. Under SSHB 1575, an employer is required to deduct employee membership dues to
the public union once consent is obtained and must receive authorization from the union, not the member, when to stop deducting it. Freedom Foundation Senior Litigation Counsel James Abernathy said in a statement “(T)he whole point of Janus is to protect the First Amendment rights of public employees to not support a labor union. State laws that try to limit those rights are unconstitutional regardless of whether they were passed before or after Janus.” Meanwhile, HB 1888 introduced by Rep. Zack Hudgins (D-11) this session would exempt public employees’ birthdays from disclosure under the Public Records Act (PRA). The bill received a Jan. 14 public hearing in the House Committee on State Government & Tribal Relations. Ostensibly, the exemption protects employees from identity theft. At the public hearing, Hudg-
ins told colleagues: “My work in cybersecurity has heightened my awareness of the risk to individuals. I do believe that as the employer of the state employees, our public servants, we shouldn’t make it so easy to have identity theft or have privacy harm to folks.” However, Freedom Foundation Director of Labor Policy Maxford Nelsen told the committee that the move is really intended to prevent them from contacting public employees. The organization’s request for public employee information from state agencies resulted in a lawsuit. In October, the State Supreme Court ruled that public employees’ birthdays are subject to public record requests. “It was not until we initiated such efforts to inform public employees about their constitutional right to resign union membership or refrain from union membership that we started seeing litigation and legislation targeting this issue,” Nelsen said to the committee. “We think that’s unfortunate.” No further action on HB 1888 is scheduled at this time.
Lawsuit argues UW made it difficult for workers to opt out of union, dues By JASON RANTZ Reprinted from KTTH.com JAN. 22, 2020
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niversity of Washington employees tried to get out of union membership and their dues, but they say the school and the union wouldn’t make it easy for him. Now the Freedom Foundation has filed a class action lawsuit so these employees can engage in their constitutional rights to opt out. “These are University of Washington employees that simply want to be left alone by the union, which is SCIU 925,” said James Abernathy, senior litigation attorney for the Freedom Foundation. “They want to stop paying money to the union, but the union will not let them and the university refuses to do anything about it. He continued, “What (the union) knew was happening was that the Janus decision was going to make it illegal for them to force employees to pay compulsory union dues.”
The 2018 U.S. Supreme Court Janus decision affirmed that the Constitution prohibits public employers and unions from “entering into agreements that require bargaining unit members to pay an agency fee or a representation fee.” “They knew that in order to get a proper waiver after Janus, they were going to need to let the workers know what their rights are,” Abernathy said. “The great thing about Janus is that Supreme Court decisions are retroactive, so the union knew even before Janus that they were not following the law when they tricked these people into signing these agreements.” Abernathy is representing a number of UW employees who are suing to get out of union membership and paying dues for their work at the University of Washington.
They say that the school and the union either tricked them into this or wouldn’t let them out afterwards. So how is this whole process of getting out of paying union dues supposed to work? “The burden is on the university to make sure that the dues the university is deducting from its own employees’ wages are legal and properly authorized,” Abernathy said. “The problem is that before Janus was even decided, the union knew it was coming down, and they lobbied the Washington Legislature to pass a law that says the university — and public employers in Washington — can only listen to the union when it comes to who to deduct union dues from and who not to.” He concluded, “So when the employees go to the employer and say, ‘Hey, stop taking my money I haven’t authorized these deductions,’ the university says, ‘Sorry, there’s a law that says we have to listen to the union.’ And of course, the union has a conflict of interest. They want to violate these workers’ rights.”
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A PUBL ICAT ION OF THE FREEDOM FOUNDATION
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FREEDOM in the NEWS IN PRINT
Jan. 28, 2020
WEST COAST CONSERVATIVE GROUP ATTEMPTS TO SWAY PUBLIC WORKERS TO LEAVE UNIONS “At a quick Capitol press conference on Tuesday, the Freedom Foundation, part of the Koch-funded State Policy Network, announced it would begin knocking on doors, phone banking and mass-texting public sector union employees encouraging them to leave their unions. “For too long” unions such as AFSCME and SEIU ‘have had their power unchecked’ in Pennsylvania, Aaron Withe, national director of the foun-
IN PRINT
Feb. 8, 2020
Committee OKs bill giving media access to public workers’ birth dates, but no one else “The panel voted 7-1 in favor of the bill, but did not talk about what state Rep. Jim Walsh, R-Aberdeen, called a “phantom presence,” how the bill would affect the Freedom Foundation. The Olympia-based free-market think tank has used public records requests to contact government employees and inform them about their rights under a 2018 U.S. Supreme Court decision.”
ON IN PRINT
Feb. 3, 2020
UNION CONTRACTS AND TRANSPARENCY “I do find the editorial to be disingenuous by not fully disclosing the initial idea of demands for transparency in union negotiations came not from the print media but from far-right-wing organizations such as the Freedom Foundation, which are funded by the likes of the Koch brothers, Scaife Foundation and DeVos Foundation; all of which are clearly anti-union. Oversimplifying and inserting sunshine as a panacea for all our ills is convenient. But the world is complicated and not disclosing all known motives can be just as damaging as secret meetings.” IN PRINT
Feb. 9, 2020
Editorial: Forgeries show why union elections need secret ballots “Fortunately, these workers found the Freedom Foundation, a nonpartisan organization dedicated to worker freedom and opposing coerced unionism. It has sued on their behalf. The Freedom Foundation has filed similar lawsuits in Oregon and California, too. Last year it settled another forgery case, this one in Washington, for $28,000.”
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A P U B LI C AT I O N O F TH E F R E E DO M FO U N DAT I O N
ACTION TIMELINE SPOTLIGHTING SOME OF THE FREEDOM FOUNDATION’S NOTEWORTHY ACCOMPLISHMENTS OF THE PAST MONTH Jan. 31 The Freedom Foundation filed two lawsuits in Washington and one in Oregon on behalf of public-sector employees who were not only denied their constitutionally protected rights to opt out of union membership and dues, but who also had their names forged on the documents that authorized their paycheck deductions in the first place. Feb. 4 A three-judge panel from the 9th Circuit Court of Appeals hears arguments in the case of Bradley Boardman v. Inslee, which challenges the constitutionality of Initiative 1501, a statewide ballot initiative passed by Washington voters in 2016 that denied public access to the contact information for thousands of Medicaid-compensated homecare providers like Boardman. The union-funded measure claimed to be about protecting “vulnerable adults” from identity theft, but virtually everyone else recognizes its true purpose was to prevent the Freedom Foundation from contacting these “quasi-public employees” and informing them of their rights under the U.S. Supreme Court’s 2014 Harris v. Quinn
decision to opt out of union membership and dues. Feb. 4 The Freedom Foundation files an amicus brief with the U.S. Supreme Court supporting University of Maine Prof. Jonathan Reisman’s petition and urging the court to strike down state laws requiring public employees to accept unwanted union representation. Reisman believes the court’s 2018 ruling in Janus v. AFSCME not only allows him to opt out his union if he wishes to, but it also allows him to deny the union’s right to continue representing nonmembers. Feb. 7 The Freedom Foundation is one of 16 national policy organizations invited to testify before the Internal Revenue Service (IRS) about a proposed reporting rule change that would make it at least more time-consuming for deranged activists to find and harass private citizens who support organizations they don’t like — to be specific, those who harass the board members and staff of the Freedom Foundation and other like-minded groups.
BY THE NUMBERS During the holiday months, the Freedom Foundation reached out to thousands of teachers across California to give them a simple message; give yourself a holiday bonus by ceasing your union dues deduction. Teachers throughout the state can expect to pay between $1,200 to $1,500 every year to three different unions. Teachers pay the most of any public employee in the state – so it’s no wonder that the sixweek campaign resulted in more than 200 opt-outs. Based on an initial estimate the campaign will take $260,000 out of the union coffers. n
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Membership in the second-largest union representing public school employees in Washington state has declined by 3,559 members since the U.S. Supreme Court’s June 2018 decision in Janus v. AFSCME, federal reports show. The Public School Employees of Washington/ Service Employees International Union Local 1948 (PSE), representing bus drivers, paraeducators, cafeteria workers, maintenance, office staff and other non-teaching classified public school person, has been one of the Freedom Foundation’s top out-reach priorities over the past year.
JUST ASKING... How is it that Labor Unions aren’t mentioned at all in the Constitution or the Declaration of independence, and yet so many Americans want to cede control of the whole GOvernment to them?
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