MORE C A L S C HO OL E MP L O Y E E S F IL E S UI T [5] F RE E D OM F O UND AT ION A P P E A L S T O S C O T U S [5] S E IU 7 7 5 PAY S F OR F OR G ING S IG N AT URE [ 9 ]
LIVINGLIBERTY A PUBLICATION OF THE FREEDOM FOUNDATION | MAY 2019
the
UNION
in the
ROOM
ELEPHANT
LABOR’S CRONIES IN WASHINGTON LEGISLATURE PASS ANTI-JANUS BILL
Electronic Service Requested
Freedom Foundation PO Box 552 Olympia, WA 98507
T
he Washington State Senate on April 12 voted to approve House Bill 1575, a union-backed measure intended to kneecap Janus v. AFSCME, a landmark U.S. Supreme Court ruling from last summer that recognized public employees’ First Amendment right to make their own decisions about whether to financially support a union. Sen. Tim Sheldon (D-Potlatch) joined the chamber’s Republicans in voting against the bill. Sen. Bob Hasegawa (D-Seattle) voted against the legislation because of his philosophical opposition to removing now-unenforceable mandatory union fee requirements from state laws. The remaining Democrats voted to pass it. HB 1575 contains a series of modifications to state law that would: n make it easy for unions to initiate dues deductions from public employees’ wages but difficult for those same employees to cancel the deductions; n make it easier to unionize public employees; and, n shield unions from legal liability under state law for illegally seizing money from nonmember’s wages. “Union-backed lawmakers in Olympia are establishing quite a track record of passing illegal and unconstitutional laws to benefit their political allies at the expense of public employees’ civil liberties,” said Maxford Nelsen, the Freedom Foundation’s director of labor policy.
By JEFF RHODES, Managing Editor
“We won’t stand by and allow the unions and the Legislature to run roughshod over the Constitution,” he said. “We look forward to challenging this power grab in court at the first possible opportunity.” For decades, state law required public employees to pay union dues or fees as a condition of employment. That changed when the U.S. Supreme Court held in June 2018 that the First Amendment prohibits governments and unions from imposing such requirements on public employees. Anticipating the Janus decision would end compelled union payments, the Washington State Legislature in 2018 passed HB 2751, sponsored by teachers’ union activist Rep. Monica Stonier (D-Vancouver), which would have required government employers to withhold union dues from public employees’ wages automatically and without authorization unless and until the employee objected. Fortunately, HB 2751 never took effect. In an amicus brief submitted to the Supreme Court in support of plaintiff Mark Janus, the Freedom Foundation urged the court to not only find mandatory dues requirements unconstitutional, but to require that unions receive affirmative consent from public employees before deducting dues from their wages. In its decision, the court held that, “(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.” See ANTI-JANUS BILL Page 10
VOLUME 30 | ISSUE 5
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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 3 LEADERSHIP MEMO
Publisher: Tom McCabe Editor: Jeff Rhodes
CONTACT Freedom Foundation PO Box 552, Olympia, WA 98507
(360) 956-3482 FreedomFoundation.com
“Quote”
By TOM McCABE Our Formula for Beating the Unions is Simple: Outwork Everyone Else.
PAGE 4 THE CASE FOR FREEDOM By PATRICK ESCH Reprinted from the CAPITAL RESEARCH CENTER
Post-Janus, Unions Fighting to Maintain Membership by Any Means Necessary.
PAGE 5
What They Said & What They Meant
LITIGATING FREEDOM By JEFF RHODES School Employees Challenge Law Binding Them to Union. By MAXFORD NELSEN Freedom Foundation Appeals State Supreme Court Decision to SCOTUS.
PAGES 6-7
~ of the month ~
PAGE 8
OREGON UPDATE
By BOAZ DILLON AFSCME 57’s Financial Hypocrisy Exposed. By JERRY WRIGHT
“These groups don’t bargain for state workers – or any workers. They don’t go to the Legislature to fight for workers to have a secure retirement. They don’t come into our communities and work to ensure everyone has affordable housing. Instead, they do one thing – fund multi-million dollar lawsuits that attempt to bankrupt unions.” YVONNE WALKER
President, SEIU 1000. Sacramento Bee n March 26, 2019
Nothing in this publication should be construed as an attempt to aid or hinder the election of any elected official or candidate.
For the BEND BULLETIN
Guest Opinion: A Different View of Union Critics.
PAGE 9
PAGE 10
By SYDNEY PHILLIPS Three Years Later, SEIU 775 Finally Paying for Its Fraud.
By HARMEET K. DHILLON
BEST OF THE BLOG
By SAMUEL COLEMAN Even Its Own Delegates Aren’t Buying SEIU 57’s Baloney. Freedom Foundation’s Friends, Foes Weigh in On Our Actions.
PAGE 12 ACTION TIMELINE
FREEDOM IN ACTION
For the WASHINGTON EXAMINER
Why Won’t California’s Unions Let Teachers Go?
PAGE 11
FREEDOM IN THE NEWS
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A PUBLI CATION OF THE FREED OM FOU NDATION
3
OUR FORMULA FOR BEATING THE UNIONS IS SIMPLE:
OUTWORK EVERYONE ELSE
I
wwas struck the other day by an article posted to a Washington news website about the state’s continued flirtation with the idea of a capital gains tax. The article cited two conservative policy organizations that had “repeatedly argued that a capital gains tax is a tax on income.” But elsewhere in the same article, readers were assured, “(T)he Freedom Foundation has vowed to challenge the tax in court for violating the state’s constitution regarding property taxes, which includes income.” That sums up the difference between the Freedom Foundation and everyone else in a nutshell: Others argue. We do. To further illustrate the point, I was recently shown a fundraising application filled out by a conservative think tank in another state and, when asked to cite its accomplishments during the previous year, the group’s leaders listed all the staff-written opinion pieces that had published by the media. Don’t get me wrong, winning in the court of public opinion is critical. In fact, every month this newsletter reprints some of our more prominent notices, too. But there’s never enough for room for all of them. That’s because we’re not content simply to comment on the news. We’d rather make it. When I came to the Freedom Foundation six years ago, it operated like every other conservative think tank in the country did — and most still do. Every member of the staff had a different area of expertise — taxes, education, property rights, healthcare, etc. — and they worked hard to produce quality scholarship within their given discipline. The problem was, no one had any idea what anyone in the next office was doing. Everyone worked in silos. As a result, individuals within the organization occasionally achieved small, independent successes, but the truly difference-making moments were occurring far less often than the combined talent on hand was capable of. Consequently, my first act after arriving was to do away with the Freedom Foundation’s other activities and focus like a laser beam on just one area — union abuses — because it’s demonstrably true that public-sector unions are the single most persistent and malignant obstacle standing in the way of our stated goals of free markets and limited, accountable government. Rather than diluting our resources and being mediocre at 10 things, we concentrated all of our time and talent on one critically important target. And we became very, very good at what we do. But it still wasn’t enough. Even with the entire staff devoted to the singular objective of exposing the unholy alliance between government employee unions and the politicians they corrupt with dues dollars strong-armed from someone else’s paycheck, we knew we had to reinvent the entire think tank model to really make it work. The unions are seasoned, ruthless street fighters, and taking them down a peg couldn’t be just an intellectual exercise. We were going to have to get our hands dirty.
When the U.S. Supreme Court in 2014 issued its Harris v. By TOM McCABE, CEO Quinn ruling recognizing the opt-out rights of thousands of forcibly unionized home healthcare and childcare providers being paid by Medicaid, the Freedom Foundation launched a one-of-a-kind outreach program that deployed dozens of paid canvassers to every corner of Washington state to inform workers about the freedoms their union was trying desperately to suppress. And when the unions fought back, we recruited a small army of attorneys to challenge them in court. No other policy organization in the country before or since has invested as much time or effort into freeing public employees from the viselike grip of their union overseers. And none has seen that investment pay off so handsomely. By the time the court extended opt-out rights to all public employees last year in Janus v. AFSCME, we had expanded our operations from Washington into Oregon and California — and the model succeeded every bit as well there. There’s no magic formula to what we do. It’s expensive, labor-intensive work, but it pays rich divideds. A few weeks ago, a labor analyst with a New York-based conservative think tank authored an op-ed in the Wall Street Journal asserting that only 55,000 government employees nationwide had left their unions since the Janus ruling was issued. While we dispute accuracy of the numbers he cited, they also come with an important caveat. Of those opt-outs, more than 45,000 came from West Coast unions — in states where the Freedom Foundation operates. While other organizations write position papers and leave the problems for someone else to solve, we file lawsuits — and defend ourselves from countersuits. While they wait for workers to opt out on their own, Freedom Foundation staffers are proactively visiting government employees in their homes and workplaces — often confronting angry, disruptive union operatives in the process. Winning the fight against unions will make every other policy goal possible, but it can’t happen if we play by the Marquis of Queensbury rules. The Freedom Foundation learned that lesson long ago. That’s why we’re succeeding where others are still finding their way and striking fear into the hearts of unions who know from bitter experience that we take this struggle at least as seriously as they do.
LEADERSHIP
MEMO
LIVING LIBERTY
“
Winning the fight against unions will make every other policy goal possible, but it can’t happen if we play by the Marquis of Queensbury rules.
”
D O S O M E T H I N G F O R F R E E D O M T O D AY
SUPPORT THE FIGHT!
The Freedom Foundation is the only organization on the West Coast that
takes on the hard fights. Every day we stand up to ensure freedom for future generations. Every gift is an investment in the future.
CALL (360) 856-3482, OR VISIT WWW.FREEDOM FOUNDATION.COM
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THE CASE FOR FREEDOM POST-JANUS, UNIONS FIGHTING TO MAINTAIN THEIR MEMBERSHIP BY ANY MEANS NECESSARY
THE WELFARE OF OUR MEMBERS IS OUR ONLY CONCERN.
By PATRICK ESCH Reprinted from CAPITAL RESEARCH CENTER MARCH 15, 2019
W
ashington state government worker unions have a prob-
lem. Ever since last year’s U.S. Supreme Court decision Janus v. AFSCME, which overturned the ability of government unions to demand non-union members pay union fees, several unions have seen a decline in their union membership—and their revenue. In the case of the Washington state union, the Washington Federation of State Employees (WFSE), state-agency union membership has declined nearly 20 percent. In response, Washington state Democrats — whose campaigns raised $611,067 from public-sector unions in the 2018 elections — passed a staggeringly corrupt bill (HB 1575) that would undermine union workers’ rights by granting union leaders special privileges to collect dues, contradicting the Janus decision. Specifically, the bill will eliminate union legal liability for fraudulent union dues collection. According to the Freedom Foundation’s Maxford Nelsen, the bill will: “…allow unions and government employers to force public employees to pay union dues, threaten to terminate public employees for failing to pay dues or lie to employees to get them to agree to pay dues
without facing any legal liability under state law.” Even though such actions would still be illegal in the state of Washington, employees would be denied legal standing to seek redress or restitution for any money taken from them illegally (even if a union employee or officer went to prison for committing such acts). In other words, unions in the state of Washington will be able to collect and hold on to union dues by any means necessary. HB 1575 doesn’t stop there. It would also allow unions to pursue unorthodox and deceptive methods to authorize union dues collections from employees. Instead of laying out the complicated payroll terms associated with dues collection in writing, unions will have the ability to solicit dues collection authorization over the phone, but revoking dues authorization must be in writing under whatever terms the union chooses. The bill reads: “An employee’s request to revoke authorization for payroll deductions must be in writing and submitted by the employee to the exclusive bargaining representative in accordance with the terms and conditions of the authorization.” Why do unions demand lenient practices for coercing employees into paying union
dues, but require such strict and inconvenient methods for cancelling them? Unions want to make it as easy as possible for people to pay into unions, but hard as possible for workers to stop paying into unions. This is why many government sector unions have irrevocability restrictions that only allow employees to cancel their dues within incredibly narrow time frames. Washington’s isn’t the first state legislature to try and work around the Janus decision, and it won’t be the last. Earlier in January, the Oregon State Legislature tried
to establish a taxpayer slush fund that would’ve directly paid out unions as a means of compensating them for their loss in dues collections post-Janus. The Oregon House Bill 2643 would directly violate Oregon statutes that forbid public employers from using public funds to assist or deter union organizing — but that didn’t stop union-supported legislators from trying. Unions and their allies will continue to push dues-collection bills like Washington’s and subsidy bills like Oregon’s to reverse their losses following the Supreme Court’s Janus decision.
-------------------- QUICK HITS -------------------Legacy Society Director Irene Endicott retires Long-time Freedom Foundation Legacy Society Director Irene Endicott announced her retirement during March. She had been with the organization for 15 years. “Irene single-handedly created a Legacy Society that was the envy of policy organizations all over the country,” said Freedom Foundation CEO Tom McCabe. “She built a network of friends and supporters who were as devoted to her as they were to the organization’s ideals. “I shudder to think of where the Freedom
Foundation would be without her selfless contribution,” he said. “We’ll miss her terribly.” The Legacy Society will now be the responsibility of former development assistant Meggan Goudy. — JEFF RHODES
What’s Lee Saunders so afraid of? The truth Last June, the U.S. Supreme Court’s landmark ruling in Janus v. AFSCME freed government employees from the unconstitutional necessity of financially supporting a union in order to keep their job. AFSCME President Lee Saunders called the decision an “attack” on the union itself, going so far as to create a video for all the unions’ members — whom he must consider mindless — ordering
them to disregard any and all communication they receive from the Freedom Foundation. What is AFSCME so afraid of? The numbers. In only eight months since the Janus ruling was issued, the Freedom Foundation has helped nearly 45,000 government employees leave their union and stop paying dues to politically motivated union bosses. Across California, Oregon and Washington state, the Freedom Foundation has effectively removed $36 million every year from labor union coffers. Forever. That money will be used by families on the West Coast to buy groceries, pay their mortgage or cover unplanned medical expenses, instead of going to fund a political agenda. Lee Saunders and AFSCME may call that an attack, but we call it freedom for more Americans. — ASHLEY VARNER
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A PUBLI CATION OF THE FREED OM FOU NDATION
LITIGATING FREEDOM SCHOOL EMPLOYEES CHALLENGE CAL LAW BINDING THEM TO UNION
A
ppair of California public education employees have filed a lawsuit against their designated labor unions and the state of California alleging their request to opt out of union membership and stop paying dues was rejected because their collective bargaining agreements and state laws authorizing unions to keep employees as members against their will. The suit, filed on March 28 in U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of California, challenges a provision of the state’s 1978 Educational Employment Relations Act (EERA) requiring public school employees, as a condition of employment, to “maintain his or her (union) membership in good standing for the duration of the (collective bargaining agreement).” Last summer’s U.S. Supreme Court ruling in Janus v. AFSCME, which affirmed that forcing public-sector employees to financially support a union is a violation of their First Amendment rights, made clear that association with a union, whether through membership or financial support, is a voluntary choice. Forced membership violates basic freedoms of speech and association. “Janus recognized that
By JEFF RHODES, Managing Editor
compelling public workers to provide money to a union with which they disagree is unconstitutional,” said Karin Sweigart, an attorney with the Freedom Foundation, which is representing the plaintiffs. “But forcing employees to remain union members in addition to paying dues is an even more egregious afront to their rights. “Neither the EERA nor a collective bargaining agreement trump the U.S. Constitution,” she said. In the wake of Janus, the plaintiffs — Kristine Kurk, who works in the employee benefits division of the Los Rios Community College District; and Susan Shroll, who works for the San Luis Obispo County Office of Education — attempted last fall to withdraw from their respective unions and cease their dues deductions, but were told their requests had been denied because their union’s CBAs included provisions forcing them to remain members for the duration of the CBA. In Kurk’s case, she was told she could not opt out of union membership until 30 days be-
fore her union’s CBA expires on June 30, 2020 — and informed dues would still be deducted from her paycheck in the meantime. Shroll was told she couldn’t opt out or cease dues payment until the end of her union’s CBA, on June 30, 2019. The suit names the Los Rios Classified Employees Association and SEIU Local 620, the unions representing Kurk and Shroll, as defendants. Additional defendants include: n the Los Rios Community College District; n the San Luis Obispo County Office of Education; n Los Rios Community College District Board of Trustees President John Knight; n San Luis Coastal Unified School District Superintendent Eric Prater; and, n California Attorney General Xavier Becerra. “Union membership and dues deduction are voluntary,” Sweigart said. “The defendants are violating our clients’ First Amendment rights by strong-arming them to remain union members and continuing to skim dues from their paychecks without authorization.”
FREEDOM FOUNDATION APPEALS STATE SUPREME COURT DECISION TO SCOTUS
T
he Freedom Foundation on April 8 appealed to the U.S. Supreme Court a ruling issued against it in January by the Washington State Supreme Court that, left unchallenged, would have a chilling effect not only on its own efforts but on the ability of advocacy groups throughout the country to provide deserving citizens with legal assistance. The original lawsuit dates back to 2014, when attorneys for the Freedom Foundation — a West Coast-based nonprofit think tank — represented citizen activists in the Washington cities of Sequim, Chelan and Shelton following their unsuccessful efforts to place labor reform initiatives on their communities’ local election ballots. The measures, intended to make collective bargaining negotiations between the cities and their employees more transparent, were bitterly opposed by public-sector unions, which pressured city leaders to deny them a spot on the ballot. The Freedom Foundation argued the cities, by preemptively suppressing lawfully submitted ballot measures, had denied residents their right of citizen ini-
By MAXFORD NELSEN, Labor Policy Director
tiative as set forth in Washington state law. But judges in all three cases sided with the cities, so the initiatives never made it to the ballot nor was there any campaign. Adding insult to injury, the unions then filed a complaint with the Washington Attorney General’s Office alleging the Freedom Foundation was required to report its legal assistance to the activists as a campaign contribution. But the unions never reported the assistance of their own lawyers. The charge was absurd on its face, given that the initiatives were denied a spot on the ballot. If there was never an election, how could there be a campaign finance violation? By all accounts, the wording of the State’s Fair Campaign Practices on that point is, at best, confusing and ambiguous. Nonetheless, Washington Attorney General Bob Ferguson — who has banked hundreds of thousands of dollars in cam-
paign donations from government employee unions — unsurprisingly agreed to file a nakedly political lawsuit. A Thurston County Superior Court judge in 2016 rejected the AG’s arguments, but his ruling was later overturned by the Court of Appeals. When the Freedom Foundation challenged that decision in Washington State Supreme Court, the overwhelmingly liberal justices in January handed down a 5-4 ruling siding with Ferguson and the unions. “This is clearly a freedom of speech issue,” said Freedom Foundation Senior Litigation Counsel Eric Stahlfeld. “Even the justices who ruled against us conceded the wording of the Fair Campaign Practices Act concerning when an initiative becomes subject to the law is ‘at odds with’ local initiative procedures. Relying on this ambiguous provision to claim a local initiative not yet on the ballot is subject to Washington’s election laws does not give fair notice to citizens who want to exercise basic First Amendment freedom to participate in local government activity.”
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What They
&
What They What he said: “This is clearly a continuation of a well-funded, well-coordinated and sustained effort to cripple and dismantle unions and is an attack on working class families.” What he meant: ERIC SOTO “So my union President, is responding American Society of Psychiatric with a wellTechnicians. funded, wellSacramento Bee, coodinated March 28, 2019. effort to suppress the Constitutional rights of its own members so it can continue using their dues money to bribe greedy politicians to advance a liberal agenda that has nothing whatsoever to do with wages or workplace conditions and isn’t supported by at least half of those whose dues are paying for it. n n n
He said: “These cases have not been successful so far, but unions still have to devote resources and time and energy to defending these cases when they could be doing other things — providing services, representaJOHN LOGAN tion to memProfessor of bers, trying Labor Studies, University of to organize San Francisco, nonmemSacramento Bee, bers, etc.” March, 28, 2019 He meant: “A tactic the unions have been using for years against the Freedom Foundation. Except the unions get to pay their lawyers with someone else’s money.” n n n
He said: “Despite the net loss, unions’ ability to attract members ... while facing aggressive anti-union campaigns is notable.” He meant: “The campaign is only ‘aggressive’ where the Freedom Foundation operates. In those states, the unions are taking a real shellacking.”
ROBERT BRUNO
Professor, Univ. of Illinois
In These Times Feb. 25, 2019
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Deconstructing An anti-Freedom Foundation op-ed published in the Bend Bulletin
Guest column: What’s So do lots of people, not all of whom are oblivious to its message. Shocking though it may be to your sensibilities, the sign wasn’t erected solely for your benefit. Again, tens of thousands of commuters pass that spot every day. Enough of them take its advice to make the expenditure worthwhile. If they didn’t, we’d have put it someplace else. What do you care? Would you turn down something that benefits you unless it benefits absolutely no one else, too? Do you apply that standard to every decision you make? Did we say we were? This, too, will contradict your chrished narrative, but the backbone of our donor base is individuals who gain nothing when workers defect except the satisfaction of knowing they helped someone and reduced union influence over the politics of their state. It’s no more greedy of them to want a public workforce they can afford than it is for you to whine about your self interest.
By MARY HOFER
For the BEND BULLETIN
Every day on my way to and from work I pass a billboard. “Give yourself a raise!” it says. “Opt out of your union today!” It’s been up at least four months, maybe longer. I had my son do a quick Google search on the cost of billboard rentals and the monthly cost for a small billboard ranges from $700-$1,500 per month. I had to ask myself, who is willing to pay close to a $1,000 a month just to save me $25? What’s in it for them? Recently school employees all across the state received a form letter in the mail, encouraging us to opt out of our union. This is the second letter in just a few months. That’s thousands of mailers each time. When you factor in the cost of printing, postal prep and nonprofit postage, that’s close to 20 cents each, easily close to $10,000! Once again, I had to ask, “What’s in it for them?” Are these philanthropists people who care so much about public employees that they’re willing to spend well over $10,000 of their own money to help us? I doubt it. Who has something to gain by this? Who could gain by causing employees to lose the collective bargaining rights employees have fought for more than one hundred years? Who will gain from a cheaper workforce? Who profits? And why are they targeting some of the lowest paid public employees in the state? What’s in it for them? Now go ahead, ask me: “What’s in it for me.” I’ll gladly tell you. A living wage is what’s in it for me. Employer contribution to my health insurance, that’s what’s in it for me. My union contract also protects my seniority rights, cost of living salary increases, protection against being let go on a whim, paid Federal holidays,
So who’s keeping you from retaining all of those things? Nothing the Freedom Foundation has ever advocated for would prevent you from joining a union or force you to leave the one you’re already a member of. It would simply give that same right of self-determination to people who don’t share your ideals, too.
LIVING LIBERTY
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A PUBLI CATION OF THE FREED OM FOU NDATION
more union lies
is so dishonest you can almost literally find whoppers in every paragraph
s in it for union critics?
Exactly why would those benefits go away - and whose fault would it be if they did? Would the Freedom Foundation be to blame just for informing workers about their opt-out rights, or would the union be at fault for not providing a service people would pay for without being forced to?
a set schedule with weekends off, bereavement leave, sick leave and the security of knowing if my child is ill I can stay home and care for him. I don’t have to weigh the cost of losing a day of pay versus caring for my child. I could go on. These are all things that I have a right to under my collective bargaining agreement that was bargained for by my union. If my union goes away, so does the guarantee of all those things. Those things are “what’s in it for me.”
And is that goal served by unions that make it next to impossible to reward excellence or fire underperforming teachers?
When school employees have job security they also have loyalty to their districts. Who do we want educating our kids? A constant stream of new employees with no buy in? Someone who is constantly looking for a better job? No. We want professional staff who form relationships with the students, who care about their futures, who are capable of providing the best possible education for our next generation of leaders. “Opt-out” “Give yourself a raise …,” well, that might be true for a few months, but without members, there is no union. If the union falls, we will quickly see that raise and our hard-earned rights not only go away, but we will find ourselves in a far more difficult situation. Large business owners and wealthy corporate employers have the most to gain if unions weren’t around.
Perhaps, but the U.S. Supreme Court has made clear that every individual has the right to decide for him or herself whether unions provide a benefit. Not everyone agrees with your views, nor should they be forced to.
Without a union you are considered an at-will employee, which means you can be fired for nearly any reason, denied raises, job safety, set schedules, health insurance and seniority rights. Basically, without a union, corporations increase their profits. That’s what’s in it for them. So once again, I just have to ask, “What’s in it for them?” It sure seems clear to me.
Clear ... but wrong. — Mary Hofer lives in Bend.
Where she just happens to work for the Oregon School Employees. As such, her livelihood depends on how keeping people in the union rather than allowing them to exercise their own best judgment. Wny not ask yourself, “What’s in it for her?”
Organized labor leaders love to claim credit for these reforms, but the truth isn’t quite as unequivocal. In fact, Henry Ford instituted many of them long before his company was unionized. In any case, employers continue to provide such benefits these days not because of union coercion but because they wouldn’t be able to recruit good workers if they didn’t.
Why would an employer want to do any of those things to a productive worker? Unless you’re afraid of being held accountable for your performance, what’s wrong with working under the same rules 85 percent of the US workforce does? The Freedom Foundation, which paid for the ad you find so offensive, is focused like a laser on publicsector unions. “Corporations” play no role in its activities.
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AFSCME 57’s FINANCIAL HYPOCRISY EXPOSED
L
ying, like cheating, is learned behavior for Oregon’s government employee unions. Unions have been quick to condemn the U.S. Supreme Court’s 2018 ruling in Janus v. AFSCME and discount the Freedom Foundation’s tireless work to ensure it’s enforced. Helpfully, though, some of these unions are required by the U.S. Department of Labor to file a yearly report (LM-2) that documents not only their spending but also their membership numbers. Recently, AFSCME Council 75’s LM-2 went up on the Department of Labor’s website and showcased just about everything you would expect it would.
By BOAZ DILLON, Labor Policy Analyst
For example, the union’s membership is down 12 percent from the previous year, and the Janus decision only took place six months prior to report being released. Another number to note is the money received from AFSCME International. Typically, public-sector unions in states where Democrats hold legislative power, like all three on the west coast, send large sums of money to the national headquarters to be disbursed
Oregon Update
Highlighting the successes being achieved by the Freedom Foundation’s office in the Beaver State.
to affiliates in states with less influence. Feeling the tremors from the Janus decision, however, AFSCME Council 75 this year received more funds from the International Headquarters than it disbursed. Little wonder AFSCME President Lee Saunders feels so threatened by the Freedom Foundation. But as always, instead of allocating funds to better represent its members, AFSCME followed other failing unions like SEIU 503 and doubled down on political spending. In 2018 alone, Council 75 spent more than $2.2 million of dues dollars on politics and lobbying. These expenditures are clearly listed on the union’s report showing dues being spent around the state on various liberal politicians, as well as over more than $750,000 handed over to Defend Oregon, a coalition dedicated to opposing conservative measures. Defend Oregon wasn’t the only progressive coalition to have working Oregonians’ money siphoned into its coffers. Our Oregon, another liberal front group, collected more than $250,000 from Council 75 last year. Despite the pinch Council 75 as a whole is feeling post-Janus, its staff is doing just fine. Twenty-five of its employees are paid six-figure salaries, including Executive Director Stacy Chamberlain, who makes just under $150,000 a year. So much for being for the middle class. AFSCME Council 75 is another shining example of union hypocrisy claiming to fight for Oregon workers, but instead just spending those same workers’ paychecks to fuel its leaders’ progressive agenda.
GUEST OPINION: A DIFFERENT VIEW OF UNION CRITICS By JERRY WRIGHT
For the BEND BULLETIN
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n April 4, Mary Hofer asked in a guest column what’s in it for union critics to promote union members’ opting out of mandatory union membership — or worse, mandatory monthly payment of dues or fees by employees who choose to not join the union. In her well-written column, she implies a relatively small number of schemers must have something up their sleeves as they privately pay for advertising encouraging union members to “opt out.” Well, Ms. Hofer, let me share a different point of view with you. There are people in this state — and I am one of them — who are sick to death of their union dues funding political campaigns for candidates who promise to do the bidding of “public service” unions in return for the unions’ endorsements of their candidacies, regardless of the expense to individual taxpayers and private employers (businesses) and regardless of any loss of individual freedoms “for the greater good.” That “greater good” is, of course, as interpreted by the union-elected toadies who claim to represent us all. Our politicians’ following through on those promises has given us proposals to impose crippling taxes on businesses (those private employers, remember?), as well as the current Democratic supermajority in our Legislature and our knee-jerk, union-loving governor.
That combination allows Oregonians to enjoy the benefits of totally unfettered tax-and-spend legislation that hurts us all and legislative business policies that drive away Oregon employers and discourage potential new employers from locating to such an anti-business state. And given the general liberal bent of those elected by this union-funded process, we all get to see our culture and mores mandated to better fit the desires of the Western Oregon population centers … for the “greater good.” In essence, “What’s in it for us” is the possibility, however remote, of bringing a little more balance to the Oregon political process. We’d like to see a process that might allow for a more balanced Legislature, one representing more diverse points of view. We’d like to see a Legislature and a governor who would actually work constructively to clean up the mess that is PERS, rather than just pay lip service to the issue while billing every public entity in the state more and more to pay for the ongoing PERS shortfall produced by poorly negotiated agreements with the state’s public-employee unions. We’d like to see state policies that might encourage more private employ
ment, by manufacturers of “hard” (tangible) products and by retail distributors of those products. We’d like to see a loosening of the current stranglehold the public-employee unions maintain over all things political in Oregon. And we’d like to see a return to individual freedoms and responsibilities we Oregonians used to be proud of — or at least we’d like to prevent any further erosion of those freedoms. So there you have at least some of what’s in it for us. I hope this might give you a little food for thought, Ms. Hofer. I understand your points regarding your union benefits, and the system has certainly worked well for you. I am not sufficiently hypocritical enough to begrudge you all that you have been able to earn, as I have a daughter, a sister and a close friend who all live well as retired or nearly retired public employees. But maybe you can concede there is another viable point of view to this issue. — Jerry Wright lives in Sisters.
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BEST OF THE BLOG THREE YEARS LATER, SEIU 775 FINALLY PAYING FOR ITS FRAUD APRIL 2, 2019
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indy Ochoa’s long — but ultimately successful — quest for justice is a case study in just how reprehensible SEIU 775’s operatives can be, how little concern the union has for anything but its members’ dues money and how doggedly the Freedom Foundation pursues litigation on behalf of workers’ rights. On March 29, the union agreed to pay Ochoa $15,000 and surrender another $13,000 in attorneys’ fees to settle a lawsuit filed by the Freedom Foundation after an SEIU 775 operative was found to have forged her signature on a membership application. In 2017, Ochoa, a Spokane homecare provider who had left SEIU 775 shortly after the U.S. Supreme Court’s 2014 ruling in Harris v. Quinn, contacted the Freedom Foundation when she noticed the union was again deducting dues from her paycheck. A year earlier, Ochoa had been visited at her home by a union representative, who pressured her to rejoin. When she refused, the canvasser apparently signed her name on a membership card and turned it in to the union, which wasn’t concerned with its authenticity. The forgery took place in 2016 and the deductions from Ochoa’s checks resumed soon after, extending into 2017. Ochoa spent hours on the phone, sending mail and emailing the union attempting to end the illegal dues deductions. The Freedom Foundation intervened on her behalf in early 2018 and, after contacting SEIU and demanding the dues stop, union officials admitted the signatures did not match and ceased withdrawing dues.
By SYDNEY PHILLIPS, Litigation Counsel
Less than one month later, however, SEIU 775 resumed dues deductions — this time for unspecified reasons. And just as before, Ochoa had to waste time, energy and resources to attempt to have SEIU. Consequently, the Freedom Foundation last October filed a claim in federal court for violations of her First Amendment rights, emotional distress and unlawful withholding of wages. By the time the case was settled in March, SEIU 775 wanted out so badly it used a specific “offer of judgment” rule to do so. SEIU 775 agreed to pay Ochoa for the harm to her caused by the union’s forgery and subsequent behavior. SEIU 775 leaders also agreed to send her a written apology and pay the Freedom Foundation’s attorneys’ fees, as well. An offer of judgment, unlike a common settlement offer, is not confidential. In fact, it’s filed with the court and becomes part of the public record about the lawsuit. SEIU 775 could see the writing on the wall. Ochoa was not only certain to win her suit, but the publicity would lay bare the union’s despicable tactics. So the union ordered it lawyers to do what they always do when stalling tactics don’t work — buy your way out of trouble with dues money collected from Ochoa and hardworking caregivers like herself who haven’t yet been able to free themselves from SEIU 775’s tentacles.
EVEN ITS OWN DELEGATES AREN’T BUYING AFSCME COUNCIL 57’S BALONEY ANYMORE APRIL 5, 2019 In a recent Facebook post , AFSCME Council 57 bragged that the majority of its members are sticking with their union and that everything is fine — notwithstanding the U.S. Supreme Court’s ruling last summer in Janus v. AFSCME banning mandatory dues and fees once and for all. Unfortunately for the union, its own delegates have exposed its rhetoric as a lie. AFSCME 57, based in Oakland, Calif., represents 27,000 public workers. However, a recent post on AFSMCE Local 2620’s website reports Council 57 has experienced a massive decline in union membership and dues payments. According to Local 2620, Council 57 has lost nearly $1.1 million in dues deductions since Janus was issued just 10 months ago. Based on some basic math, this equates to the loss of 3,400 members — 12.5 percent of AFSCME 57’s entire member base. But the shrinking revenues aren’t the only evidence of the union’s problems. There’s also been a decline in services offered. Local 2620 also claims Council 57 is proposing an $8 increase in monthly membership dues. According to their current pay structure, this would be a nearly 25 percent increase for full-time employees. Dues-paying members might also like to know that about 55 cents out of every dollar in dues money goes directly to Council 57,
By SAMUEL COLEMAN, California Outreach Coordinator
leaving only 45 cents per dollar for their local union. This dues structure is one of the most unbalanced in California short of the California Teachers Association. While any private-sector entrepreneur knows a floundering operation needs to consider cutting its prices rather than raising them, that isn’t how AFSCME 57’s leaders roll. Fortunately, Local 2620 was kind enough to make the case for us, writing: “The timing of the proposed increase is poor, coming immediately in the wake of Janus. Members who are already on the fence about the unions do not need Koch brothers to convince them to quit the union. The union would have done so itself.” Many unions, including AFSCME, appear to be stuck in a pre-Janus mindset. The idea that a union could increase its rates while providing no extra services violates an important economic law. Public workers are no longer forced to buy their wares; they can finally choose for themselves whether the product is worth the price. And in huge numbers, they’re deciding it isn’t.
WFSE responds to Freedom Foundation outreach effort with clown car, clowns Evidently the folks at WFSE 28 in Spokane have some new tools and tactics in their never-ending (but ultimately futile) quest to insinuate themselves between public employees and the truth. When a handful of Freedom Foundation outreach staffers were deployed to a state office building during April, the union responded like the clown show it is, rolling out a massive motor home (purchased, of course, with the sweat of members who’d been assured their dues dollars were being used only to cover collective bargaining costs) festooned with embarrassing slogans and manned by a crack squad of 10 paid WFSE operatives waving signs making noise to disrupt our message. Throw in a trapeze act and an elephant and they could have sold tickets to this circus. It didn’t work, of course, and plenty of workers gravitated to the Freedom Foundation crew, no doubt mortified by the freak show being staged on their behalf. On the bright side, when WFSE 28 President Sue Henricksen takes the kids to Yellowstone this summer, it looks like she’ll be riding in style. MATTHEW HAYWARD n
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“Keep up the good work. I received both the email and the mailer to opt out of my union, however I had already done so. Your work is the first I’ve seen noting the option to opt out. Of course, neither the unions nor the state made any effort to communicate that option to the workers themselves.” Email from DARLA
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A P U BL IC AT I ON OF T HE FREEDOM FOUNDAT I ON
FREEDOM IN ACTION WHY WON’T CALIFORNIA’S UNIONS LET TEACHERS GO? By HARMEET DHILLON Reprinted from the WASHINGTON EXAMINER MARCH 18, 2019
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hen Fremont, Calif.-based special needs instructor Bethany Mendez looks at her paycheck, she is regularly reminded of how her employer violates her First Amendment rights daily. Even though Mendez has demanded in writing to leave the California Teacher’s Association (the sole union designated by California to represent public school teachers), the union continues to deduct over $1,500 in dues annually. In high-priced Northern California, that’s enough to pay a medical bill or put new tires on the family vehicle. And Mendez is not the only one. Thousands of teachers just like Bethany across California are also seeing money disappear from their checks without their authorization and over their express written objections. If your instincts tell you this can’t be legal, you’re right. Democrats and the Resistance find themselves in an awkward position post-Mueller Last June, the Supreme Court ruled in Janus v. AFSCME that mandatory public sector union fees are unconstitutional and violate federal free speech rights. Mark Janus, a child support specialist at the Illinois Department of Healthcare and Family Services, had sued AFSCME for deducting so-called “agency fees” from his paycheck over his objection and even though he had declined formal union membership. The high court agreed with Janus’ challenge to compelled speech in the workplace through forced union membership, holding that “(n)either 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.”
The ruling did not create a new right. It simply recognized a right that has always existed, yet has been violated by forced union membership and dues payments. Public-sector unions anticipated the Janus ruling for years. In the weeks leading up to the landmark decision,Bethany Mendez’s union approached teachers and pressured them into signing a “commitment card” intended to lock them into paying union dues for a year, leading them to believe that they had no choice. Mendez was not informed of the imminent Janus decision, or her First Amendment rights. As a special needs teacher, Mendez focuses on helping her kids, not on keeping up with developing high court jurisprudence. It was only after Janus was decided that Mendez learned, from her husband, that she had a right to not participate in the union. In October 2018, Mendez sent a letter to her union attempting to exercise her right to opt out. She wrote that she had resigned her membership and would like dues-collecting to cease. The union responded by saying she could only do so during a brief three-day window “not less than thirty (30) days and not more than sixty (60) days before the annual anniversary date” of her commitment. In effect, the union told Mendez they would continue to confiscate a portion of her paycheck every pay period, without her consent. The Janus decision made clear that such conduct is unconstitutional. And if teachers were not informed of their First Amendment rights when pressured to sign “commitment cards,” such cards should not be considered valid membership agreements.
Bethany’s story is the reason why I, with the Freedom Foundation, am representing Bethany Mendez and four other public school educators who have faced similar union conduct in their efforts to stop this. On Monday, we filed a federal class action lawsuit intended to end the forced collection of union dues without informed consent, consistent with the Janus ruling. Our goal is simple: Give teachers across California access to their constitutionally protected opportunity to make a choice about whether a union represents them. Our lawsuit seeks to vindicate work er rights and choices over the brute force of an oppressive regime that seeks to substitute its judgment for theirs. Since the Janus ruling, tens of thousands of workers of various professions across the country have exercised their right to leave their union, with the Freedom Foundation’s opt-out campaign leading the charge. In Oregon alone, the Freedom Foundation has helped 30 percent of Oregon School Employees Association members to voluntarily leave their union. Teachers in California have a constitutionally protected right to choose who represents them. Unions know their stranglehold on teachers is slipping, but they should work amicably with those teachers to create a better relationship and bette prove their value, instead of trying to trap them with tricky commitment cards and false statements about their lack of choice. Now that dues aren’t compulsory, union leaders will have to learn to work for teachers instead of manipulating them. If union membership is so valuable, what do unions have to fear?
ANTI-JANUS BILL: FREEDOM FOUNDATION VOWS COURT FIGHT Continued from Page 1 This year, HB 1575, also authored by Rep. Stonier, allows unions to initiate dues deductions upon a public employee’s written, electronic or “recorded voice authorization” over the phone. In contrast, the bill specifies employees can only cancel dues deductions in writing. Proposed amendments to remove the use of telephonic dues deduction authorizations and allow employees to cancel dues deductions using any of the means deemed permissible to authorize them were defeated along party lines. The bill also requires employees to submit dues cancellation requests to their union and forbids employers from acting upon cancellation requests submitted by employees to their payroll department. This allows unions to enforce arbitrary restrictions on when, and under what circumstances, they will accept employees’ dues cancellations. Only after the union’s requirements are satisfied will it permit the employer to cease the deductions.
Amendments to allow employees to cancel dues deductions at any time and to cancel the deductions through their employer failed along party lines. Lastly, HB 1575 strips public employees of the ability to vote on whether to unionize in a secret-ballot election administered by the Public Employment Relations Commission. Instead, future union organizing campaigns will use the inherently coercive and undemocratic cross-check process in which union organizers confront employees at work or at home and try to get them to sign union cards in person. If more than half of the employees in a workplace sign such cards, the union is certified without a vote ever taking place. An amendment to protect employees’ right to secret-ballot elections also failed along party lines. The recalcitrance of union-backed lawmakers was on full display when they rejected an amendment along party lines that would have removed several references in state law to now unconstitutional man-
datory union payment requirements. Most such references are already repealed by HB 1575, but several were missed in the original draft. “Unions’ whole public justification for HB 1575 has been that it is needed to establish ‘clarity’ and ‘consistency’ in state laws after Janus,” said Nelsen. “But their refusal to accept even technical corrections to a sloppily drafted bill means that some indisputably unconstitutional state laws will be repealed while others will be left on the books. That’s neither clear nor consistent. But it does re-emphasize that HB 1575 has never been anything more than a partisan political power play designed to protect union coffers and, in turn, the political campaigns they fund. The state House of Representatives passed HB 1575 — also along party lines — earlier in the 2019 legislative session, and the Senate’s approval sends the bill to Gov. Jay Inslee who, as a staunch supporter of government unions, is expected to sign it into law.
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FREEDOM IN THE NEWS ONLINE
March 25, 2019
JUSTICE ALITO MADE HIS RULING, NOW IT’S TIME TO ENFORCE IT
April 18, 2019
JANUS HURTING BIG LABOR’S BOTTOM LINE
“These efforts show that enforcing the Janus rights will not be a matter of sitting and waiting. And thus it has fallen to conservative organizations, most prominent among them the Freedom Foundation operating on the West Coast, to advocate, litigate and legislate to ensure that unions respect employee rights.”
ONLINE
IN PRINT
MARCH 26, 2019
IMPLEMENTING A CAPITAL-GAINS TAX WOULD MEAN TAX BREAKS FOR OTHERS, SENATE DEMOCRATS SAY “The Freedom Foundation, an Olympia-based free-market think tank, vowed to file a legal challenge if the final version of the budget includes a capital-gains tax. ‘Graduated taxes on income, including income from capital gains, are clearly forbidden under the Washington state Constitution,” said Freedom Foundation CEO Tom McCabe, in a statement. “That was true last year; it’s true now; and, unless the constitution is amended, it will be true every time it’s tried.”
“In areas where pro-liberty groups — such as the Freedom Foundation, which operates on the West Coast — are aggressively informing workers of their Janus rights, the declines have been sharp: The Oakland-based AFSCME Council 57 has lost over 12 percent from its rolls. The bosses, disregarding the Laffer Curve, have reacted by raising dues. All the more reason to opt out.” IN PRINT
March 26, 2019
WANT OUT OF YOUR UNION? CONSERVATIVE GROUPS ARE RECRUITING CALIFORNIA PUBLIC WORKERS FOR LAWSUITS “Californians are not going to see reform on things like education and pension liability as long as government unions maintain the strength and power that they currently have, that they’ve had for 40 years,” said Bob Wickers, who leads California operations for the Freedom Foundation, the organization supporting Mendez in her lawsuit. His group has its headquarters in Olympia, Washington. With Janus, it expanded its California footprint with plans to seek out public employees by email and in person.”
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A P U BL IC AT I ON OF T HE FREEDOM FOUNDAT I ON
ACTION TIMELINE
April 9
SPOTLIGHTING SOME OF THE FREEDOM FOUNDATION’S NOTEWORTHY ACCOMPLISHMENTS OF THE PAST MONTH
March 18 The Washington Examiner publishes a guest opinion by San Francisco attorney Harmeet Dhillon, who is working with the Freedom Foundation to represent five California teachers whose attempts to opt out of the California Teachers Association have been blocked by the union. The piece is headlined, “Why Won’t California Unions Let Teachers Go?” March 28 The Freedom Foundation files suit on behalf of a pair of California public education employees against their designated labor unions and the state of California alleging their request to opt out of union membership and stop paying dues was rejected because their collective bargaining agreements and state laws authorize unions to keep employees as members against their will. The suit, filed in U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of California, challenges a provision
of the state’s 1978 Educational Employment Relations Act (EERA) requiring public school employees, as a condition of employment, to “maintain his or her (union) membership in good standing for the duration of the (collective bargaining agreement).” March 29 Cindy Ochoa, a home healthcare provider from Spokane, was quick to opt out of SEIU 775 after the U.S. Supreme Court in its 2014 Harris v. Quinn ruling affirmed her right to do so. But by 2017, the union was again deducting dues from her paycheck. She later discovered her name had been forged to a membership application. Even so, it took more than a year for the union to own up to its fraud. But on March 29 — no doubt spurred to action by lawsuit filed the previous October by the Freedom Foundation — SEIU 775 agreed to pay $15,000 to Ochoa and $13,000 for the Freedom Foundation’s legal fees.
The Freedom Foundation files an appeal to the U.S. Supreme Court of a ruling issued against it in January by the Washington State Supreme Court. The lawsuit is based on a campaign finance complaint lodged in 2014 by a union front group alleging the Freedom Foundation neglected to list as a campaign expense its legal costs after representing pro bono citizen activists in three Washington cities. The activists had tried unsuccessfully to place labor reform measures on their local election ballot, only to be denied by their respective city councils. The Freedom Foundation argued that if there is no election, there can be no campaign finance reporting requirements. April 12 The Freedom Foundation vows to file a lawsuit to overturn HB 1575, passed along straight party lines by the Washington State Senate. The bill is a payback to the state’s public-sector unions intended to kneecap Janus v. AFSCME, the U.S. Supreme Court ruling from last summer that recognized public employees’ First Amendment right to make their own decisions about whether to financially support a union. HB 1575 has now passed both houses of the Legislature and is certain to be signed into law by Gov. Jay Inslee.
Simply appalling
Kim Cook, left, in 2018 with Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, whom she described as a “rock star.”
In an Aug. 31, 2018, article in The Unionist, former SEIU 925 president Kim Cook described how the Freedom Foundation did battle with her union: “The Freedom Foundation used every conceivable method for talking to Local 925 members —they got lists of union members through public information requests, and then used mail, email, telephone, website, videos to get their ... message out.
Most appalling, they went door to door, visiting members at home. I recognize all those tactics because they’re the ones we use. At election time, and during new organizing drives ... we used those same tactics.”
She’s absolutely right, too. And because we did, SEIU 925 lost 4,500 of its members. That’s why Kim Cook is now the union’s former president.