S E U I 7 7 5 S E T T L E M E N T [4 ] U N I O N R E T U R N S I L L E G A L LY C O N F I S C AT E D F E E S [ 5 ] D I N E S H W O W S B A N Q U E T [ 6 ] T E A C H E R S S T R I K E I L L E G A L LY [ 1 0 ]
LIVINGLIBERTY A PUBLICATION OF THE FREEDOM FOUNDATION | OCTOBER 2018
ABANDON SHIP SEIU 775 continues losing streak with embarassing court losses and the exit of longtime leader
Electronic Service Requested
Freedom Foundation PO Box 552 Olympia, WA 98507
S
EIU 775’s most recent legal humiliation, being forced to finally concede that workers who never joined the union in the first place cannot be forced to pay dues, is an embarrassment for more than just the union itself. It also lays bare a Washington State Supreme Court more concerned with partisanship than principle and may well have been the deciding factor in SEIU 775’s decision to part ways with founding president David Rolf just days after the union capitulated. But first and foremost, it represents freedom for approximately 6,000 Washingtonians who spent decades watching helplessly as the union skimmed money from their paychecks that had been earmarked by Medicaid for the care of their low-income, disabled family members and loved ones. Since its dubious founding in 2002, SEIU 775 has believed every Medicaid-paid home healthcare provider owed it a percentage of his or her salary — either as regular dues or so-called “agency fees” deducted from workers who had successfully opted out of the union but were still expected to fund its collective bargaining costs. The U.S. Supreme Court, however, ruled in Harris v. Quinn (2014) that home health caregivers — in addition to home childcare providers, language-access providers and adult family home providers — were not fullfledged public employees and could not be compelled to pay the union anything.
By JEFF RHODES, Managing Editor
The ruling further made clear that unions needed a worker’s informed consent prior to deducting dues. Consequently, the unions representing all the other Washington state workers affected by Harris grudgingly agreed to wait until given permission to start garnishing their members’ paychecks. But SEIU 775, the Washington’s largest and most ruthless public employee union, refused to comply. As it had for years, the union continued deducting dues from every Medicaid homecare provider unless or until they were able to navigate the maze of rules and regulations imposed by SEIU 775 to make the opting-out process as difficult as possible. In a March 2015 court declaration, in fact, SEIU 775 Secretary-Treasurer Adam Glickman admitted the union was then seizing dues from the paychecks of about 6,000 caregivers who had never signed up for union membership. Later that same year, the Freedom Foundation filed a lawsuit on behalf of a group of Washington caregivers led by Miranda Thorpe demanding the state stop collecting dues unless authorized by the worker. Weak as the union’s case was, it still went all the way to the Washington State Supreme Court, and in May 2017 the justices ruled 9-0 that the unauthorized seizures were permitted by state law. The justices did not rule on whether the practice or the state law was actually constitutional. It didn’t take long for that question to be answered, though. In January 2018, SEE ABANDON PAGE 5
VOLUME 29 | ISSUE 10
Our mission is to advance individual liberty, free enterprise, and limited, accountable government.
[2]
LIVING LIBERTY
|
A PUBLI CAT I ON OF T HE FREED OM FOU NDATION
CONTENTS PAGE 4
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” ~ of the month ~
By TOM McCABE David Rolf is Out at SEIU 775, and No Doubt About It, You Helped Make It Happen.
THE CASE FOR FREEDOM By TIM PEARCE Reprinted from THE DAILY CALLER Settlement: Conservatives Win Biggest Victory Against Unions Since Janus. By MATT HAYWARD Reprinted from THE DAILY WORLD Latest Setback for Transparency Stains County.
PAGE 5
LITIGATING FREEDOM By CALEB JON VANDENBOS
Union Settles with Nurses, Returning $3,000 in Illegally Confiscated Dues.
What They Said & What They Meant PAGES 6-7 By JEFF RHODES
Dinesh D’Souza lauds Freedom Foundation at annual banquet as protesters underscore how devastatingly effective our efforts actually are.
CRUSHING IT
PAGE 8 OREGON UPDATE
By BOAZ DILLON Decline-to-Sign Gives Workers More Options.
DREW CHISTOPHER JOY
Executive Director, Southern Maine Workers’ Center
“Janus is a recent Supreme Court case that ruled that public workers who are protected by a union can’t be forced (to pay) union dues. The ruling was huge blow to public workers that paints a grim picture of what’s to come for other workers. It’s likely that the Supreme Court will have an opportunity go one step further and apply the same logic to public-sector workers. And it’s likely that Brett Kavanaugh would cast the deciding vote.”
Nothing in this publication should be construed as an attempt to aid or hinder the election of any elected official or candidate.
By JEFF RHODES Lawsuit Calls for Refund of Illegally Collected Agency Fees.
PAGE 9
BEST OF THE BLOG
PAGE 10
FREEDOM IN ACTION
By JEFF RHODES Worker Freedoms, Not Unions, Worth Marking on Labor Day. By JAMI LUND How Far Public Employee Rights Have Come. Freedom Foundation’s Friends, Foes Weigh in On Our Actions.
PAGE 11
FREEDOM IN THE NEWS
By STEPHEN W. MOSIER
Reprinted from CLARKCOUNTYINFO.com
Teachers Strike Illegally with Impunity — and with Reckless Pride.
PAGE 12
ACTION TIMELINE
|
A PUBLI CATION OF THE FREED OM FOU NDATION
3
DAVID ROLF IS OUT AT SEIU 775, AND NO DOUBT ABOUT IT,
YOU HELPED MAKE IT HAPPEN
D
avid Rolf, once considered the Golden Boy of the Service Employees International Union — if not the entire U.S. labor movement — was ousted in disgrace last month from his post as president of Washington state’s SEIU 775, one of the most corrosive labor unions in the nation. Take a bow for making it possible. Or at least partially possible. To be sure, Rolf’s own bungling, not to mention his being corrupt right down to his DNA, was an enormous help. But don’t ignore the role you played through your steadfast support of the Freedom Foundation in Rolf’s downfall. To the surprise of no one, of course, both Rolf and the union are lying about the reasons for his departure. In a press release issued by SEIU 775 under Rolf’s name, the move is characterized as his “retirement,” although he’s only 48, in good health and not wealthy (far wealthier than he should be, I might add, given that every cent he was ever paid was skimmed from the paycheck someone who actually worked for it). According to the union statement: “I’m leaving because, back in its infancy, our union had the foresight and courage to adopt term limits for its top elected leaders.” That’s a lie. If Rolf actually gave a damn about the term limits originally established by the union’s bylaws, he would have relinquished control over SEIU 775 four years ago. The union’s bylaws originally set a term limit of 12 years, and having been appointed (not elected, mind you) to his position in 2002, his term would have ended in 2014 but, with the blessing of SEIU’s national leadership, he ignored the rules and stayed on for another four years. And don’t kid yourself, he’d still be on the job today if he still had the backing of his superiors. But apparently he doesn’t. How did he fall from grace so far and so fast? Let’s count the ways. n In 2016, SEIU 775 paid $21,857 to two groups that just happened to employ Rolf’s wife, Kylie. SEIU’s ethics policy (who knew it had one?) prohibits staff from participating in “in any way in a decision (involving) a vendor, firm or other entity” in which their spouse has a financial interest. Rolf denied hiring his wife’s employers, but under SEIU 775 bylaws, he had “sole responsibility (for hiring) vendors and contractors (and to) authorize and make all expenditures” on the union’s behalf. n In an internal poll, SEIU employees described Local 775 as having a “toxic” and “unhealthy” work environment
and characterized its leadership under Rolf as “corrupt,” “despicable” and By TOM McCABE, CEO “disengaged.” n SEIU 775 organizers also reported being ordered to lie to workers if that’s what it took to enroll them in the union and keep them paying dues forever. According to sworn testimony, this even included instructing telephone canvassers to make sure their prey uttered the word “yes” at some point in the conversation, so the union could splice together a tape in which the worker appeared to give verbal consent to having his or her paycheck plundered. n In court records for a Freedom Foundation lawsuit, one of Rolf’s most trusted lieutenants admitted the union at one point was receiving up to 300 opt-out requests a day — requests it did not honor, on Rolf’s instruction. I could go on, but you get the idea. Rolf and the union he ran with an iron fist for 16 years are nothing but parasites draining the life blood from thousands of government employees in Washington state, including some of the most needy and deserving imaginable. SEIU 775, in fact, was originally created — and Rolf handpicked as its ringleader — after SEIU’s national leaders devised a scheme to siphon off billions of dollars earmarked for low-income disabled Americans by requiring their caregivers to join a labor union. But here’s the thing: If the only skeleton in Rolf’s closet was a legacy of abuse, dishonesty and corruption, he’d still be running the show at SEIU 775. No doubt all those things were written into his job description. The union could tolerate that. What it couldn’t tolerate was Rolf’s failure to crush the Freedom Foundation. How could a tiny organization based far from the spotlight in Washington state become a national force in the right-to-work movement that culminated this summer with the Janus v. AFSCME ruling? How could the Freedom Foundation turn his home state into the national model for union resistance? How could it all happen under Rolf’s very nose, despite his best efforts to finish us off? The answer is, it happened because of you — and you should be immensely proud it did.
LEADERSHIP
MEMO
LIVING LIBERTY
“
The union could tolerate (Rolf’s legacy of abuse, dishonesty and corruption). What it couldn’t tolerate was his failure to crush the Freedom Foundation.
”
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 the future generations. Every gift is an investment in the future.
COMPLETE AND MAIL THE REPLY ENVELOPE
4
LIVING LIBERTY
|
A P U BL IC AT I ON OF T HE FREEDOM FOUNDAT I ON
THE CASE FOR FREEDOM SEIU 775 SETTLEMENT CONSERVATIVES WIN ‘BIGGEST VICTORY’ AGAINST UNIONS SINCE SUPREME COURT RULING CONCERNING MANDATORY DUES By TIM PEARCE Reprinted from the THE DAILY CALLER
D
emocratic strongholds deducted nearly $150 million from Medicaid caregivers’ payments and handed them to labor unions in 2017, according to a report released by the Freedom Foundation. A Washington state labor union has agreed to stop skimming dues out of the paychecks of home healthcare workers caring for patients with Medicaid, according to the Freedom Foundation. The Freedom Foundation, a freemarket think tank based in Olympia and boasting offices in Oregon and California, filed a federal class-action lawsuit against Washington state and local 775 of the Service Employees International Union (SEIU) in July. The lawsuit stemmed from the state
taking union due payments out of Medicaid payments to the home health care workers on behalf of their clients. Other states stopped the practice in 2014 after the Supreme Court ruled in Harris v. Quinn that deducting union dues without the express consent of the home healthcare worker was unconstitutional. The dues, known as “agency fees” for
workers not explicitly members of the union, were meant to cut down on so-called “free-riding,” or benefiting from collective bargaining without financing the union’s activities. “It’s difficult to understate how brazen unions like SEIU can be when it comes to taking other people’s money,” Freedom Foundation Director of Labor Policy Maxford Nelsen told The Daily Caller. “In this case, it took two U.S. Supreme Court decisions and a federal class-action lawsuit just to get SEIU 775 to stop seizing 3.2 percent of caregivers’ wages without their permission. And the complicity of the state in this scheme is frankly disgusting.” The Supreme Court doubled down on the 2014 ruling earlier in 2018. The court ruled in Janus v. AFSCME that requiring any public-sector worker to pay union dues or fees as a prerequisite for holding a job is unconstitutional. “The Janus decision had consequences beyond freeing public employees from having to financially support a union,” Nelsen said. “This is probably the biggest secondary victory for workers we’ve seen yet stemming from the Janus case.” The courtroom victory is the first of its kind to come since Janus was decided, boding badly for any future union or state action aimed at making workers pay union dues without express consent.
LATEST SETBACK FOR TRANSPARENCY STAINS COUNTY By MATTHEW HAYWARD Reprinted from THE DAILY WORLD August 28, 2018
F
or the past three years, two Grays Harbor commissioners have chosen to block a vote that would have allowed taxpayers to determine whether their hardearned dollars were actually being protected or frittered away during collective bargaining sessions with the unions representing county workers. Commissioner Wes Cormier has been the one voice to stand up for transparency and openness. On all three occasions, however, his calls for a vote to open these meetings failed to get a second. Since the remaining two commissioners desperately want these meetings to be secretive, the logical question is why? What goes on during these negotiating sessions they don’t want you to see? Which side benefits more from closed-door meetings, the city or the unions? More to the point, is there a healthy adversarial relationship in the first place, or are the negotiations being conducted between unions on one side of the table and politicians who’ve accepted campaign contributions from unions on the other? During July’s meeting, labor bosses attended from other counties and made their same tired, nonsensical arguments for why collective bargaining sessions should be exempted from public meeting laws that require all government activity be open to the people paying for it.
Grays Harbor Commissioner Wes Cormier.
One thing has been made clear by the fierce opposition of the unions: Union leaders believe they have an advantage by negotiating in private. If this is true, it follows that the commissioners siding with the union bosses believe this is a good thing. Commissioner Vickie Raines, who has opposed transparency for the past three years, said, “I know what human nature is like, and I think that there are times when you need to have the doors closed so you can talk frankly about issues.” This is pure sophistry. If one side or the other is behaving badly during the negotiations, it’s an argument for why the proceedings should be made public. After all, it’s the public’s money
Freedom Foundation photo.
that’s being haggled over. Cormier responded, “I ran on transparency, and that’s why I proposed it. For me, it’s about transparency in the (county’s) budget. Salaries and benefits make up 75 percent of our budget, and that is done behind closed doors. For me, all of the details, I think, need to be in public view.” Cormier wanted to open the discussion for debate and give his colleagues an opportunity to defend their opposition to what the majority of taxpayers have called for. However, according to the other two county commissioners, it is necessary to continue to negotiate the county budget behind the backs of the taxpayers. For the third consecutive year, two of Grays Harbor Commissioners, Raines and Ross, have thumbed their noses at the rights and wishes of the public
to make local government more transparent and accountable. Union representatives argue they will have problems with “disruption” and “intimidation” from the public if negotiations are made public, but they have things backwards. Absent the moderating influence of public scrutiny, union intimidation is a much more likely possibility; and if our elected representatives capitulate to it, we have every right to know. A 2017 Elway Research poll made it abundantly clear the majority of Washingtonians want transparency. Apparently, however, the voters’ wishes are not even open for debate with the Grays Harbor County commissioners. As Washington State’s Open Public Meeting Act clearly states: “The people of this state do not yield their sovereignty to the agencies which serve them. The people, in delegating authority, do not give their public servants the right to decide what is good for the people to know and what is not good for them to know. The people insist on remaining informed so that they may retain control over the instruments they have created.” Two-thirds of its commissioners have sent a clear message who pulls the strings in Grays Harbor County, and it’s not the taxpayers. Matthew Hayward is outreach director for the Freedom Foundation, an Olympia-based think tank that has urged jurisdictions all over Washington to open collective bargaining sessions to the public.
LIVING LIBERTY
|
A PUBLI CATION OF THE FREED OM FOU NDATION
LITIGATING FREEDOM UNION SETTLES WITH NURSES, RETURNING $3,000 IN ILLEGALLY CONFISCATED FEES
I
n 2017, seven nurses from Harborview Medical Center took issue with the fees they were paying SEIU 1199NW every month in lieu of full union dues. The law has long recognized it violates a worker’s Constitutional rights to confiscate dues and use that money to fund political candidates and causes he or she doesn’t support. In such cases, the employee was permitted to opt out of full dues, but the union could still deduct from his or her wages an “agency fee” that excluded the worker’s share of what it was spending on political activity. SEIU 1199NW, however, was still spending the nurses’ agency fees to organize other employee groups in completely different industries, on defensive activities meant to maintain the union’s existence and ideologically charged litigation—all of which have been declared unconstitutional. The Harborview nurses expressed dissatisfaction with the quality of SEIU’s representation and filed a lawsuit over the union’s calculation of the fees it was charging them. The Freedom Foundation represented the workers pro bono in the matter and, rather than go to court and risking a humiliating defeat, union leaders grudgingly agreed they would submit to binding arbitration. SEIU evaded arbitration—and justifying its fee calculation scheme—by simply agreeing to refund the workers’ money. This was the right thing to do, but the union apparently learned nothing from the experience because it resumed deducting fees from the nurses in 2018. The nurses, again represented by the Freedom Foundation, this past spring filed a second lawsuit against SEIU 1199NW in federal district court for violating their First Amendment rights. Originally, the suit demanded only an accounting of the fee calculation and return of any monies illegally taken. But in the wake of the Janus v. AFSCME
ABANDON CONTINUED FROM PAGE 1
the U.S. Supreme Court heard oral arguments in Janus v. AFSCME, the landmark case in which the justices ruled that all public employees — not just the small subset affected by Harris — had a Constitutional right to opt out and pay their designated union nothing. But the ruling went even farther. Borrowing language almost word for word from an amicus brief submitted by the Freedom Foundation, Justice Samuel Alito’s majority opinion in Janus also made clear that paying dues represents a waiver of the worker’s rights — a waiver that must be made knowingly and voluntarily. The Freedom Foundation was quick to revisit the issue. Just weeks after the Janus decision, Freedom Foundation attorneys filed a class-action lawsuit in the United States District Court for the Western District of Washington seeking the repayment of money illegally seized from providers. The plaintiffs and class
5
What They
&
What They What she said: “Get rid of the Freedom Foundation forever. Koch brothers. Traitors.”
By CALEB JON VANDENBOS, Litigation Counsel ruling, in which the U.S. Supreme Court banned mandatory union dues or fees of all kinds, the Freedom Foundation’s attorneys amended the complaint to also demand the union restore all fees skimmed from the nurses since they had become objectors. The suit also demanded the union no longer deduct fees without their affirmative consent. Because of the Janus precedent, the union had no choice but to settle the case; it returned the forced fees to the nurses and agreed to exact no more fees without their consent. This case follows directly from the Supreme Court’s decision in Janus, where the court specifically held that state employees must give affirmative and knowing consent before a union can withdraw dues. The court’s Janus decision was a strong affirmation of the First Amendment right to be free from forced speech and association; we expect to see many more wins like this in the future.
members all had a portion of their wages illegally seized by the state of Washington on behalf of SEIU 775 without their consent. The lawsuit, Schumacher v. Inslee, was filed because Washington Gov. Jay Inslee and the union illegally deducted money from thousands of providers — all of whom are entitled to the return of their hard-earned wages. And this time, the union saw the handwriting on the law. On Aug. 3, the state and the SEIU 775 signed a memorandum of understanding modifying the dues deduction process in the existing collective bargaining agreement and removing language requiring the automatic deductions. Instead, the state will now only collect dues from caregivers’ wages “upon proper authorization by a home care worker.” With the stroke of a pen, 6,000 workers from whom the union had been illegally deducting dues for years had their First Amendment rights to decide for themselves returned. And at an average of $600 a year in dues, that represents a potential loss of $3.6 million the
union will never see again. In a not-unrelated move, longtime SEIU 775 President David Rolf on Aug. 7 announced his “retirement,” citing a 12year term limit provision in the bylaws he’d already ignored four years ago. At just 48, Rolf claims to be in good health, but the union he’s leaving behind isn’t. SEIU 775 and its culture of corruption have been the subject of numerous allegations in recent years. Combined with the potential of the Janus ruling to blow a huge hole in the its funding stream, either Rolf or the union obviously decided it was time to end their association.. The union’s national leadership, which considered Rolf one of its rising stars just a few months ago, couldn’t have been pleased that the Freedom Foundation emerged as perhaps the most prominent policy organization in the nation in the fight to see Janus decided — despite the best efforts of Rolf and his henchmen to destroy us first. But his bungling of first Thorpe then Schumacher must have been the final straw.
What she meant: “I’ve been spouting union talking points so long I’ve forgotten that it’s only BLANCHE treaon when I MANKIEWICZ I betray my Ocean Shores country, not my Facebook post union. And the Aug. 25, 2018. Supreme Court just ruled that the Freedom Foundation is upholding the Constitution while my union is violating it. Maybe I should think again about who the real traitors are.” n n n
She said: “I think the Freedom Foundation is responsible for the division in this country.” She meant: “In my limited vocabulary, ‘division,’ means anything MERCY FRAASE I don’t Tacoma, agree with. Facebook Post, So in that Aug. 24, 2018 sense, the Freedom Foundation, which advocates for policies that expose my union’s corruption, is very much a threat to ‘divide’ the public from our lies.” n n n
She said: “I don’t expect our membership to slip. Union members in Oregon, not just in AFSCME, understand the value of coming together and having a collective voice.” She meant: “Sure they do. That’s why pub- STACY CHAMBERLAIN Executive Director, lic-sector AFSCME Council 75 unions in this Oregon Public state have Broadcasting article July 29, 2018 spent millions of our members’ dues dollars to file frivolous lawsuits and create a spinoff organization whose job is to do nothing but dream up lies about the Freedom Foundation. The truth will set you free, which is why you’re never going to hear it from me.”
6
LIVING LIBERTY
|
A P U BL IC AT I ON OF T HE FREEDOM FOUNDAT I ON
CRUSHING IT
Dinesh D’Souza lauds Freedom Foundation at annual banquet as protesters underscore how devastatingly effective our efforts are.
I
n the ongoing struggle against the “gangster-like” tactics of the political Left, Dinesh D’Souza relishes warriors who aren’t afraid to occasionally play by the same rules and with the same passion. Organizations like the Freedom Foundation, for example. “The reason I like the Freedom Foundation,” he said, “is it doesn’t try to do everything. It focuses on something it knows and crushes it.” D’Souza, the internationally recognized scholar, author, commentator, documentary film producer and critic of all things liberal, was the keynote speaker on Sept. 28 at the Freedom Foundation’s annual banquet at the Hilton Bellevue. “I want to endorse what the Freedom Foundation is doing and encourage you to support them,” he told attendees. “You don’t have to be on the front lines, but you have to support the team that is.” The sold-out event was, of course, accompanied by a raucous protest organized and subsidized by state labor unions and the usual liberal suspects. None of which phased the enthusiastic crowd inside in the slightest. “The Freedom Foundation engages the fight on different levels,” D’Souza said. “It
By JEFF RHODES, Managing Editor
engages on all fronts.” D’Souza weighed in on a wide variety of topics, including the history of slavery, his grudging admiration for President Trump, the protracted Supreme Court confirmation battle and his own brief incarceration for minor campaign finance violations. But his most searing observations were reserved for organized labor and its corrupt relationship with liberal organizations. D’Souza connected the dots between slave-owning Democrats of the 1860s and the “mafia-like” practice of compulsory membership and dues of the 2000s. Both, he noted, were based on the principle of theft. “You work, I eat,” D’Souza said. “When you profit by someone else’s labor, you’re essentially stealing it.” The Freedom Foundation, he stressed, is part of the solution. “If we don’t do it, it won’t get done,” D’Souza said. “And it’s groups like the Freedom Foundations that are on the front lines of that battle. Be part of that battle.”
Dinesh D’Souza was at his take-no-prisoners best.
RIGHT: The unions’ inflatable rat and pig made their traditional appearance at the banquet, as if the actions of the protesters themselves weren’t sufficiently carnival-like. ABOVE: Freedom Foundation CEO Tom McCabe makes his annual “state-of-the-union-busting” speech to the guests.
LIVING LIBERTY
|
A PUBLI CATION OF THE FREED OM FOU NDATION
LEFT, BELOW AND BELOW LEFT: As has become a tradition during the Freedom Foundation’s annual banquet, around 400 protesters were recruited and paid by union organizers to disrupt the proceedings. Instead, they simply provided a closeup look at the kind of people we’re fighting against and a vivid illustration of why we’re beating them so handily.
LEFT: Freedom Foundation Outreach Director Matt Hayward shares a laugh with a banquet attendee. ABOVE: Labor Policy Director Max Nelsen (from the rear) visits with a guest before the banquet.
7
8
LIVING LIBERTY
|
A P U BL IC AT I ON OF T HE FREEDOM FOUNDAT I ON
DECLINE-TO-SIGN GIVES WORKERS MORE OPTIONS
S
ince the U.S. Supreme Court’s ruling during June in Janus v. AFSCME, public-sector unions have become desperate, even resorting to bullying new public employees into signing membership cards with deceptive fine print. SEIU 503’s membership card, for example, states that the membership is “irrevocable.” Meanwhile, AFSCME only allows a 10-day window in which a member might be able to opt out — an opportunity that arrives after their first year of membership. Currently, the unions are frightened and attempting to make it as hard as possible for their members to leave. In the past, the Freedom Foundation has led a “decline-to-sign” campaign targeting new home healthcare workers at their orientations. While at these orientations, union reps are permitted to deliver a bogus spiel and then coerce the new Medicaid employees to sign nearly irrevocable union membership cards authorizing unions to skim dues from their paychecks. While union reps use these events as an opportunity to deceive home healthcare providers, the Freedom Foundation sees them as a forum to present facts. Notifying workers of their rights under Harris v. Quinn, can help ensure
By BOAZ DILLON, Labor Policy Analyst
workers make an informed decision before putting their signature on a membership agreement. The Freedom Foundation once again saw an opportunity to end this quagmire by launching a decline-tosign campaign targeted at new public employees across the state. Last week, the Oregon office sent out
Oregon Update
Highlighting the successes being realized by the Freedom Foundation’s office in the Beaver State.
messaging to thousands of public employees recently hired by the state. The material not only notified them of their new constitutional rights under Janus, but also warned them to be aware of the the deceitful language on the membership cards. Our experience in the four years since Harris has shown that too few public employees are aware of their right to leave the union. And in the two months since Janus, unions are employing the same strategy of suppression and misinformation. Many workers are misled into believing they have no choice but to support a union and warned that if they do opt out, their health insurance, for example, will cost $400 a month instead of $40. These lies, of course, come from their union reps desperate to maintain a status quo that no longer exists. With the decline-to-sign campaign, we will see a new wave of public employees not signing union membership cards and going their whole career in the public sector without having to pay union dues. In time, public-sector employees will see through the lies their union reps told them about opting out. This realization will not only empower current union members to opt out, but also encourage new employees to not join in the first place. Decline-to-sign could begin a domino effect of both new and longtime public employees exercising their constitutional rights.
LAWSUIT CALLS FOR REFUND OF ILLEGALLY TAKEN AGENCY FEES
T
he Freedom Foundation and the Washington, D.C.-based National Right to Work Legal Defense Foundation are continuing to apply the precedent in this summer’s Janus ruling to hold public-sector unions accountable for millions of dollars’ worth of illegal fee deductions over the years On Sept. 20, attorneys for the two nonprofit organizations filed a class-action lawsuit, Chambers v. AFSCME, in U.S. District Court in Portland against Oregon’s three largest government-employee unions and their affiliates, alleging scores of workers who have successfully opted out of full union participation are entitled to a refund of the so-called “agency fees” they were forced to pay in lieu of monthly dues. A ruling in favor of the 12 named plaintiffs and class members could cost the named unions — Service Employees International Union (SEIU) 503, the Oregon Education Association
By JEFF RHODES, Managing Editor
and the American Federation of State, Local and Municipal Employees (AFSCME) Local 75 and their affiliates — millions. “In 1977, the U.S. Supreme Court (in Abood v. Detroit Board of Education) recognized it was a violation of public employees’ First Amendment rights to force them to join a union and pay dues that were used to fund political positions they didn’t agree with,” explained Aaron Withe, director of the Freedom Foundation’s Oregon operations. In June, however, the current court ruled in Janus v. AFSCME that: n public-sector collective bargaining is inherently political; n mandatory union fees of any kind violate the First Amendment; and, n forced fees represent a “windfall
that unions have received” for decades, noting that, “(I)t is hard to estimate how many billions of dollars have been taken from nonmembers and transferred to public-sector unions in violation of the First Amendment.” On that basis, the lawsuit asserts the unions violated the rights of every employee who opted out but was still charged mandatory union fees found to be unconstitutional in Janus. “The statute of limitations limits the number of years workers can seek and receive back fees,” Withe said. “But they’re entitled to every penny of what they can recover, and we’re aggressively working to make sure they get it. “It’s bad enough to put the demands of the unions ahead of the rights of the workers,” he said. “But making the workers pay protection money to the same unions that are victimizing them is just wrong. It’s long since time this injustice was exposed and ended.”
LIVING LIBERTY
|
A PUBLI CATION OF THE FREED OM FOU NDATION
9
BEST OF THE BLOG WORKER FREEDOM, NOT UNIONS, WORTH MARKING ON LABOR DAY August 29, 2018
A
s is the case every year, Labor Day marks the unofficial end of summer. But this year, the celebration marks the end of something far more meaningful — mandatory union dues and their evil doppelganger, so-called agency fees, for thousands of government workers all over the country. The sense of relief is almost palpable in Washington state, despite the fact that the very government we expect to enforce our laws and protect our rights stubbornly continues to prioritize the demands of a powerful special interest above those of its own public employees. In late June, the U.S. Supreme Court issued a ruling in Janus v. the American Federation of State, County & Municipal Workers (AFSCME) reinforcing numerous earlier decisions that found compulsory dues and union membership violated government employees’ First Amendment rights when those dues are used to fund a political agenda the worker doesn’t support. But this time, the court went further. In Janus, the justices also ruled that unions cannot simply re-label dues as “agency fees” and continue to demand that workers who’ve opt outed of full union membership subsidize a collective bargaining process to which they don’t wish to be a party. And just for good measure, the ruling also specifies that unions can no longer simply assume a worker wants to be a member — and pay dues — until he or she states otherwise. Justice Samuel Alito, writing for the majority, emphasized that paying dues
By JEFF RHODES, Managing Editor
necessarily involves waiving one’s First Amendment rights, a concession not to be taken lightly. Consequently, Janus makes clear that workers must affirmatively — and knowingly — declare their allegiance to the union before dues can be deducted for any purpose. Janus shines a light on union abuses and puts the focus of the Labor Day holiday back where it belongs — on the workers and the work they do rather than on a private entity that claims to represent its members but instead functions as little more than the funding mechanism of the political left using someone else’s money. Janus wasn’t the first court ruling to put the rights of individual workers ahead of the naked political power wielded by public-sector unions, nor will it be the last. No doubt there are many legal hurdles left to be cleared before government employees are treated like human beings with Constitutional rights rather than piggy banks to be plundered. Still, Janus is a landmark ruling precisely because, unlike too many of its legal precedents, it splits no hairs and cuts no deals. From now on, unions will have to earn the loyalty of their members rather than simply being handed the right to pillage what others have earned without their consent. If there was ever a reason for Washingtonians to truly celebrate on Labor Day, this is it. And Janus is the reason.
HOW FAR PUBLIC EMPLOYEE RIGHTS HAVE COME August 23, 2018
A
ug. 20 was “Employee Freedom Week,” and the nation certainly has much to celebrate this year on that score. However, the injustice of forcing public employees to fund a private, ideological special interest group as a condition of serving the public is an embarrassing but undeniable blemish on U.S. history. Consider that as recently as 1959 the very idea of collective bargaining for public employees was not only unthinkable, it was also illegal. It was clearly understood that public employees are not victims of exploiting capitalists, but are hired by the public itself. They perform responsibilities so important that citizens who refuse to pay for them used to be penalized severely. The injustice public employees faced was the system of patronage, under which an elected director of an agency would fire all public employees and replace them with friends and relatives. This injustice was blocked with reforms adopting “civil service” laws assuring continuing contracts and systematic pay schedules for public employees. These kinds of laws have existed for more than 100 years and were created for Washington public employees from the 1930s through the 1960s. Not until 1967 was collective bargaining for public employees even possible in Washington. At that time, it was limited to various decisions unrelated to wages. The idea of negotiations including public budget obligations on wages was absurd. How could a private, self-interested group circumvent the elected policy-
By JAMI LUND, Senior Policy Analyst
making process to establish budget priorities of the public agency? A recent conversation with an employee who was thrilled about the new Janus v. AFSCME decision illustrated the absurdity. She was employed by the agency created to assist with keeping people employed, the “Employment Security Department.” She hadn’t asked for the union to intervene in her work arrangement and had no interest in joining or paying for this small faction of agitators with its odd views and aggressive agenda. She received a letter and then an email from her agency’s assistant commissioner notifying her she was to be fired along with 70 others for declining to fund the union. A private special interest—allegedly dedicated to the cause of workers—had become so powerful that it could make the government agency responsible for employment security fire people for refusing to pay. The woman did join, but has resented the injustice ever since. To her, the Janus v. AFSCME decision was the end to a brief but real era of oppression. The court’s finding that important Constitutional rights were being trampled by the union’s scheme was very true. She is now free to return to the employment arrangement she enjoyed up to 2005, and she no longer funds a voice she does not agree with.
I would like to thank all the good, hard-working people at the Freedom Foundation for helping me obtain religious objector status. I am an employee for the state of Oregon who has worked at the Department of Revenue for 35 years. As a Christian, my beliefs dictate who I vote for and support. SEIU used my dues to endorse and support political candidates whose beliefs were in direct opposition to my faith. Thank you to the Freedom Foundation for all your support, hard work and efforts on my behalf. I will always be proud of my religious objector status and celebrate the Janus decision by the U.S. Supreme Court allowing others the right to leave their union. My challenge with SEIU was absolutely worth the fight because there is no better feeling than to stand for your principles. Thanks to all those at the Freedom Foundation who have helped me and others who cannot possibly fight the union on their own. The Freedom Foundation will forever have my gratitude. You are all the best. God bless America and God bless the Freedom Foundation. BETH STUCKART n n n
SEIU called me several times, emails me and sends me mail warning me that the Freedom Foundation is going to call me and harass me. I have never been called by the Freedom Foundation; it is the union that is harassing me. I have gotten a couple of emails from the Freedom Foundation, and they were very positive. I looked into everything the Freedom Foundation said in the emails and everything checked out as true. I gave it a lot of thought, and I have no regrets opting out. BILL ZUCCONI n n n
SEEN IN BELLEVUE
As has been the case for a number of years now, local unions and liberal activists provided entertainment during the Freedom Foundation’s annual banquet on Sept. 28 by stanging a circus-like protest. These signs were among the most printable.
10
LIVING LIBERTY
|
A P U BL IC AT I ON OF T HE FREEDOM FOUNDAT I ON
FREEDOM IN ACTION TEACHERS STRIKE ILLEGALLY WITH IMPUNITY — AND RECKLESS PRIDE By STEPHEN W. MOSIER Reprinted from CLARK COUNTY.info
August 24, 2018
A
cross Washington state, teachers have voted to strike at the beginning of the school year to force higher wage increases. At this point, the question of whether the pay increases sought are reasonable or not is secondary to the issue of the ongoing and ever-increasing willingness a majority of the teachers to openly flaunt the law to achieve their ends. The question becomes, do the ends justify the means? The teachers have decided they do, and they’ve said so with the same arrogance and pride of any other brand of righteous ideologues who, because of their perception that there will be no penalty for their unlawful actions, they can do as they will to get what they want. Indeed, in 2015 the Washington state-funded Harry Bridges Center for Labor Studies at the University of Washington (UW) co-sponsored a panel celebrating two recent strikes by public school teachers in Seattle and Pasco. Maxford Nelsen, writing for the Freedom Foundation in December 2015, noted that the event was described on the Bridges Center’s event page — as written by UW political science professor George Lovell, who moderated the panel — as follows: “In September at the beginning of the school year teachers in both Seattle and Pasco won two big strikes. Despite court injunctions and negative press, both strikes were successful. Their wins were not just wins for teachers, or workers, or unions, but for public education in Washington State. Seattle and Pasco teachers have shown they are on the front lines fighting against market based reforms in our school. (sic) Come to this panel discussion to hear the voices of Pasco and Seattle teachers as they reflect on the strike and look to the future.” As Nelsen correctly noted in his article, “According to Lovell’s world view, strikes are an end unto themselves, regardless of their legality or effects on students and families.” Speaking at the celebration Greg Olson, president of the Pasco Association of Educators (PAE) had this to say about the relative impunity with which they violated the law: “We went out for nine days. Very tough nine days. And we had a court injunction right off the bat, the very first day. We ended up getting fined $5,600, which was a lot of money. And this is the first time, I believe. Most times when you get these fines, the court gives it back to you when
they’re done. Once you settle and you get everything done they say, ‘OK we’ll just forget it and go.’ This judge, for some reason, did not do that. So we ended up paying $5,600. We did not get it back. But I think it was a good $5,600 for us. What was nice was that it was a union bill, it wasn’t an individual bill.” Really? They embarrass a local judge by arrogantly ignoring the court order for nine days and cannot understand why the judge would not say, “Aw, shucks, kids, let’s just forget about it?” Still, the $5,600 was not, as Olson whined, a lot of money. It was just a token by which the judge hoped to vindicate the court’s power to demand its orders be followed. Considering the deep pockets of the WEA and the NEA, the state and national organizations lending support to the striking local affiliates, the fine amounted to nothing. Looked at another way, $5,600 is less than the annual property tax levied on my home–over half of which goes to fund public education. Perhaps the taxpayers should be the ones going on strike. (Though we should not expect to enjoy the same impunity from the law which the teachers have grown to expect.) At the same event, Sarah Arvey, president of Seattle Education Association (SEA), delivered pats on all their backs for, “leading by example.” As this excerpt of her largely incoherent comments shows: “I see the most significant gain as the message that we’re sending to students. My number one most important, kind of, moment or thoughts around the strike are:
We’re leading by example. So we’re showing students that, you know, we—at school, they deserve a certain type of education and we deserve certain, you know, as teachers, we have certain workers’ rights that need to be, um, what’s the word I’m looking for? I don’t know. Don’t worry, I’m a language arts teacher. It’s totally my thing. But, you know, we deserve to have our rights and students deserve to have their rights…”
Students are being taught that anarchy works and contempt for the law is morally acceptable and to be socially applauded — something to be proud of, as long as it gets you what you think you deserve. The teachers voting to strike in district after district — not only in Clark County but across the state — is precisely the “future” those celebrating their unlawful activities in 2015 were looking forward to. The question now, for the law-abiding members of our communities, is, “What, if anything, can we do about it? At the moment, we can do very little in the way of direct action to stop the strikes, and even less toward holding the teachers and their unions directly accountable for the contempt of the law and chaos they are willing to inflict on the first and following days of the school year. But little does not mean complete inaction. We can put pressure on the school boards to immediately obtain injunctions from the courts. The pressure can come in the form of emails, calls and even picketing at the schools to express popular outrage at what is becoming institutionalization of anarchist behavior by public employees. We can take our protests to the news media, talk radio and every other outlet at our disposal. This we should be doing now and not cease until the law is obeyed by those we hire to teach our children. Next, we can demand through all the usual avenues of petitioning for resolution of our grievances that the Legislature fix the state statutes that — while declaring that public unions have no right to strike — fail to provide a penalty for doing so. We must demand they put teeth into the law. And we can by Citizen’s Initiative to the Legislature put the required teeth into the law ourselves. This will be neither easy nor cheap. But neither is the continued tolerance of the teachers and their unions considering themselves to be unaccountable to the law. Moreover, such tolerance of contempt for the laws is not healthy to a society dependent on the rule of law for long-term stability. We live in a constitutional republic. It’s time to teach the teachers what that means.
LIVING LIBERTY
|
A PUBLI CATION OF THE FREED OM FOU NDATION
11
FREEDOM IN THE NEWS ON AIR
Aug. 28, 2018
RIGHT TO WORK GROUPS TARGET MONTANA PUBLIC EMPLOYEE UNIONS “The Freedom Foundation, with offices in Washington, Oregon and California, is also offering help to Montana public employees drop their union memberships. It shares some of the same major conservative backers as the Mackinac Center, including the Donors Capital Fund whose mission is promoting private initiatives instead of government programs.” ONLINE
Aug. 26, 2018
SUPREME COURT’S JANUS RULING WILL END CASH COW FOR LIBERAL ACTIVISTS: EXPERTS “The Freedom Foundation is the main enemy that anti-union forces will use to spread their message. Their efforts center on public policy research and advocacy in the areas of state budget and tax policies, labor, welfare, health care and education reform, and citizenship and governance issues. For the last 27 years, the Freedom Foundation has been working in the Pacific Northwest to push anti-union legislation and convince union members to leave. Now they are taking that work national.”
IN PRINT
Aug. 28, 2018
JANUS LAWYERS THREATEN LAWSUIT OVER UNION DUES IN OREGON “Anti-worker groups like the Liberty Justice Center and the Freedom Foundation will continue to target SEIU 503 and other labor unions in Oregon because they know our members have strength in numbers, and through that strength, will continue to work toward a just and vibrant society.” ONLINE
Aug. 25, 2018
ARE YOU IN OR YOU OUT? TOP 10 REASONS TO BE A FULL UAPD MEMBER “If the Janus decision is adverse to public unions, we anticipate that big money and union-busting organizations like the Freedom Foundation will try to contact you. They will argue that you should drop your full membership and not pay any dues money for your union services. That makes no sense. Don’t listen to them. Your membership is critical to our union’s survival. Without your full membership and dues, we cannot provide you with a good contract and representation services. It’s time for us all to acknowledge the value of UAPD.”
12
LIVING LIBERTY
|
A P U BL IC AT I ON OF T HE FREEDOM FOUNDAT I ON
ACTION TIMELINE SPOTLIGHTING SOME OF THE FREEDOM FOUNDATION’S NOTEWORTHY ACCOMPLISHMENTS OF THE PAST MONTH
Sept. 3
Sept. 5
For the fifth year in a row, employees of the Freedom Foundation volunteered to work on the traditional Monday Labor Day holiday and instead take a day off the previous Friday to observe what they’ve dubbed Right to Work Day. “As always, we have the utmost respect for American workers and the work they do,” said Freedom Foundation CEO Tom McCabe. “We spend the rest of the year protecting workers’ rights to selfdetermination, and we wouldn’t want anyone accusing us of dropping our standard one day a year to honor an institution that exploits those same workers.”
Anticipating the heads of public agencies in Oregon would respond to the U.S. Supreme Court’s recent Janus ruling by, first, denying they’re affected by it and, second, feigning ignorance about how it works, the Freedom Foundation pre-emptively invalidating both excuses by producing a publication that explains in unequivocal terms exactly what their obligations are under the law. The publication, titled “A Workplace Guide to Janus v. AFSCME,” was mailed on Sept. 5 to more than 400 city, state, school and county human resources directors, as well as numerous elected officials.
Aug. 30 As of this week, 11,250 government employees in Washington, Oregon and California have left their union via the Freedom Foundation’s OptOutToday.com website, our call center and in-person visits. This doesn’t include the thousands more who’ve managed to defect by other means. It’s simply those who’ve won their freedom thanks to a unique collection of tools we provide for this express purpose. Assuming these employees pay an average of $1,000 a year in dues, it adds up to $11.3 million in revenues lost forever. That’s money the unions will never again be able to funnel to the far-left candidates and causes they support.
there’s nothing stopping DEL from releasing the information necessary for the Freedom Foundation to inform another group of government workers of Constitutional rights their own union is still determined to suppress. Sept. 20 The Freedom Foundation and the Washington, D.C.-based National Right to Work Legal Defense Foundation jointly filed a class-action lawsuit, Chambers v. AFSCME, in U.S. District Court in Portland against Oregon’s three largest government-employee unions and their affiliates, alleging scores of workers who have successfully opted out of full union participation are entitled to a refund of the so-called “agency fees” they were forced to pay in lieu of monthly dues. A ruling in favor of the 12 named plaintiffs and class members could cost the named unions — Service Employees International Union (SEIU) 503, the Oregon Education Association and the American Federation of State, Local and Municipal Employees (AFSCME) Local 75 and their affiliates — millions.
Sept. 18
Sept. 28
An Appeals Court judge in Thurston County ruled that contact information for the taxpayer-compensated workers is, in fact, covered under the state’s Public Records Act and must be made available to anyone filing a valid information request. The Freedom Foundation requested the childcare provider list from the Department of Early Learning in November 2016, but the agency was prevented from complying when SEIU 925, which represents the workers, filed an injunction. With this last obstacle cleared,
The Freedom Foundation held its annual banquet at the Hilton Bellevue with renowned scholar, author, TV commentator, documentary film producer and liberal provocateur Dinesh D’Souza as keynote speaker. The event attracted hundreds of delighted Freedom Foundation friends and supporters on the inside of the building as well as the customarily noisy protest on the sidewalk outside from unions and leftists of every stripe who feel their power and influence slipping away.
“The reason I like the Freedom Foundation is it doesn’t try to do everything. It focuses on something it knows and crushes it.” DINESH D’SOUZA SEPT. 28, 2018