Freedom matters issue01

Fall/Winter 2016

Volume 1, No. 1

Brewing UP A

Union

How SEIU broke every rule and law to create a new local and install as its president a radical who’s become one of the most powerful labor leaders in the U.S. A Publication of the Freedom Foundation

T

he United States is without question the most blessed nation in the history of this planet when it comes to the brilliance of its founders and the principles on which they established not only its unique form of government but the economy that would fuel its prosperous future.

Franklin, Jefferson, Adams, etc., were prominent men among their peers and could have selfishly drafted a set of laws that favored themselves and their friends - as the Founding Fathers of most nations up to that point in history had. Instead, they crafted a republic based on the notion that indivuals were born with rights that government can only restrict. And to protect these rights, they envisioned a strong, unwavering Constitution whose unequivocal language required little or no interpretation.

They believed in a “nation of laws, not men” because they knew human beings are flawed, but the ideals that undergird our laws are everlasting. Unfortunately, laws and standards are only as good as the flawed human beings who enforce them.

During the two centuries that have passed since the founders completed their magnificent work, succeeding generations of scoundrels have passed laws that either misapply the Constitution or ignore it altogether.

And when challenged, their actions are too often defended by equally corrupt judges and justices.

Sadly, we live in an age where for too many the Constitution, at best, is little more than an obstacle to be surmounted and, at worst, an antiquated relic of a bygone age that doesn’t have to be obeyed because its authors couldn’t have comprehended modern challenges.

No group personifies that disregard for rights and liberty more than the nation’s all-topowerful government employee unions, and the Freedom Foundation has made them a point of singular emphasis over the past three years.

If the subject matter of the articles in this magazine tends to reflect that emphasis, it’s hardly a coincidence.

At the Freedom Foundation, we revere not just the words but also the motivations of the great men who formed this nation, and our mission is to preserve their work in as nearly pristine a condition as possible.

This magazine is the latest weapon in the Freedom Foundation’s arsenal, and we hope its periodic collection of essays will both enrich the dialague of freedom and embolden those who endeavor to protect it.

Thanks for sharing our first issue.

Tom McCabe, CEO

Contents

Volume 1, No. 1

2. CEO’s Message:

22. Brewing up a Union

6. Sheep in Wolves’

26. Taking the Plunge

Freedom Matters is just the latest weapon in the Freedom Foundation’s growing arsenal as we work to promote free markets and limited, accountable government.

Clothing

How SEIU broke all the rules to create a whole new local out of thin air in Washington state so that one of its rising stars could have his own power base.

Thanks to an absurd clause in its charter, a Washington state agency requires non-union public works contractors to behave as though they were union shops.

First it was increasing the minimum wage, then it was mandatory paid sick leave, now flexible schedules are the pet cause of unions that never tire of creating new, expensive mandates for employers.

10. ‘Inalienable’ or

30. Public vs. Private

‘Unalienable’

The Founding Fathers couldn’t decide whether Jefferson or Adams’ wording was correct, and modern observers don’t think it matters. But it does.

14. Fixing Money, or Fixing Schools?

Before you can argue about how to fund education or what teaching method works best, you first have to decide what you want to accomplish when you’re finished.

18. Minimum Wage

It’s an issue on which proponents think they can make political hay.

But what makes good politics too often makes terrible policy.

Traditional private-sector unions have little in common with modern government employee unions, which explains why one is thriving and the other is dying off. So why do they keep acting like they’re on the same side?

34. Turning the

Tide of Liberty

The tidal wave of freedom from mandatory unionization that first built in Washington state and later swept into Oregon is poised to strike California as the Freedom Foundation continues its relentless expansion.

38. Action Timeline

An overview of some of the Freedom Foundation’s major accomplishments during the past six months.

Freedom Matters is a publication of the Freedom Foundation, a nonprofit think and action tank based in Olympia, Wash., dedicated to promoting free markets and limited, accountable government. Nothing in this publication should be construed as an attempt to aid or hinder passage of any ballot measures or the election of any elected official or candidate. Publisher: Tom McCabe; Editor: Jeff Rhodes. Phone: (360) 956-3482.

Wishing you a joyous holiday season and a New Year blessed with liberty and prosperity.

Sh in

Clo PAGE 6 n FREEDOM MATTERS

C

ompetition is the bedrock of free enterprise and the regulator of the price system. More than almost any other factor, competition drives innovation, productivity, quality, competitive pricing, inclusion and impartiality.

Monopolies are primarily characterized by the absence of competition and often lead to price-gouging, corruption and bullying.

Sound Transit, which builds and operates express bus, light rail and commuter train services serving Washington’s King, Pierce and Snohomish counties, has created just such a monopoly—one that would not exist without the authority conferred on a select group of unions over the supply of labor for Link light rail construction and Sounder commuter rail station contracts.

Known as a “Project Labor Agreement” or PLA, the agreement requires all contractors to hire workers through union hiring halls and strictly governs working conditions, apprenticeship and diversity requirements, wages and benefits.

In effect, nonunion contractors are required to behave as though they were unionized—thus canceling whatever competitive advantages they might have enjoyed by exercising their freedom of choice.

In November, voters in Sound Transit’s Regional Taxing District (RTA) were asked to authorize Phase 3 of Sound Transit’s expansion.

At $53.8 billion, the plan qualifies as one of the most expensive public works projects in modern U.S. history.

To be clear, Sound Transit is not a private company. As a government agency, it is primarily accountable to the

Convoluted project labor agreements (PLAs) force non-union firms to act like

region’s taxpayers. There are stakeholders, of course—unions, contractors, workers and private companies that would benefit from light rail expansion—but they’re not the parties to which Sound Transit owes its principal responsibility.

At the root of Sound Transit’s schizophrenic labor and competitive bidding policies is a deeply fractured understanding and adoption of the agency’s role. Sound Transit expects (or at least says it expects) to: • deliver a quality product and require 20 percent of all project hours to be apprenticeships; • encourage all contractors to participate in the bidding process and require them to sign off on onerous labor requirements; • urge women and minority contractors to bid and require them to forego their own loyal workforce in exchange for union labor control; • require minimum levels of women and minority labor participation and expect no labor shortage; and, • deliver a cost-effective product to taxpayers and impose labor policies requiring taxpayers to pay twice for fringe benefits.

Unfortunately, as a public entity, the political incentives for Sound Transit appear to outweigh the economic ones.

The agency’s decision to impose a mandatory PLA betrays the clear winner in the stakeholder battle — unions.

heep Wolf’s othing By

AMBER GUNN, Economic Policy Fellow

What is a PLA? A PLA is negotiated between the construction owner (in this case Sound Transit) and labor unions, with little or no input from the contractor.

Unlike a typical collective bargaining agreement in which a union negotiates with a contractor about wages and working conditions without a particular construction project in mind, a PLA is negotiated between the entity that controls the project (Sound Transit) and multiple unions that want to be the exclusive source of labor on the project.

FREEDOM MATTERS n PAGE 7

A PLA is sometimes voluntary, meaning a contractor may choose to become a party to the agreement or not.

More often than not—as in Sound Transit’s case—the agreement is government-mandated (GMPLA).

Both union and open shop (nonunion) contractors may bid, but whomever is awarded the contract must agree to abide by the terms of the PLA. Sound Transit’s PLA requires open shop contractors to operate nearly the same as union contractors. All craft employees are hired through union halls, and worker compensation passes through union trust accounts where fringe benefits earned during the life of the project are forfeited unless the employee joins a union and becomes vested in the plans.

Open shop workers must pay a representation fee equivalent to 94 percent of union dues.

It is essentially a “pre-hire” agreement in which the contractor agrees to follow specific union work rules, hire apprentices exclusively from union apprenticeship programs and pay into union benefit plans on behalf of employees even if they have their own qualified benefit programs.

The PLA’s History The Sound Transit Board authorized the agency’s first PLA in 1999.

Sound Transit defines it as “a standalone collective bargaining agreement that applies to Link light rail construction contracts and Sounder commuter rail station contracts.”

One of the stated purposes of Sound Transit’s PLA is “to promote fairness in employment for both union and non-union contractors and craft workers, without discrimination … The parties are committed to providing open access to bidding and employment opportunities for all contractors, prospective craft workers and other parties.”

There’s little dispute PLAs increase costs to open shop contractors. Sound Transit’s PLA study acknowledges administrative costs associated with PAGE 8 n FREEDOM MATTERS

jurisdictional and other specific PLA issues increase bid costs as much as 10 percent.

For example, extra costs are incurred due to: • compliance with shift differentials; • show up/reporting pay; • dual-benefit payments; and, • biannual prevailing wage adjustments.

However, PLA advocates argue that overall project cost savings or increases cannot be calculated.

To date there has not been a comprehensive study that definitively proves PLAs increase or decrease costs.

This conclusion is flawed.

The Beacon Hill Institute at Suffolk University, Boston, conducted regression analyses of PLA projects in Massachusetts, Connecticut, and New York, that calculated the anti-competitive nature of government-mandated PLAs coupled with increased labor costs and regulations for contractors increased contractor bids between 14 and 20 percent, and increased final construction costs ranging from 12 to 18 percent.

Critics who have run regressions of their own dismiss these findings, maintaining that because they can build a model in which the effects of PLAs are insignificant, there is no need to pay attention to models that show the opposite.

Regardless of where one falls on the spectrum of PLA cost effects in general, in Sound Transit’s case, there are known, quantifiable costs embraced within the PLA, namely dual benefit payments and biannual prevailing wage adjustments that exceed Davis-Bacon Act requirements.

To atone for what Sound Transit acknowledges is a discriminatory requirement for open shop contractors, the agency can either stop the reimbursements and force the contractor to bear the cost (pricing them out of the competition altogether) or simply eliminate the requirement that open shop contractors with qualified benefit plans also pay into union trust accounts.

PLAs: Who Gets the Benefits and Who Gets the Bi

Unions BENEFIT Because of: · Easy recruiting of new members, since all workers are required to be dispatched through union halls · Dues or representation fees collected from every worker on the project · Typically retains 35 to 45 percent of craft worker wages in trust accounts control most work rules and conditions · Apprentices must be hired only from union apprenticeship programs

What’s the Objective?

The question for taxpayers is whether they want an agency that is a fiduciary on behalf of taxpayers, or one that is a self-appointed arbiter of employee/employer relations and disputes.

Washington already has existing agencies to handle discrimination, prevailing wage, and worker safety disputes—issues the Sound Transit PLA is purported to solve.

Taxpayers DON’T because: · Fewer bids and less competition result in higher overall costs for projects. · Higher administrative, compliance and labor costs to contractors are passed onto taxpayers. · Dual benefit payments: Open shop contractors are reimbursed for the benefits they must pay into union trust accounts on behalf of employees even if they already pay for qualified plans (double benefit payments).

o ills?

Workers DON’T because: · They must pay union dues or representation fees, even if they do not want to participate in a union. · Open shop workers must prove they hold union-approved qualfications and must get in the union hiring line in order to work for their existing employer. · 35 to 45 percent of their earnings deducted on their behalf. Open shop workers will usually not work long enough to become vested, thus forfeiting any benefits earned. · They are subject to union jurisdictional rules. Working across crafts is not allowed.

A mandatory PLA puts the owner and the unions in charge of dictating all of the working conditions and terms, even though the contractor is ultimately responsible for upholding them.

There is a better, more inclusive, more competitive and more cost-effective model that does not involve force.

The Associated General Contractors of Washington, whose contractor members are roughly half union and half open shop, has developed an “Open Competition Project Stabilization Agreement” based on successful agreements used to deliver projects such as Denver’s Stapleton Airport, the Maryland Harbor Tunnel and the Baltimore Ravens Stadium.

Contractors DON’T because: · Local Collective Bargaining Agreements established with union contractors are superseded by the PLA. · Open-shop contractors may only bring up to five previous employees in each craft, prove they possess union-approved qualifications and be alternated with union choices. · Loss of control of work schedule and rules for employees. · Administrative costs and time associated with mandatory biannual prevailing wage adjustments that go beyond the DavisBacon Act. · Flexibility to employ multi-skilled or semi-skilled workers is eliminated.

diversity goals could easily be incorporated into such an agreement, or be added to the bid specifications.

As argued by Sound Transit contractors, “The objectives of the Sound Transit PLA (no strikes, no lockouts, adequate skilled labor, higher apprentice utilization, increase women and minority contracting and expanded employment opportunities, etc.) can be achieved without a PLA by putting them in the bid specs.”

Either of these alternatives would be preferable to a government-mandated PLA. The correct policy answer is to allow the competitive bidding process to determine which contractor and workers can deliver the best results at the best price.

If it’s in the contractor’s interest to emulate his or her unionized competition — for example, to access a steady supply of skilled labor — they will do so voluntarily.

If it is in the workers’ interest to join a union, they will do so voluntarily.

The Unions Call the Shots

In each of these cases, agreements were established between all parties (unions, contractors, local governments), but did not require any contractor or subcontractor to exclusively use union labor, nor did it modify or supersede any existing collective bargaining agreements.

Under such an agreement, both union and open shop contractors have freedom to operate in the way each can deliver the best product, and coordination occurs when needed.

Discrimination based on labor affiliation, or lack thereof, is eliminated in the award of contracts. This kind of model agreement simply illustrates that if a PLA is needed on a project for the right reasons, an agreement can be put into place that both union and open shop contractors can support.

Additional provisions pertaining to prevailing wages, drug testing, work hours, apprenticeship programs and

Clearly, unions are the most powerful group at the negotiating table. They have demanded and received the entire marketplace for Sound Transit contracts.

The adoption of an expensive, burdensome, inflexible, discriminatory PLA is yet another injury in a long line of abuses leveled at the tax-paying public, though perhaps one of the least known outside of the construction industry.

It’s a false narrative that in order to operate more efficiently we must eliminate choice and freedom for contractors and workers, but this is exactly what is at stake with Sound Transit’s PLA. Pay the unions, work with unions or step down.

Sound Transit has chosen loyalty to union bosses at the expense of taxpayers, small and minority contractors, and the 78.4 percent of Washington’s private construction workforce that has chosen not to be part of a union.

It’s time for the agency to stop playing political favorites with unions and adopt a better, more competitive plan that serves the people who pay the bill.

FREEDOM MATTERS n PAGE 9

Inalienable or Unalienable?

The Founding Fathers couldn’t decide which was correct and modern historians don’t think it matters. But it does.

“We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain in(un-?)alienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness.”

But he mutters under his breath, “I’ll speak to the printer about it later.”

And apparently he did, too.

A Jan. 6, 2016, article on the CNN Politics website explains, “Though the final version of the Declaration of n the Broadway musical and subsequent motion picIndependence, the one written on parchment and currently ture “1776,” which offered a decidedly romanticized housed at the Department of State, uses ‘unalienable,’ there account of the Declaration of Independence’s drafting are existing copies and drafts with conflicting usage.” and adoption by the Continental Congress in PhiladelAccording to USHistory.org, the nonprofit Indepenphia, there’s at least one scene that may have veered dence Hall Association’s website, in earlier versions – presomewhat closer to reality than most history books do. sumably the drafts written by Jefferson – the term “inalienAt the conclusion of the long and contentious amendable” appears. ment process and with the delegates finally ready to vote on But Jefferson wasn’t in charge of the final printing. the approved wording of the document, the Adams, who also served on the Declaration ever-persnickety John Adams – the docuDrafting Committee, was.

By JEFF RHODES ment’s most ardent proponent – interrupts the In a footnote, the website also cites a 1922 Managing Editor process to suggest what appears to be a slight article called “The Declaration of Indepenalteration in perhaps the Declaration’s defining passage. dence: A Study in the History of Political Ideas,” in which “The correct word is ‘unalienable,’ not ‘inalienable,’” the author, Carl Lotus Becker, states: “Adams was one of he announces, adding for emphasis, “I’m a Harvard gradu- the committee which supervised the printing of the text ate.” adopted by Congress, and it may have been at his suggestion His political ally Thomas Jefferson, who by this time had that the change was made in printing.” endured more than 100 additions and deletions to his masThe question is, does it really matter? terpiece, ranging from punctuation and syntax to omitting his To hear modern observers tell it, no. blistering condemnation of slavery, finally drew the line and “English has changed since the founders of the United refused to yield on this one point.

States used ‘unalienable’ in the signed final draft of their “The word is ‘inalienable,’” he replies. “I attended Wil1776 Declaration of Independence,” states the Gramliam & Mary.” marist.com website. “‘Inalienable,’ which means exactly The delegates chuckle at the pregnant pause that ensues. the same thing—incapable of being transferred to another or “Oh, very well,” Adams finally huffs. others—is now the preferred form.”

I

FREEDOM MATTERS n PAGE 11

Thomas Jefferson’s rough drafts of the Declaration of Independence refer to “inalienable” rights, but in the final, printed document, the word was changed to “unalienable,” presumably on John Adams’ order.

The difference is merely a geographical one, the authors assert. “Un-” is the Latin negative prefix, they note, while “in-” is the Anglicized version – a rather ironic preference for either of the Founding Fathers given the context of this particular debate.

Merriam-Webster defines “inalienable” as: “incapable of being alienated, surrendered or transferred.”

Then, too, DictionaryReference. com, defines “unalienable” as “inalienable,” implying there is no real difference between the competing prefixes.

But words have very specific meanings, and would-be synonyms – even those with the same root form – often include subtle differences that radically change their entire intent.

If that rule holds true in any context, it should be the most irreplaceable phrase in the nation’s single most important document.

PAGE 12 n FREEDOM MATTERS

Black’s Law Dictionary, the recognized authority when it comes to parsing legal phraseology, tells us that “Unalienable (means) incapable of being alienated; that is, sold and transferred.”

In other words, one cannot surrender, sell or transfer unalienable rights.

They are a gift from the Creator to the individual and may not under any circumstances be surrendered or taken.

All individuals have unalienable rights.

In Morrison v. State of Missouri (1952), however, the court ruled that inalienable rights are those “… incapable of being surrendered unless one consents.” (Emphasis added.)

Other courts have since upheld this distinction, and it’s more than mere semantics.

In fact, it goes right to the heart of the debate between natural rights and legal rights.

Wikipedia explains, “Legal rights

are those bestowed onto a person by a given legal system (i.e., rights that can be modified, repealed and restrained by human laws). Natural rights are those that are not dependent on the laws, customs or beliefs of any particular culture or government, and therefore universal and inalienable (i.e., rights that cannot be repealed or restrained by human laws).”

Jefferson’s reasoning when drafting the Declaration borrowed heavily from the 17th Century philosopher John Locke, who discussed natural rights in his works, identifying them as being “life, liberty and estate (property).”

Locke argued that such fundamental rights could not be surrendered in the social contract.

Jefferson clearly understood the difference, and it’s inconceivable he would have knowingly followed the phrase “are endowed by their Maker” with a

word that referred specifically to rights that come from man-made law rather than nature.

And yet, if the legally constituted meaning of “inalienable” as it’s come to be understood in the centuries since Jefferson first coined it are to be taken literally, the wording of the single most important sentence in the nation’s single most important document now expresses the exact opposite of what its author intended.

“The one vowel changes the entire definition and political outlook,” writes Bo Perrin in the Tea Party Tribune.

“An unalienable right is a right that is incapable (absolutely, under no conditions) of being sold or transferred.

“The word ‘transferred’ is important,” he continues. “There are many ways to transfer something, and one way is through contract. An unalienable right cannot be transferred through a contract because it is unalienable from the individual who possesses them.

This is politically significant. This is

George Mason’s Virginia Declaration of Rights used the word “inherent” rather than “inalienable” or “unalienable,” and there was never any question about his intent, nor has it been modified over the years.

Lockean. The citizen of a nation can make a social contract or compact with the government but not to contract away his or her unalienable rights. Rather, the citizen can make a contract with the government only that the government protect the individual’s unalienable rights which they do not have the authority to give, nor the government the authority to take away.”

As an interesting sidelight, Jefferson and George Mason, who later represented Virginia in the Constitutional Convention in 1787, were traveling on parallel tracks. Mason completed his Virginia Declaration of Rights on June 12, 1776 – less than a month before the federal Declaration of Independence was ratified – and it included the following verbiage: “That all men are by nature equally free and independent, and have certain inherent rights, of which, when they enter into a state of society, they cannot, by any compact, deprive or divest their posterity; namely, the enjoyment of life and liberty, with the means of acquiring and possessing property, and pursuing and obtaining happiness and safety.”

Note Mason’s use of the term “inherent” rather than the more flowery “inalienable.” Had Jefferson opted for an unambiguous word rather than a rhetorical flourish, or had Adams been a more ruthless editor, we likely wouldn’t be having this discussion now.

“Mason believed that inherent rights could not be given up even through contact,” Perrin notes.

Simply put, the term “inalienable” – by most accounts the accepted wording of the Declaration, even though it appears nowhere in the final, hard-copy document – means the user subscribes to the belief that each individual ought

Jefferson was heavily influenced by philosopher John Locke, who believed basic human rights were endowed by our Creator and couldn’t be given away or taken, and that government’s proper role was to protect freedom.

to contract away their rights to a single sovereign who can never be questioned or removed.

That’s the textbook definition of tyranny, something Thomas Jefferson pledged his life, his fortune and his sacred honor to oppose.

Meanwhile, unalienable – the awkward, clunky, discredited term preferred by John Adams over the chuckles of even his peers in the Continental Congress – refers to the Lockean political theory that each individual in a society ought to contract with the government to protect their God-given rights.

Change just two letters and the nation’s entire social contract is altered in ways its acknowledged author could never have envisioned and would never have condoned.

Think about that next time you get overconfident about your liberty and you’ll recognize how little it would actually take for a tyrant to usurp it.

FREEDOM MATTERS n PAGE 13

P

ublic education in this country is fraught as never before with division over how, how much and by whom our children will be taught – and these are important questions. But grappling for answers presupposes we’ve already laid the more important groundwork by establishing exactly what it is we expect to ultimately achieve.

In all the clamor over the means, we’ve lost sight of the end – and perhaps it’s no accident.

The Left has long understood the importance of inculcating young minds and seen public schools as centers for indoctrination in progressive political theory rather than a place to develop the critical thinking skills necessary to earn a productive living.

And with their allies in the teachers’ unions only too happy to keep the focus on payroll and facilities without regard to results, it’s no wonder American students fall farther behind their peers in “less-developed” nations with each passing year.

And as our children’s future burns, we fiddle with cosmetic changes when meaningful education reform would naturally begin with a thorough, honest evaluation of what our educational aims are … and what they should be.

To that end, the purpose of education can be broken down into five basic principles.

1. Societal Infrastructure.

A society of free and self-sufficient people requires a number of basic foundations. Spoken and written language, common values and a medium of exchange are the most obvious of these, and each implies the duty of each citizen to have a basic education.

The fruit of ignorance has been oppression, enslavement or disrupting conflict.

The individual cannot be free without a basic, common education among his or her peers. If communication is absent, the ability to receive information necessary for making choices or even to relate exchanges is hobbled.

Without the values of keeping promises or limits on behavior, a free society breaks down into defensive

Fixing

Money or Fixing

Schools?

By

PAGE 14 n FREEDOM MATTERS

JAMI LUND, Senior Policy Analyst

Before you can argue about how to fund education or which teaching methods work best, you first need to decide what you want to accomplish when you’re finished.

FREEDOM MATTERS n PAGE 15

Test Questions 1. Is any learning that would benefit a child’s “basic education” and therefore an obligation of the state?

2. How can “gifted education” be a part of a common, basic education since by definition it is neither common nor basic?

3. Should parents have the right to withdraw their children from the assessments the state uses to measure basic education?

4. Does providing funding for education mean that every teacher is entitled to a house located near their workplace regardless of the price of that house? fragments, and the weak are victimized by the strong.

Beyond basic freedom, the reach of cooperative excellence for each person and for society as a whole is multiplied by a higher common educational attainment.

A basic education could enable a weak society of disconnected individuals to produce, but this would be done inefficiently and with greater externalities. A higher level of education throughout a free society permits efficiencies in infrastructure, health and resource use that benefit the standard of living for all.

2. Self-Direction While education has some basic, common elements that are fundamental in order for every member of society to enjoy freedom, the kind of education that leads to preparation for a productive life is not as uniform.

Historically, education of this sort – in trades, crafts or entrepreneurial skills – has been carefully regulated to preserve its scarcity.

The selection of who is granted the gift of education has been determined PAGE 16 n FREEDOM MATTERS

4. Lawmakers added credits required for graduation without changing the schedule of time provided for high schooling, so is this an expansion of basic education or a shrinking of the definition of a credit?

5. If school buildings are part of providing basic education, should they be designed, funded, owned and maintained by the state or should they be local investments?

6. Is the salary of educators insufficient although effectively all teaching positions are filled at today’s salary?

by relationship or some authority.

A truly free society would provide an opportunity for all individuals to succeed based on their aptitude and individual desires. This kind of opportunity and personal “buy-in” has far greater benefit than blocking opportunities or compelling the unwilling.

The benefits include personal freedom, proper assignment of risk and reward upon the individual, and ultimately the success for the individual and for society.

3. Monopolies are Bad People instinctively know monopolies are bad because they unfairly advantage some people at the expense of others.

Not only are they morally wrong, but they’re also notoriously inefficient because the incentives for excellence and efficiency are absent.

We historically criminalize monopolies with antitrust laws and conflict-ofinterest laws. In the area of education, however, monopoly is embraced. Even the hint of a mildly different service provider, like a charter school, is attacked as somehow being against the

common good.

Three reasons explain why monopoly is so enthusiastically defended in education despite our knowledge of its flaws.

First is the recognition of the need for a common understanding of basic societal values as described above.

The second is the entrenched belief of John Dewey, who influenced in the early formation of common public schooling.

He stamped public education with the idea that schools should create a citizenry ready for participation in society by shaping values.

The third is simply the desire to maximize economies of scale in a public enterprise.

Added to these, however, is an unmentioned self-interest of the participants in a common school system.

They want to preserve the ease and security that accompanies a dominant market share.

In addition to the poor track record of monopolies in terms of efficiency and quality, other far more alarming harms exist. While a common set of base values and skills as “societal infrastructure” is very important, social engineers are tempted to use a mo-

7. Should local districts be penalized for failing to accomplish the literacy and numeracy expected as part of basic education with the state’s money or is it enough to offer the employees and buildings without regard to the learning?

8. Should compensation for employees be for an annual salary as in other professions, or should employees be paid like clock-punching hourly workers for covering classes during the day for a colleague, or extending a class by three minutes?

9. Can parents be trusted to pursue the best interest of their child or is the state the only way

nopoly to modify the values of the next generation.

Public education has accumulated the power to dictate who may prepare a teacher and who may teach. Our system adds the ability to compel people to fund and to attend school.

This extraordinary power is a magnet for those who desire to make the future match their ideals.

The growth of educational power in recent decades provides evidence that this appetite is at work. Schooling is reaching into earlier years, defined more explicitly through Common Core State Standards, and acquiring control of the delivery of a broader range of secondary and vocational education.

4. A Variety of Outcomes How many years of schooling and what level of common learning targets should the state prescribe? Historically, public education was optional until age 8, and students were done by grade eight. The societal building blocks were the three Rs. Today public schooling has standardized a fairly uniform set of learning targets that reaches from age 3 to grade

to determine what basic education is and how it will be accomplished?

10. If the state must provide transportation as part of the obligation to fully fund education, do local districts get to make decisions adding to the cost of transportation?

11. Can the Supreme Court penalize the state because some aspects of the system of education--which are not part of basic education—should be part of basic education but are not being funded?

12 with occasional talk about providing a grade 13. Even the high school credit offerings in Washington have increased from 19 to 24 four specified credits for graduation.

This growing prescriptive approach to schooling at the secondary level has produced a worse result. One in five students fail to complete their diploma, and while anecdotal, employers of high school graduates frequently report a growing deficiency of even basic skills among graduates.

Among students who move directly into college from high school, half need high school-level remedial coursework before proceeding.

Principles 2 and 3 almost guarantee the truth of principle 4. Bending mature young adults to a prepackaged learning target provided by a monopoly would be expected to produce these results.

Secondary education is arguably more important today than ever before, but self-selected targets delivered by competing providers are more likely to succeed.

A diversity of options could not possibly produce a worse result given the incredible power of free people selecting their own pathway.

5. Government Money While similar to the principle noting the harms of monopolies, this is a broader principle of accountability. For example, the public infrastructure of roads is sometimes accomplished by contracting out.

The protection against self-interest is accomplished with competitive bidding, independently verified quality standards and safeguards against conflicts of interest. However, the public infrastructure of an entirely government-run bus system must also safeguard against opportunism of its actors.

Attempts to provide the basic education mandate, whether by many providers or by a monopoly, will need to have strong safeguards for the public interest in quality and efficiency.

The range of questions being raised today about the public responsibility regarding education provides an opportunity that only occurs once a generation.

The application of sound principles to government policy will only occur if voices of reason are heard and embraced by policymakers despite the voices of the self-interested.

FREEDOM MATTERS n PAGE 17

“No business which depends for existence on paying less than living wages to its workers has any right to continue in this country.”

- FRANKLIN D. ROOOSEVELT

“The minimum wage law requires employers to discriminate against persons with low skills. No one describes it that way, but that is in fact what it is.”

- MILTON FRIEDMAN

PAGE 18 n FREEDOM MATTERS

Minimum Wage As usual, an issue that makes good politics makes very poor economic policy

By MAXFORD NELSEN, Labor Policy Director

FREEDOM MATTERS n PAGE 19

hardly amount to corporate subsidies.

The assumption made by minimum wage advocates is that the existence of public assistance programs allows companies to pay lower wages than they would otherwise.

If the hypothesis were actually true, though, decreased public assistance would be accompanied by rising wages.

In reality, precisely the opposite is true.

Presumably most people would prefer having a low-wage job without public assistance benefits to having both no job and no welfare benefits.

Consequently, reductions in public assistance would likely make most individuals more inclined to accept employment at whatever wage they could find.

Conversely, as a number of economists have pointed out, overly generous social welfare programs can discourage individuals from seeking work, which could actually place upward pressure on the wages firms need to offer in order to compete with welfare and attract employees.

Why would anyone work for $9.47 an hour (Washington state’s current minimum wage) if they could receive the equivalent of $10 per hour in welfare benefits? Under such terms, not working is a perfectly rational alternative. In order to attract workers, employers would have to offer more than $10 per hour.

Thus, not only do corporations have to pay part of the taxes to fund public assistance programs, but the existence of those welfare benefits drives the entry-level wages they must pay higher.

Additionally, employers are never going to pay wages higher than the value offered by the employee. Consequently, when the government-mandated minimum wage is higher than the value of an employee’s labor, the employee will soon be out of a job and likely eligible for greater public assistance benefits than before.

Washington state, for example, had the highest state minimum wage in the country from 1999 through 2015.

Before adopting Initiative 688 in 1998, the percentage of Washington residents receiving food stamp benefits through the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP) was consistently lower than the national average.

However, after dramatically increasing the state minimum wage around PAGE 20 n FREEDOM MATTERS

“Unfortunately, the real minimum wage is always zero, regardless of the laws, and that is the wage that many workers receive in the wake of the creation or escalation of a government-mandated minimum wage, because they lose their jobs or fail to find jobs when they enter the labor force.”

THOMAS SOWELL, Economist “The bottom has fallen out of America’s wage floor.

And the erosion of the minimum wage has lowered pay and working standards for all of us.”

RICHARD TRUMKA, President, AFL-CIO the turn of the millennium, the trend reversed and, by 2009, Washington state residents were more likely to be receiving food stamps than the rest of the country.

In short, taxpayers do not subsidize corporations through public assistance programs, and raising the minimum wage will not reduce the need for such programs.

Secondly, supporters of higher starting wages contend that low-wage workers will immediately begin spending the additional money in their paychecks, creating more demand for goods and services and stimulating the economy.

When pressed to answer why raising the minimum wage won’t harm jobs, supporters often argue that this

alleged stimulus effect will create enough jobs to offset those lost to higher labor costs.

In reality, the argument is laughably unworkable. It assumes the extra money in workers’ paychecks appeared out of nowhere.

In fact, the money comes from employers, who must divert it from other activity and reduce spending in other areas, perhaps even by employing fewer workers for less time, which reduces their spending power.

Only the Federal Reserve can add new money to the economy ex nihilo, and even then it is ultimately neutralized by inflation.

Increasing the minimum wage no more stimulates the economy than

“The minimum wage has not kept pace with rising costs.

This legislation is overdue and will help families that are struggling in this harsh economy.”

- California Gov. JERRY BROWN

“You cannot make a man worth a given amount by making it illegal for anyone to offer him anything less.

You merely deprive him of the right to earn the amount that his abilities and situation would permit him to earn, while you deprive the community even of the moderate services that he is capable of rendering.”

- HENRY HAZLITT, Economist

a parent increasing a child’s allowance increases a family’s income. It is redistributive, not stimulative. As the Congressional Budget Office explained:

“The increased earnings for some workers would be accompanied by reductions in real (inflation-adjusted) income for the people who became jobless because of the minimum-wage increase, for business owners, and for consumers facing higher prices.”

While certain low-skill employees will certainly be able to spend more money following a minimum wage hike, the evidence indicates that their higher spending power is more than offset by other factors.

Perhaps the most insidious argument

for a higher minimum wage is also the most emotionally appealing. When pressing for a higher minimum wage, organized labor goes to great lengths to spotlight minimum wage employees explaining the difficulty of “making ends meet.”

According to supporters of a higher minimum wage, anyone who “works hard” should make a comfortable income (many also believe those who do not work should make a comfortable income, but that’s a subject for another time).

But hard work alone does not, and cannot, be the only determiner of financial security. Plenty of tasks are difficult to accomplish yet produce little or even zero value.

A person could spend 60 hours every

week hauling a cartload of rocks up and down a hill—hard work, to be sure—without benefitting themselves or others.

In short, while working very hard, they have done nothing of value.

Should others be forced to pay for this person’s labor? Of course not.

In a world of limited resources, it makes no sense to waste time and energy on labor that none find valuable.

Similarly, many jobs require hard work but relatively little skill. With a little training, nearly anyone could work as a fast-food employee. Now, if few people wanted to work in fast food and workers were scarce, the value of person willing to work in fast food would increase, but there is generally no such shortage.

On the other hand, an accountant working 40 hours per week might expend far less physical energy than the person hauling rocks or the fast food worker—in other words, he may not work as hard—but he is likely to be better compensated because his services are valuable to businesses in need of accurate bookkeeping and fewer people are capable of providing such services.

The only way to objectively determine a job’s value is by allowing employers and workers to freely and voluntarily come to agreements on employment terms they find mutually beneficial.

People whose labor was worth $13 an hour to an employer will no longer be able to find work if the minimum wage is $15 an hour. Employers who could afford $13 an hour labor have to adopt less efficient or more expensive means of getting the job done if starting wages are set at $15.

Consumers who could afford to purchase goods or services produced with $13 an hour labor will buy less of a good or service whose price has increased because of a $15 minimum wage.

Consequently, while a hardworking, low-wage worker presents a sympathetic figure, the only way to actually improve their situation without harming them or others is to equip the worker with the skills or education they need to perform tasks that are of greater value to others.

Unfortunately, the government cannot solve poverty by decree, but it can do a lot of damage by attempting to.

Until the public understands economics and incentives, feel-good measures like the minimum wage will continue to be politically popular and economically dangerous.

FREEDOM MATTERS n PAGE 21

brewing u How SEIU broke every rule and law to create a new local and install as its president a radical who’s become one of the most powerful labor leaders in the US

D

avid Rolf is lauded by many progressives as a 21st Century labor movement superstar. And coming from a long line of labor activists, he wears that description as a badge of honor.

His efforts to unionize homecare aides in Washington, as well as his work to raise the minimum wage to $15 an hour top the list of his progressive victories.

Rolf’s track record, however, indicates he is little more than a high-priced errand boy doing the bidding of his puppet masters in Washington, D.C., with little or no regard for the workers for whom he presumes to speak.

SEIU’s national office first imposed Rolf on Washington state in 2001 to serve out the remaining term of SEIU Local 6’s retiring president, Mark Earls. By then, Rolf already had a colorful history of union activism in California, and the union moguls viewed passage of Initiative 775 – an SEIU-backed ballot measure permitting collective bargaining for Medicaidreimbursed individual homecare providers (IPs) – as a golden opportunity to consolidate the union’s position in the Pacific Northwest.

In November 2001, Washington voters had passed I-775, the Washington In-Home Care Services Initiative.

The measure was presented as a way to regulate and improve services to the in-home care industry by creating a Home Care Quality Authority (HCQA) directed to “recruit, train and stabilize the workforce” of homecare aides.

Less known at the time, however, was that I-775 also paved the way for SEIU to unionize state-paid homecare aides (legally known as “individual providers,” or simply, “IPs”), which put it on the path to becoming one of the largest and most politically potent labor unions in the state.

From the beginning, I-775 was entirely an SEIU operation. Campaign finance records on file with the Washington State Public Disclosure Commission indicate SEIU provided 98 percent of the more than $1 million spent to pass I-775.

up a Union

By KIRSTEN NELSEN, paralegal

Though many newspaper editorial boards and political observers spoke out against SEIU’s scheme, there was no substantial organized campaign against the initiative. It passed with 63 percent of the vote.

Receiving little to no opposition, SEIU’s one-time investment paid off in the long run. The passage of I-775 guaranteed an annual income of more than $20 million dollars to SEIU. On Jan. 4, 2002, the Public Employment Relations Commission (PERC), produced a memo entitled, “Rule Problems Related to I-775,” in which the agency evaluated ways certain sections of I-775 conflicted with existing state labor laws and regulations.

Of particular interest, the memo states: “Issues have been raised about whether dues checkoff is available to a union representing the I-775 clientele (because of language in I-775 that precludes any changes to a state payment system that historically has not provided for checkoff ), and about whether any enforceable union security obligations can be negotiated under I-775, but those matters would likely be resolved in the courts or through unfair labor practice proceedings before PERC.” Shortly after, Adam Glickman, the current secretary-treasurer of SEIU 775 but then a senior communications and political organizer for the Service Employees National Headquarters, sent an e-mail to the Department of Social and Health Services (DSHS) requesting an installment of records including IP’s names, addresses and contact information. Despite the fact that SEIU Local 6 had not yet even petitioned to represent IPs, DSHS not only agreed to hand over the information, but arranged to provide the union with updated information every month.

With the IPs’ contact info in hand, SEIU moved quickly to gather signatures from the necessary 10 percent of IPs needed to call for a certification vote. On April 2, 2002, then-Secretary Treasurer of Local 6 David Rolf filed an official petition and showing of interest with PERC to unionize IPs. SEIU’s organizing effort took place so quickly that Rolf was forced to acknowledge in his letter to PERC that the governor hadn’t even completed appointing board members for the PAGE 24 n FREEDOM MATTERS

Muscling In: Union-Style How SEIU created a brand new local and installed its puppet as president in 11 easy steps

Step 1. I-775 passed

by Washington voters, allowing unionization of individual providers.

Step 2. SEIU Local 6 petitions for sole representation of IPs. Step 3. SEIU 6 asks for, and receives, the names of all DSHSpaid home caregivers in Washington.

Step 4. SEIU Local 6 prevents PERC from issuing election notice.

Step 5. SEIU 6 prevents PERC from obtaining updated addresses for Washington’s individual providers.

Step 6. Limited English IPs don’t have time to adequately vote Step 7 . Only 25% of caregivers vote to be represented by SEIU 6 Step 8. SEIU approves the charter of a new union, SEIU Local 775, to represent individual providers Step 9. SEIU 775 apppoints David Rolf president and bargains for a newcontract before the union has even been certified.

Step 10. Representation of individual providers is illegally transferred from Local 6 to Local 775.

Step 11. SEIU 775 handed a guaranteed cash flow of at least $20 million a year.

HCQA. On one hand, Rolf appealed to I-775 as the authority to petition for collective bargaining, but on the other hand he failed to honor the process I-775 set up that gave the governor authority to select the HQCA’s board.

Eventually, SEIU Local 6 convinced the state to proceed despite questions about the legitimacy of the election process and timing. Documents further indicate that SEIU Local 6 was more concerned about getting certified quickly than about making sure IPs were aware of the election and had time to participate.

In a June 7, 2002, response to PERC’s, “Rule Problems Related to I-775,” SEIU Local 6 states: “Although SEIU Local 6 is very concerned about employee rights under RCW 41.56, we do not believe the typical initial notice (of election) document will help ensure that home care worker collective bargaining rights are protected. In fact, the initial notice is more likely to cause fear and confusion when mailed to voters’ homes.

Also, SEIU Local 6 does not think it is necessary for PERC to wait for address corrections and additional language requests from voters before the ballots are mailed out…Waiting for address corrections and additional language requests before the ballots are mailed out will further delay the election process.”

After agreeing to SEIU’s demands, PERC mailed out the ballots to IPs on July 1, 2002 – without the customary election notice. PERC’s ballot explained the purpose of I-775 and the creation of the HCQA was to authorize SEIU 775 to act as the IPs’ employer solely for the purposes of collective bargaining.

Of 25,501 eligible IPs, only 6,575 voted to be represented by SEIU Local 6 and 1,234 voted against union representation.

All told, only 7,809 (31 percent) of eligible voters participated in the election.

PERC formally certified SEIU Local 6 as the IPs’ exclusive bargaining representative on Aug. 26, 2002.

But the drama didn’t end there.

Just six months later, SEIU petitioned PERC to transfer SEIU Local 6’s certification to a newly created union, SEIU Local 775, without giving IPs an opportunity to vote on the change.

In its petition, Local 775 mentions

that a hearing was conducted on Nov. 7, 2002, (merely three months after Local 6 was certified to represent IPs) for the sole purpose of transferring jurisdiction of IPs from Local 6 to Local 775 or, in the union’s words, “to determine…the most appropriate effective organizational structure to represent the individual providers of in-home care services.”

Every SEIU local in Washington was involved in the internal SEIU hearing, including Locals 6, 925 and 1199NW. The meeting was conducted by an SEIU union leader named Josephine Mooney from a local in California. The meeting Mooney officiated over served the purpose of determining the creation of a brand new union, SEIU Local 775, which would be “focused on Washington state long-term care workers” in place of Local 6. The petition mentions that the result of the meeting was SEIU’s inception of SEIU Local 775.

The SEIU International Executive Board sanctioned this new union to represent IPs in Washington state on Dec. 13, 2002.

In April 2003, one month after Local 775 requested the transfer of certification, PERC issued a deficiency notice to the union, noting, “No statute or rule is cited as authority for one union to replace another without going through an election or cross-check.”

PERC continues, “…a hearing was held by a named individual (Mooney) on Nov. 7, 2002, but does not provide any background as to the origin and affiliation of that individual, or as to who gave her the authority to conduct this particular hearing…Local 6, Local 1199, and Local 775 transferred jurisdiction over long term-care workers to Local 775.

This is a mystery because at least: 1.

Local 1199 NW was not a party to the proceedings leading to Home Care Quality Authority, Decision 7823, and certainly was not certified as exclusive bargaining representative of any employees in that proceeding…and 2.

Local 775 was described earlier in the same paragraph as being newly chartered, so it does not appear to have had any relevant jurisdiction to transfer.”

SEIU 775 responded to PERC and included a copy of the collective bargaining agreement signed by the union and the HCQA saying, “This

In His Own Words A Sampling of Quotes from SEIU 775 president David Rolf

“If we blow up the whole notion of exclusive representation, which is one union and one employer, it becomes really interesting to think about the possibilities.”

“...unions have been a single-party movement for the most part for contemporary history, so the Republicans largely want to kill us.”

“Because trickle-down economics has been our national religion for 40 years, and we are still waking up to the reality that these policies have been a sham.”

“Right now, there are more workers with no legal right to form a union then there are union members in America.”

“Unions are in decline because we have failed to invest in developing breakthrough tools to win economic justice in the fast-growing, low-wage industries that will soon employ the majority of Americans.

We haven’t replaced the long-forgotten power of strikes with newer but equally disruptive forms of worker power.”

“Though we don’t see net negative effects on business closure, there’s no doubt that wage hikes require businesses to make changes to absorb the new costs.”

“Low-wage workers are bad customers and even worse taxpayers. If we care about economic development, infrastructure, education and public services, we should listen carefully to their demands.”

“Some innovations may involve militant tactics designed to disrupt the operations of predatory employers; some may be dedicated to creating and spreading new narratives that change the way people think about government regulation and the value of work.”

agreement is now in effect, except for a limited number of economic issues requiring fiscal approval by the Washington State Legislature.”

Several days later, PERC wrote back, stating, “The certification issued in August 2002 would normally operate as a ‘certification bar’ for one year after its issuance.”

Thus, not only was there no legal authority for PERC to transfer certification to represent IPs from SEIU 6 to 775 without a vote, but state law actually prohibited the union from seeking a vote for a year after SEIU Local 6’s initial certification.

Unfortunately, after going back and forth for some time with 775, PERC finally caved and went along with the

union’s illegal request to transfer certification to represent individual providers from Local 6 to Local 775.

With its designated proxy in place, SEIU 775 quickly became far more than the representative of IPs; it became a political powerhouse.

Meanwhile, Rolf’s own words betray his true colors. Representing IPs is only a means to an end with him.

He’s a political operative out to impose a leftist agenda on Washington state, and he’s quite content to use forcibly collected dues revenue to accomplish the mission his controllers at the national level sent him here for.

David Rolf’s rise to power was as illegitimate as his actions since obtaining it.

FREEDOM MATTERS n PAGE 25

Takin PAGE 26 n FREEDOM MATTERS

F

irst it was mandatory paid sick leave, then the $15-anhour minimum wage. Now comes the latest anti-business mandate being cultured in the progressive petri dishes of San Francisco, Seattle and Portland for release to the rest of the country – flexible scheduling.

In September, Seattle followed San Francisco’s lead in adopting regulations that force businesses to give advanced scheduling notices to shift workers.

The Democrat-controlled city council unanimously passed the Secure Scheduling Act, which will require employers to give workers two weeks’ notice about their upcoming shifts,

By ANNE MARIE GURNEY Oregon Director

compensate them for lost or additional shifts and bar them from taking two shifts within 10 hours.

Who benefits from ‘flexible scheduling?’ Like most bad legislation in deep-blue states like Oregon, government employee unions are the impetus behind this questionable idea.

Oregon’s Department of Administrative Services, for example, is one of the largest government workforces in the state, and in the current collective bargaining agreement, there is a section regarding “flexible scheduling” that reads: “An employee may be allowed to work a flexible work schedule upon written approval of his/her request. No employee will be arbitrarily denied a flexible work schedule. Special

consideration may be given to an employee who demonstrates an unusual hardship.”

It’s a mandate very much like those found in every other human resource manual found in any other workplace.

If you need a flexible schedule, ask for it and it will be worked out. It seems so simple.

But there’s a fundamental difference between public- and private-sector workplaces.

“In general, these flexible scheduling proposals seek to provide employees with greater certainty about the shifts they’re expected to work and can be helpful to single parents or people with second jobs,” an Associated Press story explained. “But the fact is that

ng the Plunge

At the urging of government employee unions and the politicians they control, the Pacific Northwest has become an incubator for bad labor ‘reform’ laws being readied for the rest of the country.

FREEDOM MATTERS n PAGE 27

the proposals duplicate what smart employers already are doing: Those employers understand that schedule stability is good, both for businesses and for workers.”

More to the point, what about the employers who either can’t or won’t afford the level of flexibility advocates want? Like minimum wages and other “labor reforms,” flexible scheduling could be a blessing for workers who manage to get and keep their jobs but a curse for those employed by companies forced to cut staff or never hire in the first place in order to comply with the new regulations.

When Seattle passed its $15 minimum wage measure in 2014, David Rolf, president of Washington state’s SEIU 775 congratulated himself for “devising a form of collective bargaining that benefits workers with no ties to unions … perhaps the only kind of worker advocacy that (can) succeed so long as the legal protections for workers seeking to join unions remain so weak.”

And before one excuses Rolf’s boast as a one-time success that could only happen in a liberal haven like Seattle, union bosses made similar claims after Seattle’s model for minimum wage mandates passed on a statewide level in Oregon.

“Oregon’s new minimum wage law (SB-1532) looks like it was cut and pasted from a union contract,” wrote Tim Nesbitt, former Oregon state director for the AFL-CIO as the ink was drying on Oregon’s minimum wage law, jammed through Oregon’s Legislature. “It’s not surprising to see unions turn to political action rather than workplace organizing to advance a broad working families’ agenda.”

Not content with small failures, however, lawmakers in Oregon are eyeing legislation that would make “flexible scheduling” mandatory statewide.

“It’s going to be a big deal,” said Sen. Michael Dembrow, a Portland Democrat who says he plans to introduce legislation in 2017 that would require some employers to give workers early notice of scheduling changes.

Recently, Dembrow convened a work group on “Schedules That Work” in PAGE 28 n FREEDOM MATTERS

partnership with Rep. Paul Holvey (DSalem). Participation in such work groups is a little like being chosen for a cheerleading squad. Those who really want to be on it and do good things aren’t chosen.

Only the elites need apply.

Nine of its members were drafted directly from the pro-government union side, with a heavy dose from Oregon’s largest government union, SEIU 503.

A search of Dembrow’s campaign finance log shows that since January 2014 (he won his current senate seat in November 2014), there is direct nexus between those who give to his campaign and those given a seat at the work group table.

• SEIU503 – $8,250, with two representatives in the work group • Oregon Trial Lawyers Association – $5,500; and, • UFCW Local 55 – $1,1250.

But the “pay-to-play” influence doesn’t stop at monetary contributions.

Working Families of Oregon, a “grassroots coalition of community organizations, union activists and progressive elected officials,” has a place in the work group, too.

Causa, an immigration advocacy group whose home page shows affiliation with SEIU 503, AFL-CIO and UFCW 55, occupies another place at the table.

Family Forward is yet another advocacy group that has “flexible scheduling” as a priority listed on its website, and don’t expect the group to participate with the intention of finding solutions or good policy at the expense of its Leftist agenda.

The business interests invited to participate in the work group are a Who’s Who of private lobby groups representing the hospitality industry, restaurants, agriculture, grocery and more. These are private industries that may or may not be unionized but have one thing in common – they are not government unions.

In theory, such work groups are intended to be a bipartisan effort to bring stakeholders to a table and find a negotiated piece of legislation to bring forward to the legislative session beginning in January 2017.

What happens in practice is that the fix is in. Rather than considering differing points of view, the Left simply does what it wants and acts like everyone agrees.

All of which makes it easier for the unions to put forward a bill and call it a day.

The pattern of behavior of how government unions push their progressive and costly agenda is incredibly predictable and can be seen in the formula used in the $15-an-hour minimum wage effort.

First, government unions in Washington purchased the city’s mayor position with the forced union dues of their “members” and a campaign promise of $15 an hour minimum wage. Next, they pushed the elected mayor to play hardball in negotiations with the Seattle business community with bully-ish and vulgar behavior.

Finally, they passed the mandate and, poof, the precedent of “success” is now born.

Because government unions don’t recognize borders, the next step was to count Seattle’s mandate as “success” – although factually untested – and foist it upon Oregonians.

Seattle’s minimum wage measure passed in June 2014, and the same mandate was used as a blueprint to pass Oregon’s Legislature in the spring of 2016. The idea might have passed in

Oregon in 2015, but government unions were already forcing through that year’s “flashpoint” issue — paid sick leave.

Since Seattle’s city council and Oregon’s Legislature are so ideologically similar, the process can be expedited.

The speed with which government unions push demonstrates the lack of regard to stop and let these mandates settle and see if they actually work.

Flash forward to present day. Flexible scheduling, or “secure scheduling” as it is referred to in Seattle, is following the same track. The work group is using Seattle’s mandate as a model, even before the ink is dry, in addition to borrowing from a mandate in San Francisco that went into effect in October 2015.

Observers of Oregon’s work group meeting can easily see what the participants saw. The handouts echo one overriding message – Oregon will be following Seattle and San Francisco. Period.

Historically, businesses have found success by joining work groups so they can negotiate amendments or exemptions for their industry, or possibly even donate to a campaign to try to get into the game of “pay-to-play.”

That strategy in recent years has proven unsuccessful and a waste of time for businesses. The $15-an-hour minimum wage campaign in 2016 showed business groups that sitting at the negotiation table is a colossal waste of time and resources.

In an Ayn Rand-style gesture, the business community went on strike.

After a few gatherings of Sen. Dembrow’s workgroup of “stakeholders,” the business leaders fired off a tart letter to Dembrow, Holvey and the rest of the Legislature.

The message was clear: “We’re outta here.”

The unions’ political machine runs on the standard fuel — money. Lots of it, preferably confiscated from someone else.

The private sector simply can’t compete with an opponent that has the natural advantage of being able to force millions of workers to hand over a percentage of every paycheck or risk losing their jobs.

Until the union dues spigot is shut off, private businesses can expect to be bombarded with one job-killing – but union-strengthening – proposal after another.

The business community has been dodging these rapid-fire, sweeping changes from the government labor side for almost two years now. Every time an election happens or the Legislature meets, private business takes another hit.

After passing paid sick leave in 2015 and raising Oregon’s minimum wage this past spring, top Democrats have signaled next year’s likely flashpoint on worker rights will be a mandate requiring some employers to give employees early notice of scheduling changes.

The 2017 legislative session will mark two years of constant, costly changes directed at Oregon’s private businesses, and one wonders when will they cry uncle?

And how effective are these workgroups that are supposed to represent all “stakeholders?”

Despite the business walkout strike in June, Dembrow continued to hold work group meetings, with many handouts of various governments unions touting the great idea of “flexible scheduling,” it is hurtling toward a showdown in the 2017 legislative session.

FREEDOM MATTERS n PAGE 29

Public vs Private

Modern government unions have little in common with their cousins out in the real world. Why do both sides act like there’s no difference?

By BEN STRAKA, Labor Policy Analyst

G

iven some of the significant structural differences between private-sector and government unions, it may not make immediate sense why both groups almost never fail to align their money along the same end of the political and ideological spectrum.

For one thing, the economic worlds within which they live are inherently dissimilar.

Unlike their government counterparts, private-sector union members are subject to market forces. Collective bargaining with a private employer may serve its purpose in certain industries, but most workers still understand the boundaries can only be pushed back so far before the employer is forced out of business, which serves no one’s interest.

The same cannot be said of the government union members, whose employer can meet

virtually any demands by simply raising taxes or cutting services – or so it would seem.

While public workers’ jobs remain sheltered from the effects of their union’s overreaches, it’s the taxpayers who end up shouldering greater costs to support the same number of workers providing fewer services – a paradigm of the inefficiency that has become a hallmark of government today.

And because there may be, to some degree, a legitimate push

and pull between some private businesses and the employees they manage, one can at least see the theoretical basis for allowing private-sector employees to collectively bargain over workplace terms and conditions.

But when government – which sets the bar for those terms and conditions already – is also the employer, the bargaining relationship looks much different.

With no profit motive driving government behavior, there’s no genuine, healthy conflict between employer and employee group. Government has no reason to act according to the principles of economic scarcity, because it has none. Nor does it have any motivation to provide poorer work conditions than what it legally requires in the private sector.

In the private sector, representatives from labor and management have an inherently adversarial relationship.

While both sides recognize the need for compromise, the workers essentially want more of what belongs to management, which is reluctant to give it up.

That isn’t so in government.

Unfortunately, management has little reason to put up a strenuous fight over someone else’s money. Theoretically, lawmakers bargaining with government employee unions have a vested interest in driving a hard bargain because if they’re seen as being too free with the taxpayers’ money, they risk being voted out of office.

This reasoning overlooks two troublesome factors.

First, in almost half the country, there are state and local laws that discourage – if not ban outright – public scrutiny of the negotiation process.

Consequently, neither the voters nor the union members have a clear idea of which side is a little too cozy with the other.

Secondly, this matters enormously when you understand that labor organizations in general and government employee unions in particular are the most reliable – and generous – donors in modern American politics.

The end result is that, as a practical matter, there is all-too-frequently PAGE 32 n FREEDOM MATTERS

Can you believe it?

They expect me to start paying into my own pension.

Public sector union member

a union employee on either side of the table during collective bargaining meetings, each eager to give the union everything it wants. The only trick is making sure the voting public doesn’t get to watch.

It’s not hard to see why this is the case. The larger and costlier our government becomes – and consequently, the more inefficient – the more government unions stand to gain. In many states where these labor organizations proliferate, they’ve amassed the incredible power to charge public employees mandatory dues and fees – regardless of whether those employees want to be union members or not.

Such financial power allows government union elites to throw their support

behind politicians who, in return, are more than happy to advance costly policies that, if replicated in the private sector, would spell ruination for all involved.

The differences are clear. So why is there such ideological solidarity across the public-private divide?

For practical purposes, this question is only partially relevant. It’s worth noting that the size and influence of private-sector unions have been steadily dwindling over the past 60 years, which itself is a reflection of the increasing value placed on workplace freedom and the entrepreneurial spirit in today’s economy.

Still, the question must be posed about those who remain. Unions in

What’s a pension?

Private sector union member

both the public and private sectors continue to throw massive amounts of money at candidates and causes that advance a similar – and almost exclusively liberal – agenda.

The question is whether two groups with clearly distinct objectives and operating by a different set of ground rules continue to operate in lockstep purely out of force of habit or is there some practical reason for this solidarity?

And there we also have our answer.

When we stop thinking of unions as worker-led representation groups and see them as the ideological organizations they truly are, we can easily see why their spending is so one-sided.

Long gone are the early days of “trade unions pure and simple.” Today,

organized labor has evolved into a vast network of undemocratic organizations that exist primarily to advance the agenda of their privileged elites – an agenda synonymous with the political structure of unions themselves.

The connection between labor unions and Socialism has long been apparent, but it’s nonetheless striking just how microcosmic today’s unions are of the corrupted Socialist ideal.

How so?

Like all Socialist and Communist regimes throughout history, what starts as perhaps an appealing experiment in idealistic collectivism inevitably morphs into an oppressive dictatorship.

In many states, workers have no choice but to pitch in their hard-earned wages to

support the union leadership’s pet causes.

On paper, the relationship might appear to make sense if the unions, in fact, were using their almost limitless resources and influence solely to ensure fair wages and safe working conditions.

But in practice, unions confiscate billions of dollars from the workers in the form of dues and fees and spend it on issues near and dear to the hearts of the union dons but having little or nothing to do with the workers themselves.

Instead of serving those whom they claim to represent, union elites see the organizations they oversee as little more than enormous ATMs from which they’re free to withdraw vast sums to line their own pockets and advance their own leftist ideology.

To the student of history, this scheme sounds quite familiar.

Therefore, when we consider the differences between private-sector and government unions, it’s important to remember that their apparent solidarity is not what it seems. In reality, the political and ideological interests pushed by these organizations are only a reflection of privileged union elites who take advantage of their monopolistic power.

At the end of the day, public- and private-sector unions are more different than alike in both form and function.

And if the stated goals of providing service to their diverse clientele were, in fact, what really motivated the union leadership, they would undoubtedly be pursuing differing – and occasionally competing – strategies.

But that isn’t what’s going on here.

As different as the working conditions and concerns of a desk-bound Sacramento, Calif., bureaucrat may be from a pipefitter in Walla Walla, Wash., they do share one critical and overriding similarity.

Both hand a portion of their paycheck over every month for union leaders to use financing an agenda they value above all else.

The nature of their work may be completely different for public- and private-sector workers, but the political philosophy of their respective leaderships are completely in sync, and that’s all that matters.

FREEDOM MATTERS n PAGE 33

The wave of momentum that built in Washington to free public employees from mandatory unionization and later swept over Oregon is bearing down now on...

California.

Turning the Tide of Liberty

PAGE 34 n FREEDOM MATTERS

L

By SCOTT ROBERTS, Vice President, Grassroots

ast January, a mere six months after the Freedom Foundation expanded from its traditional base of operations in Washington and opened a branch office in Salem, Ore., The Oregonian – the state’s largest and most influential newspaper, ranked our debut as No. 9 on its list of 2015’s biggest stories.

It remains to be seen whether we can cause as big a stir in California. But knowing how resistant the state is to the sort of reforms we seek and how relentlessly our organization pursues its goals, you can bet your last dollar the battle for the Golden State will be fierce.

And make no mistake, our reputation precedes us.

Just the other day, I paid a visit to the local In-Home Supportive Services (IHSS) office to request a copy of the state’s collective bargaining agreement with the unions representing homebased healthcare providers. As we have in both Washington and Oregon for the past two years, our intention is to personally contact each provider to let them know a 2014 U.S. Supreme Court ruling affirmed their right to opt out of paying union dues and fees entirely.

When I introduced myself to the IHSS executive director, she replied, “The Freedom Foundation? From Washington state? That Freedom Foundation?”

The unions have permeated every level of California’s bureaucracy to a degree that dwarfs even its neighbors to the north. To be sure, it’s a daunting task. But no organization in the nation is better equipped to succeed here.

No one else has a model that works and a staff full of warriors who’ve gone toe to toe many times with union thugs and never backed down.

In point of fact, we haven’t yet formally announced our intentions to move into California, and it may be several weeks before we hold a formal grand opening here. But we’ve leased office space and begun putting a team in place that can bring the sort of passion to this state we’ve already inspired in Washington and Oregon.

It’s a huge undertaking, so we plan to advance in stages.

For now, our California base is in Orange County – recognized as an island of moderate conservatism in deeply liberal Southern California. But even though it’s only one county, it has a population of more than 3 million –

roughly what you’d find just in Oregon.

If Orange County were a state, it would rank No. 21 in the nation based on population. It’s a huge place, and we’re just starting to learn our way around.

But we’re catching on quickly.

Our first task in California is to recruit plaintiffs for a class-action lawsuit we intend to file against the state, Gov. Jerry Brown and the unions that have spent the past two years either dragging their feet or out-and-out ignoring Harris v.

Quinn, the Supreme Court ruling that freed Medicaid-compensated home healthcare – and childcare – workers from compulsory unionization.

Where there are tens of thousands of these providers in Washington and Oregon, there are hundreds of thousands – possibly more – in California, and each pays hundreds of dollars in dues every year.

Do the math and you’ll understand as the unions do what’s at stake here.

Whatever their individual politics may be, these workers’ first loyalty is to their families, and given the chance to increase their monthly paychecks by $50 to $100 a month, they’ll opt out – just as they have in others states once they’ve learned the dirty little secret the unions don’t want them to know.

FREEDOM MATTERS n PAGE 35

t a r e Op The Plan:

Golden

As was the case in Washington and Oregon, the Freedom Foundation’s strategy for battling government employee unions in California involves a four-step process.

1. Educate – The organization has an unrivaled communications department capable of producing top-flight print, broadcast or on-line messaging, all of it intended to expose the abuses of public-sector unions and the Leftist agenda they promote.

2. Litigate – No other state-based policy organization in the nation employs as many attorneys as the Freedom Foundation, and none are as active. The Freedom Foundation’s legal team is already involved in nearly three dozen union-related court actions, and every dollar the unions spend defending their actions in court is another they can’t donate to liberal causes and candidates.

3. Legislate – The Freedom Foundation’s policy analysts have helped craft countless pieces of labor-reform legislation introduced in the state Legislatures of Washington and Oregon. Even when these measures lose, they still spark a conversation in states that would simply be liberal echo chambers without the Freedom Foundation’s presence.

4. Activate – True political reform comes from the bottom up, not from the top down, and the Freedom Foundation has a long history of grassroots organizing. If there isn’t a vibrant, relevant small-government voice in California now, there will be shortly after the Freedom Foundation gets down to work in earnest.

We’ve seen it all before in Washington and Oregon. The only difference will be one of scale, but we have the resources and the expertise to fight back as no one else could or would.

Why California?

For starters, it’s the biggest target of opportunity in the nation. We’re convinced we already have all the momenPAGE 36 n FREEDOM MATTERS

tum on our side and the unions’ are simply stalling for time.

Once California falls into the rightto-work column, the rest of the country will follow naturally.

But even more immediately, we believe the state is poised for a huge anti-union backlash as it struggles to cope with an unfunded pension liability

in the neighborhood of $300 billion.

This year’s election, in fact, effectively served as a referendum on the issue, as Democrats needed to flip just one seat in the state Senate in order to surmount the existing two-thirds majority rule to raise taxes.

Had the voters done so, already-overburdened Californians would have faced jaw-dropping increases in their state tax bills, and they’d have no one to blame but the government employee unions and the liberal politicians who do their bidding.

Meanwhile, at the national level, Donald Trump’s victory in the 2016 presidential election is expected to restore a conservative majority to the U.S. Su-

: n o i t

State

preme Court and force a re-examination of the issues raised in Friedrichs v.

California Teachers Association.

If that happens, millions of government workers in the state will suddenly have a choice about whether or not to participate in the union. If not, we’ll keep fighting to make it happen from the ground up, starting at the state level.

Either way, the Freedom Foundation is in the game to stay – and to win. Washington unions and the politicians they own have already found that out, and Oregon is learning about us even as we speak.

Grab your surf boards, Californians.

The Freedom Foundation is ready to kick up some killer waves.

Trump’s victory puts Friedrichs’ (or a case like it) back in play

I

By JEFF RHODES, Managing Editor

f the happiest person in the U.S. on Election Night 2016 was Donald Trump, the second-happiest might just have been Rebecca Friedrichs.

Less than a year ago, the Orange County school teacher was poised to be the catalyst for one of the greatest labor reforms in American history, only to have the prize snatched from her grasp inches from the finish line.

Now, Trump’s stunning win in the 2016 race for president will almost certainly breathe new life into Friedrichs’ passion – freeing public employees from mandatory unionization.

Friedrichs was the lead plaintiff in Friedrichs v. California Teachers Association, which challenged whether she and her co-plaintiffs had to choose between keeping the jobs they loved and paying dues or fees to a labor union they’d come to loathe.

The case was originally filed in 2013. In 2014, the San Franciscobased 9th Circuit Court of Appeals granted her request to enter a ruling against her, setting up a showdown before the U.S. Supreme Court in January 2016.

Friedrichs was essentially a followup to the court’s 2014 decision in Harris v. Quinn. In that case, the justices ruled that state-paid home healthcare workers were not full-fledged public employees and could not be required to associate with a union.

Harris, however, stopped just short of overturning Abood v. Detroit School District (1977), which created the compromise under which public employees could opt out of full union dues but still be compelled to pay agency fees to compensate the

union for the expenses of collective bargaining.

Friedrichs was a direct challenge to Abood and, had the court ruled in Rebecca Friedrichs’ favor, it would have given all public employees the right to opt out, essentially making right-to-work legislation the law of the land.

Just weeks after the case was heard by the Supreme Court, however, Justice Antonin Scalia Rebecca died suddenly, Friedrichs leaving the remaining justices deadlocked at 4-4.

The case was declared a tie, meaning the 9th Circuit ruling would stand. Friedrichs petitioned for reconsideration, but her request was denied.

The unions, meanwhile, were jubilant. Not only would Scalia’s death give them a temporary stay from what almost certainly would have been a devastating defeat, but with the new vacancy on the court (and perhaps several others, too) likely to be filled by Hillary Clinton, they had high hopes the issue would be dead for generations to come.

Except Clinton didn’t win.

Trump did, and several cases floating around are similar to Friedrichs and could find their way to the court as soon as his nominee is ratified by the Senate.

While it isn’t clear exactly who Trump will nominate, he has repeatedly said he’ll be looking for someone in the mold of a Scalia.

“I’ve seen the list of people he suggested as possibilities,” Freidrichs told several hundred Freedom Foundation supporters at a banquet in Portland last fall. “And guess what? They’re all excellent.”

FREEDOM MATTERS n PAGE 37

ACTION TIMELINE Highlighting a few of the Freedom Foundation’s signature accomplishments over the past half year MAY 27: n An op-ed written by Freedom Foundation Economic Policy Fellow Amber Gunn appears in The Olympian, noting that a proposed income tax initiative on the Olympia general election ballot in November has nothing to do with local “education opportunity” and everything to do with creating a test case income tax advocates can take to the Washington State Supreme Court to obtain what voters statewide have consistently denied them.

JUNE 19: n The (Salem, Ore.) Statesman Journal publishes an op-ed written by Freedom Foundation Oregon Director Anne Marie Gurney in response to a guest opinion a week earlier by Oregon Sens.

Ron Wyden and Jeff Merkley. In it, she noted that not only was their piece based on dubious economic “facts,” but the two senators had also accepted thousands of dollars in campaign contributions from public-sector unions, throwing their credibility into serious doubt.

JUNE 20: n The Freedom Foundation begins airing three new commercials in the Seattle/Puget Sound cable TV market featuring former SEIU 775 members who opted out of union bondage with the assistance of the Freedom Foundation.

Foundation sued DSHS for delaying the release of public records because it had done so solely to allow SEIU 775 additional time to get a court order preventing the release of such records. Yet DSHS’s unlawful delays squarely violate Washington’s Public Records Act. JUNE 24: n The Freedom Foundation holds a banquet at the Portland Zoo celebrating the first anniversary of the organization’s expansion into the Oregon market. The evening is highlighted by addresses from two-time presidential candidate Steve Forbes and Rebecca Friedrichs, plaintiff in Friedrichs v. California Teachers Association. Predictably, the unions stage an elaborate – and embarrassing – protest.

June 28 n The Oregonian publishes another editorial excoriating Gov. Kate Brown and her administration for stonewalling on a public information request filed by Freedom Foundation Oregon Director Anne Marie Gurney until a hastily written law could be passed by the Legislature exempting precisely the information sought in Gurney’s request. The editorial accused Brown of “arrogance” and said her dishonesty would be an issue in the November election.

July 8

JUNE 20 n The Freedom Foundation succeeds in preventing DSHS from delaying an entire case that focused on DSHS’s unlawful conduct. The Freedom PAGE 38 n FREEDOM MATTERS

n Rebecca Friedrichs, plaintiff in Friedrichs v. California Teachers Association, personally informs the Freedom Foundation of the Supreme Court’s decision to deny her motion for

reconsideration. Friedrichs, who spoke at the Freedom Foundation’s banquet at the Portland Zoo on June 24, said despite the setback, she would continue her work to ensure public workers could not be forced to join a union and fund its political agenda against their will.

July 15 n The Washington State Association for Justice (WSAJ) was ordered to pay the state $9,240 to resolve an Attorney General’s Office lawsuit over the organization’s failure to timely and properly file lobbyist employer reports.

WSAJ — formerly known as the Washington State Trial Lawyers Association — paid a $1,500 penalty and $7,740 in costs and fees. In January, the Attorney General’s Office received a Citizen Action Complaint from the Freedom Foundation against WSAJ alleging violations of the state’s campaign finance laws, forcing the AG to take action.

July 28 n A Seattle appellate court allows a temporary restraining order to expire, permitting the Freedom Foundation to resume informing thousands of Washington union-represented home healthcare workers of their First Amendment right to stop paying union dues. SEIU 775 argues the Freedom Foundation is interfering with its contracts with the workers, but the commissioner of Washington’s Division 1 Court of Appeals rules that the “requested injunction would constitute a prior restraint on defendant Evergreen Freedom Foundation’s freedom of speech in violation of the First Amendment and the Washington Constitution.”

July 29 n In a group of five cases filed by unions against the Freedom Foundation, a Thurston County judge rules that the state must release the names of state workers as the organization expands its plan to inform all publicly funded workers of their constitutional rights. The court rejected the unions’ argument that the disclosure would violate workers’ privacy.

August 3 n Armed with both court decisions, Freedom Foundation staff members fan out en masse across the region in a daylong canvassing blitz. In all, the two- and three-person teams reach more than 1,000 homes, persuade dozens to opt out of union participation on the spot and leave information with hundreds more who say they’ll consider it.

August 3 n Q-13 Fox in Seattle sends a news crew out with one canvassing team and films an interview with a provider who tells the reporter the union has done nothing for her and she plans to opt out immediately. The feature is described by Freedom Foundation CEO Tom McCabe as “without question the best news coverage this organization has gotten since I’ve been here.”

the state’s only income tax on local residents. The initiative, which qualified during July for a spot on the November general election ballot, would tax only residents earning more than $200,000 to fund college scholarships for needy Olympia students. But the measure’s regressive nature puts it at odds with both the Washington State Constitution and several historic precedents.

Oct. 14, 2016 August 17 n The Wall Street Journal publishes an overwhelmingly positive feature about the Freedom Foundation’s efforts to inform forcibly unionized caregivers of their rights to opt out, noting, “… the Freedom Foundation has been at the vanguard of an emerging effort to undercut publicsector unions by depriving them of duespaying members one at a time.”

Sept.

28, 2016

n The Washington State Supreme Court announces it will not hear the last remaining appeal in SEIU 775’s two-year battle to keep the Freedom Foundation from obtaining a mailing list of its forcibly unionized home caregivers – a list the union has controlled for more than a decade. The decision will enable the Freedom Foundation to contact tens of thousands of providers across the state and notify them of their newly affirmed rights to opt out of paying any union dues or fees.

August 11 Oct. 14, 2016 n The Freedom Foundation files an amicus curiae (“friend of the court”) brief in support of a lawsuit filed by the city of Olympia against the authors of a ballot initiative that would impose

the union spent her dues on left-wing causes such as Planned Parenthood prompted her to opt out. She later appeared in a television spot for the Freedom Foundation urging others to follow her example. In August, DSHS stopped paying her with no notice. She and her 89-year-old mother now face eviction.

n The Freedom Foundation files a lawsuit on behalf of Rosetta Horne, a home healthcare provider and pastor whose strong objections to how

n The Oregonian publishes an op-ed written by Oregon Director Anne Marie Gurney noting that thousands of retired teachers are collecting pensions at taxpayer expense despite the fact they were convicted of serious felony offenses – including sexually assaulting students. The unions defend the practice, arguing that nothing in the collective bargaining agreements would prevent them from collecting their pension.

Nov. 3, 2016 n The Freedom Foundation files a federal lawsuit in Eugene, Ore., alleging the First Amendment rights of three Medicaid-compensated home healthcare providers were violated when Service Employees International Union (SEIU 503), the labor union representing thousands of homecare workers in Oregon, declined to stop deducting dues after they had requested to opt out. SEIU 503, Oregon Gov. Kate Brown and three other heads of state agencies were named as the defendants. The plaintiffs are represented by the Freedom Foundation and Portland attorney Tyler Smith, in conjunction with the Washington, D.C.-based National Rightto-Work Legal Defense Foundation.

FREEDOM MATTERS n PAGE 39

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