Living Liberty March 2019

SUI T CH A L L ENGE S E XCL USI V E REPRE SEN TAT ION [5] UNIONS L IE A B OU T M A S S E XODUS [6] C ONSER VAT I V E IDE A S DON ’ T NEED A C A B A L [9]

LIVINGLIBERTY A PUBLICATION OF THE FREEDOM FOUNDATION | MARCH 2019

LET’S MAKE

A DEAL

FERGUSON SUED FOR COLLUDING WITH UNIONS TO KILL MEDICAID REFORM PLAN

Electronic Service Requested

Freedom Foundation PO Box 552 Olympia, WA 98507

W

ashington Attorney General Bob Ferguson is the object of a new lawsuit alleging his office conspired with two national unions to block efforts by the Trump administration to stop states from illegally skimming union dues from Medicaid payments to home caregivers serving disabled and elderly clients.

The charges are related to documents obtained via public information request by the Freedom Foundation.

However, because Ferguson’s office over-redacted certain documents and simply refused to produce others, the Olympia-based policy organization filed its action in Thurston County Superior Court accusing the AG of violating Washington’s Public Records Act (PRA).

The lawsuit is the latest development in the Freedom Foundation’s two-year effort to press for and support federal action to end the illegal union deductions from Medicaid.

Beginning in the 1990s, unions like the Service Employees International Union (SEIU) and the American Federation of State, County and Municipal Employees (AFSCME) worked to unionize Medicaid-paid home caregivers by persuading sympathetic state governments to pass laws permitting them to do so. As of 2017, Freedom Foundation research concluded

By MAXFORD NELSEN, Labor Policy Director

that at least eight states were deducting nearly $150 million in union dues each year from the Medicaid payments of more than 350,000 home caregivers.

However, as the Freedom Foundation report also explained, federal law requires Medicaid payments to be made in full to home caregivers, and states violate the law when they divert part of a caregiver’s wages to a third party, like a union, that provides no services to Medicaid beneficiaries.

Nonetheless, in direct contradiction of the statute, the Obama administration in 2014 adopted a regulation purporting to authorize deductions from home caregivers’ wages for “benefits customary to employees.”

In response, the Center for Medicaid Services (CMS) in July 2018 issued a notice of proposed rulemaking (NPRM) announcing its intent to repeal the Obamaera rule. The public comment period on the NPRM ended in August.

Emails provided to the Freedom Foundation by the AGO reveal the states of Washington, Oregon and California are working with SEIU and AFSCME to coordinate their legal activity once the regulation is finally repealed. It’s not clear whether the coalition intends to bring suit against CMS for repealing the regulation or if it intends to jointly defend against enforcement action brought by CMS for continuing to skim union dues from Medicaid payments illegally.

The first email was sent on June 8, 2018, by Casey Pitts — a partner at the San Francisco labor law firm Altshuler Berzon LLP — to: n Stacey Leyton and Peder J. ThorSee LAWSUIT Page 10

VOLUME 30 | ISSUE 3

[2]

LIVING LIBERTY

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A PUBLI CAT I ON OF T HE FREED OM FOU NDATION

CONTENTS

Our mission is to advance individual liberty, free enterprise, and limited, accountable government.

PAGE 4

PAGE 3

THE CASE FOR FREEDOM

LEADERSHIP MEMO Publisher: Tom McCabe Editor: Jeff Rhodes

By KATE PATRICK Reprinted from INSIDE SOURCES

By TOM McCABE Why Play Fair When You Can Order Your Lackeys to Change the Rules Instead?

Why Must a Nonpfrofit Disclose Its Pro Bono Legal Services Under Campaign Finance Laws?

PAGE 5

CONTACT

LITIGATING FREEDOM

By MAXFORD NELSEN

Freedom Foundation PO Box 552, Olympia, WA 98507

Freedom Foundation Brief Seeks to End Exclusive Representation.

(360) 956-3482 FreedomFoundation.com

“Quote” ~ of the month ~

What They Said & What They Meant PAGES 6-7 With the Dems Back in Charge of Both Houses of the Washington Legislature, It Was Only a Matter of Time Before They Started Introducing All Sorts of Zany Measures Designed to Benefit Their String-Pullers in Organized Labor. Here’s a Look at Just a Few of the Worst.

PAGE 8

OREGON UPDATE

By BOAZ DILLON SEIU’s Ship Sinking Even Faster Than Expected.

By AARON WITHE

Reprinted from OREGON CATALYST

PETER W. WOOD

How Have Oregon Unions Responded Since Janus?

Anthropologist, President, National Association of Scholars (NAS)

“The National Association of Scholars is opposed to any union strong-arming nonmembers into ideological conformity by exclusive representation. Protecting First Amendment rights and ending faculty unions’ assertion of exclusive representation is necessary for a free academy respectful of ideological diversity and inclusion.”

Nothing in this publication should be construed as an attempt to aid or hinder the election of any elected official or candidate.

PAGE 9

BEST OF THE BLOG

By MATTHEW HAYWARD Unions Respond to Mass Exodus With What They Know Best - Lies.

By SAMUEL COLEMAN Anti-Freedom Foundation Task Force Created.

Freedom Foundation’s Friends, Foes Weigh in On Our Actions.

PAGE 10 FREEDOM IN ACTION

By JEFF RHODES Conservative Ideas Don’t Need a Cabal.

PAGE 11

FREEDOM IN THE NEWS

PAGE 12

By JEFF RHODES AG Settles With SEIU for Pennies on the Dollar.

ACTION TIMELINE

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A PUBLI CATION OF THE FREED OM FOU NDATION

3

WHY PLAY FAIR WHEN YOU CAN ORDER YOUR LACKEYS TO

CHANGE THE RULES INSTEAD?

R

emember that bratty little kid down the street no one wanted to play with when you were a kid? The one who used to kick over the game board and accuse the other players of cheating, or take his ball and run home when he found himself losing?

I have a theory he grew up to run a government employee union.

Rules don’t mean anything to these guys. Neither do the truth or the Constitution.

And the last thing on earth they care about is the workers whose interests they claim to represent. Its members mean no more to a union than a host means to any parasite.

All that matters is winning. And by that I mean continuing to line their own pockets and support a radical, leftist political agenda with someone else’s money.

Don’t believe me? Try talking to one of the thousands of workers who’ve contacted us since they were freed by last summer’s U.S. Supreme Court ruling in Janus v. AFSCME. Even though the Freedom Foundation only has offices in Washington, Oregon and California, our reputation has spread across the country and we’ve literally heard from public-sector workers in 40 states, all telling us the same basic story: They want to exercise their First Amendment right to refuse all dues and fees, but the union is refusing to honor their wishes.

This can be as brazen as the union simply continuing to deduct dues until the worker threatens to file a lawsuit. After all, there’s no penalty for dragging your feet, and lots of frustrated would-be defectors just give up rather than take on the union.

That’s where the Freedom Foundation comes in.

When it can. If it can.

Our attorneys have advocated on behalf of scores of government employees — all pro bono, by the way — and when we intervene, it usually doesn’t take long before the union folds its cards and admits it was bluffing all along.

But there’s the catch. Before we can help them, the workers have to know about us.

And they have to know their rights.

Unfortunately, the unions — you remember, the folks with a fiduciary duty to act in the best interests of their members — make it their business to do everything possible to suppress those rights and keep them from knowing they have their choices just to keep the dues dollars flowing in.

In Oregon, to cite just one recent, despicable example, Democrats in the state legislature this spring introduced a bill, HB-2643, that would circumvent the court’s Janus ruling, which states that employees can no longer be forced to pay union dues or fees.

And it would do so by empowering the state to subsidize the unions directly.

Here’s how it would work: Rather than taking dues money out of the worker’s paycheck, the state would simply reduce his or her salary by the amount of their dues payment

and hand it over to the union.

It’s a dishonest acBy TOM McCABE, CEO counting trick that ignores the unambiguous intent of the Janus ruling — namely, that workers have a right to choose whether to fund their union. And if not, the money is supposed to stay in their pocket, not the union’s.

HB-2643 makes a mockery of the employee’s right to free choice by taking the money out of his or her hands before they even receive it, thus putting state government in the absurd position of using taxpayer dollars to underwrite the unions — and, by extension, the liberal candidates and causes to which the unions will ultimately funnel those dollars.

The whole scheme fits the textbook definition of “money laundering,” and if you or I tried something similar, we’d be in jail. But with unions and their accomplices in public office, it’s just another sleazy quid pro quo.

The Washington State Legislature, also controlled by Democrats deep in hock to organized labor, is just as bad.

During the current session, they’ve introduced a variety of bills to shield unions from existing laws they can’t be bothered not to break. (Some of more egregious of these are listed on pages 6 and 7 of this issue of Living Liberty.)

HB-1575, for example, authored by former WEA operative Monica Stonier, is a response to several current Freedom Foundation lawsuits over the union scheme of signing workers to deceptively worded membership forms that claim to be permanent and irrevocable.

The unions only began resorting to such tactics when they realized Janus threatened to cause an avalanche of opt-outs. And when they subsequently concluded these bogus contracts wouldn’t stand up in court, they called in a marker with one of their stooges in the Legislature, who promptly wrote a bill that would make it all legal retroactively.

This is precisely what’s wrong with government employee unions.

It isn’t that they advocate on behalf of public-sector workers; on the contrary, it’s because that particular responsibility is much farther down on a union leader’s list of priorities than corrupting greedy politicians and funding a political agenda that has little or nothing to do with the wages or workplace conditions of those whose paychecks are being skimmed to pay for it all.

Meanwhile, they fight anything that would empower the workers to put a stop to it.

It’s why the Freedom Foundation exists, and why we’re winning a game the unions would rather ruin for everyone else than lose.

LEADERSHIP

MEMO

LIVING LIBERTY

“

Its members mean no more to a union than a host means to any parasite.

”

D O S O M E T H I N G F O R F R E E D O M T O D AY

SUPPORT THE FIGHT!

The Freedom Foundation is the only organization on the West Coast that

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LIVING LIBERTY

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A P U BL IC AT I ON OF T HE FREEDOM FOUNDAT I ON

THE CASE FOR FREEDOM WHY MUST A NONPROFIT DISCLOSE ITS PRO BONO LEGAL SERVICES UNDER CAMPAIGN FINANCE LAW?

By KATE PATRICK

Reprinted from INSIDE SOURCES JAN. 27, 2019

A

wWashington state nonprofit tried to help a group of citizen activists put union reform initiatives on their local ballots, but the plan backfired spectacularly.

Not only did the initiatives not make it onto ballots due to Washington state legal restrictions regarding union reform, but the Washington state attorney general sued the nonprofit, the Freedom Foundation, for failing to disclose the pro bono legal services it provided to the union reform activists.

Last week, the foundation announced it will appeal to the Supreme Court of the United States (SCOTUS) over the Washington State Supreme Court’s ruling that the foundation violated Washington’s Fair Campaign Practices Act (FCPA) by not disclosing the pro bono legal services.

In an effort to increase transparency, citizen activists in the Washington cities of Chelan, Sequim and Shelton gathered signatures for ballot initiatives that would require the city governments to make their collective bargaining negotiations with unions representing city employees open to public observation, and also give city employees the ability to opt out of a union and not pay union dues, echoing Right to Work initiatives.

The city of Chelan, in accordance with its municipal code, directed the ballot initiative to its city attorney, after which the city took no action on the initiative.

The city of Sequim did not take any action with the ballot initiative and neither did the city of Shelton, likely because of the state legal restrictions regarding union reform initiatives for city employees.

The Freedom Foundation sued the three cities in three separate lawsuits for taking no action on the initiatives, but the courts dismissed all three lawsuits, and the foundation did not appeal them.

Then, the state attorney general sued the foundation for not disclosing its legal services as a “campaign donation” under the FCPA. Because the foundation offered the legal services completely free of charge to the citi-

zen activists, the foundation believes it did not break the FCPA (the foundation continued to pay its lawyers as usual).

But the Washington State Supreme Court ruled against the foundation, saying the spirit of the law calls for utmost transparency regarding donations and services rendered on behalf of a political campaign.

The majority opinion also pointed out that according to the local law, initiatives are considered “ballot propositions” and “campaigns” once filed with city clerks. So according to local law, the initiatives were in fact “ballot propositions,” and the foundation should have disclosed its involvement.

But the local law also assumes that after a city clerk receives a ballot initiative, then the citizens sign the petition for the city council to either adopt the initiative or put it to a vote.

That’s not what happened in the cities of Chelan, Sequim, and Shelton: The citizen activists obtained signatures before submitting the ballot initiative to the city clerks.

“The majority said, yes this is vague but we’re going to interpret the law in the spirit of campaign law in Washington which favors disclosure,” Maxford Nelsen, the foundation’s director of labor policy, told InsideSources.

“So we’re going to come down on the side of increased transparency,” he said. “The minority took the view that we think is correct, that when it comes to regulations of speech and political activity, you’re dealing with First Amendment issues and to enforce a vague law that burdens the exercise of free speech is long thought to be unconstitutional. So the minority took the view that the law is vague and the government should not be enforcing vague law in a burdensome way.”

Unions wield a lot of power in the state of Washington, so from the foundation’s point of view, unions pressured the state and city governments into dismissing the ballot initiatives then prosecuting the foundation.

Nelsen also said unions fail to disclose campaign donations all the time, but the state doesn’t prosecute them.

Paul Seamus Ryan, vice president of policy and litigation for Common Cause, said the state of Washington’s interpretation of the law is “consistent with how

most states regulate the ballot process,” adding that it is also common for municipalities to reject ballot initiatives.

“The standard practice typically required under state law is for disclosure practices to apply from the earliest stages,” Ryan told InsideSources. “(The Freedom Foundation’s) argument is wholly inconsistent with how campaign finance law is interpreted all over the country.”

If courts ruled in favor of the foundation’s argument, Ryan said, they would nullify the purpose of campaign finance law.

“There is an exemption in federal and most state campaign finance laws for lawyers who are wholly volunteer and are not being paid by their law firms or nonprofits,” he said, which is not what happened with the Freedom Foundation as its lawyers were still paid by the foundation to do their work. “(If the Freedom Foundation won) it would be a huge loophole and would totally undermine the point of campaign finance law.”

Mark Lamb, one of the lawyers who represented the Freedom Foundation, acknowledged Ryan’s assessment as correct, but said it doesn’t make sense for the foundation to disclose the legal services when the ballot initiatives can’t be considered true “ballot propositions” under local law.

Ryan, like the Freedom Foundation, prosecuted municipalities for rejecting ballot initiatives, but lost in court.

“It is quite common for governments to refuse for a variety of reasons to put a measure on a ballot and then there be litigation around that, so it’s not unusual,” he said. “Courts get to decide whether the cities were reasonable or unreasonable.

You expect it going into a ballot measure that the city may fight it. There are many steps where litigation can happen.”

A source close to the Freedom Foundation told InsideSources that if that’s how courts usually

interpret campaign finance law, then the law needs to be more clear. From the foundation’s perspective — and the minority perspective on the Washington State Supreme Court — the law’s vagueness confuses organizations trying to comply.

Associate Justice Sheryl Gordon McCloud wrote in the dissent that when the law is so ambiguous, courts should rule in favor of the citizen, not the government.

To rule in favor of the government over a vague law is a violation of free speech.

Louis Caldera, senior adjunct professor of law at American University’s Washington College of Law, told InsideSources that in these kinds of cases involving campaign assistance or donations, the free speech argument usually — ironically — benefits special interest groups, unions, and “those with a lot of money.”

So a ruling in the foundation’s favor would also benefit the unions it is trying to reform, by reducing transparency accountability.

“They want the weakest disclosure requirements possible,” Caldera said. “From the campaign side, we’ve had a lot of concern about money and politics and corrupt candidates and the political process and special interests with disproportionate power. So people have tried to address the issue of money and politics going back to when they tried to limit campaign contributions and expenditures. The expenditures part ran afoul of free speech and right of association concerns, and that’s still an issue and people are still trying to figure out how to get the money out of politics on the expenditure side.”

The Freedom Foundation told InsideSources it hopes SCOTUS will hear the case and perhaps clarify campaign finance law so that other organizations know exactly where they stand when assisting various political campaigns.

“That’s the problem with vague laws,” Lamb said. “People with different viewpoints will prosecute them differently.”

LIVING LIBERTY

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A PUBLI CATION OF THE FREED OM FOU NDATION

LITIGATING FREEDOM FREEDOM FOUNDATION BRIEF SEEKS TO END EXCLUSIVE REPRESENTATION JAN. 24, 2019

T

he U.S. Supreme Court’s decision last year in Janus v. AFSCME, which struck down state laws forcing public employees to pay union dues/fees, was a vindication of public employees’ free speech rights. But it didn’t end all the ways public employees’ constitutional rights are violated by the current system of union representation.

This month the Freedom Foundation filed an amicus curiae brief asking the U.S. Supreme Court to hear Bierman v.

Dayton, a case brought by publicly paid Minnesota home caregivers who believe being forced to accept union representation violates their First Amendment right to free association.

Historically, government unions have primarily derived their power and influence from two significant privileges granted to them in state law: “exclusive representation” and “union security,” or “agency fees.”

Once a union is certified to represent a group of employees in a government workplace, the union becomes the “exclusive bargaining representative” of all employees in the designated “bargaining unit,” whether comprised of teachers in a particular school district, employees of a state agency, city police officers, etc.

In essence, an exclusive bargaining representative has a monopoly on providing workplace representation services to the employees it represents.

Represented employees cannot choose to forgo union representation, cannot negotiate their own wages or benefits directly with their employer and cannot choose to be represented by an attorney or alternate union.

In addition, until Janus, unions were permitted to require public employees, through union security provisions in the collective bargaining agreements negotiated with government employers, to pay union dues or fees as a condition of employment as compensation for the union’s representation, whether desired or not.

The loss of mandatory agency fees after Janus renders government unions merely monopolies like any other, as the sole providers of workplace representation to represented employees.

But, as the Freedom Foundation explained in its brief, this forced representation still harms employees’ constitutionally protected rights of free association.

The U.S. Supreme Court previously examined the constitutionality of exclusive representation in Minnesota State Board for Community

5

What They

&

What They What she said: “Anytime the word ‘freedom’ is used, you can bet it is a Republican group that is certainly not about freedom.”

By MAXFORD NELSEN, Labor Policy Director

Colleges v. Knight, 465 U.S. 271 (1984), but addressed primarily the effect of exclusive representation on employees’ free speech rights.

Only a few sentences addressed how exclusive representation burdens employees’ right to freely associate or, in this case, not associate.

The Freedom Foundation’s brief explains in detail the ways in which exclusive representation has harmed the associational rights of Washington’s home caregivers and family child care providers, who are similarly situated to the Minnesota caregivers in Bierman.

First, exclusive representation harms employees’ privacy by granting unions access to sensitive information about the employees, including their Social Security numbers.

Secondly, this information is used to subject employees to an unwanted barrage of union membership solicitations and coercive tactics designed to seize union dues from employees’ wages.

One of the most egregious examples is the captive-audience meetings with union organizers caregivers must participate in as part of their hiring and training process which public records reveal to be highly coercive.

Third, most employees unionized under state labor laws have had little or no say in choosing the exclusive bargaining representative.

In some cases, a vote was held years or decades past in which a relatively small percentage of the bargaining unit voted for representation.

Many of these were plagued with irregularities. In other cases, employees were never

permitted the ability to vote on union representation in a secret ballot election.

And under current state law in Washington, it is logistically impossible for union-represented home and family child care providers to initiate a vote to change unions or decertify the incumbent union.

A union retains is status as exclusive bargaining representative even if fewer than half of the employees it represents choose to join as members.

Lastly, exclusive representation allows a union to claim the support of all represented employees in its political speech and advocacy, placing the burden on employees who disagree with the union to affirmatively express their disagreement.

A striking example occurred in 2018, when SEIU 775 backed legislation to force home caregivers to pay union dues as a condition of employment.

In their legislative testimony, union lobbyists claimed to speak on behalf of all caregivers in the state, without acknowledging that thousands of caregivers had chosen not to join the union as members.

These caregivers were forced to mount a difficult campaign to express to the Legislature and the public their opposition to the legislation and SEIU 775.

Hopefully the Supreme Court recognizes the seriousness of the issue, grants the Minnesota caregivers’ request to have their case heard and strikes down exclusive representation as unconstitutional.

Such an outcome would not end unions, but would introduce a little healthy competition to the workplace representation industry, free public employees from having to associate with labor unions against their will and allow employees to choose for themselves how to handle their workplace representation needs.

What she meant: “And you’d lose that bet hands down because PEGGY SIMINGTON the Freedom Swisshome, Ore. Foundation has YouTube post Jan. 25, 2019. no affiliation whatsoever with any political party and works tirelessly to protect the freedom of workers to choose for themselves whether to affiliate with a labor union that desperately wants to deny them that choice. n n n

She said: “The ‘Freedom’ Foundation? Or do you mean the ‘My Way or the Highway’ Foundation?”

She meant: “When it comes to compromising with MARILYN BOYDEN people’s libIssaquah, Wash. erty, it’s true Facebook post, the Freedom Jan. 14, 2019 Foundation takes no shortcuts. As for me and my union, we’re all for freedom of choice ... as long as you choose what we tell you to do.” n n n

She said: “The Freedom Foundation is a terrorist organization.”

She meant: Not that accuracy or truth matter much to me, but a terrorist is someone who inflicts casualties on VIOLET TRIEBENBACH Poulsbo, Wash. innocent byFacebook post, standers raJan. 22, 2019 ther than engaging the actual combatant directly. By that definition, the Freedom Foundation is no terrorist. And as someone who’s been in a fight or two with the Freedom Foundation, know this well. My union, however, is very much a terrorist group because it’s all about colllateral damage rather than frontal assaults.”

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HB 1888

Sponsor: Bill’s Purpose: would exempt government Rep. SHELLEY Bill employees’ birth dates from public laws, making it more KLOBA disclosure difficult for the Freedom Foun(D-KIRKLAND)

HB 1289

Sponsor: Bill’s P e Rep. DEREK Facilitates and streaml pr STANFORD licensing for marijuan

dation to notify workers of their opt-out rights.

HB 1333

(D-BOTHELL)

that agree t

Sponsor: Bill’s Purpose: unions to Rep. JAVIER Allows collect dues from assistants of VALDEZ the judges.

(D-BOTHELL)

SHB 1299

Sponsor: Bill’s Purpose: the lawyers working Sen. LAURIE Unionizes for Washington’s union-backed General Bob Ferguson.

DOLAN Attorney Because lawyers are abused (D-OLYMPIA)

and under-represented.

HB 1692

Sponsor: Bill’s Purpose: a public employee claims to Rep. LAURIE Ifhave been harassed, or she can sue JINKINS he their employer if it (D-TACOMA)

follows public records laws and releases their contact information.

SB 5169

Sponsor: Bill’s Purpose: public-employee unions Sen. BOB Allows to penalize employers believe aren’t HASEGAWA they suffiently “neutral,” (D-SEATTLE)

and requires government contractors to certify they will remain neutral in union organization efforts.

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7

HB 1675

Sponsor: Bill’s Purpose: training for many Rep. STEVE Requires adult family home workers exclusively provided by a THARINGER be union-designiated provider.

(D-SEQUIM)

Gives unions another monopoly revenue source.

Purpose:

expansion lines rocedures na retailers to unionize.

HB 1452 Sponsor: Bill’s Purpose: employees of Rep. MARCUS Adds the Washington State to the ranks VICELLI Legislature of those paying union dues (D-SPOKANE)

and having a union speak for them.

HB 1575 Sponsor: Bill’s Purpose: a signed document Rep. MONICA Requires presented to the union to out but allows membership STONIER opt with only verbal assent.

(D-VANCOUVER)

Employers may only listen to the union about payroll deductions.

Allows unionization using only a card check and no vote. Affirms irrevocable payment agreements.

HB 5295 Sponsor: Bill’s Purpose: all who Rep. KAREN Requires contract to provide services on of DSHS to sign a “labor KEISER behalf neutrality agreement” (D-WEST SEATTLE)

with any union seeking to organize its workers.

Violation of the agreement would constitute grounds for being banned from providing future services

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LIVING LIBERTY

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A P U BL IC AT I ON OF T HE FREEDOM FOUNDAT I ON

SEIU’S SHIP SINKING EVEN FASTER THAN EXPECTED

A

rrecent Freedom Foundation blog post noted that Service Employees International Union (SEIU) Local 503 has lost 21 percent of its membership just since last September.

But it seems we were a little too conservative in our calculations.

In fact, according to records requests from the state of Oregon obtained this month by the Freedom Foundation, 26 percent of state employees represented

by SEIU 503 no longer pay dues.

When the U.S. Supreme Court last summer issued its ruling in Janus v.

AFSCME banning mandatory dues or fees for government employees,

By BOAZ DILLON, Labor Policy Analyst

Freedom Foundation Oregon Director, Aaron Withe predicted to an Oregon Public Broadcasting interviewer the union would lose 20 percent of its membership in the first year.

Instead, the union has suffered losses of just over a quarter of its membership in a little over six months after the Janus decision.

This membership decline is due in no small measure to the Freedom Foundation’s outreach efforts to public

Oregon Update

Highlighting the successes being achieved by the Freedom Foundation’s office in the Beaver State.

employees across Oregon.

Following the Janus decision, the Freedom Foundation’s Oregon office launched a full-scale campaign to government workers across the Beaver State to inform them of their newly affirmed workplace rights.

Because government unions offer no real incentive to maintain membership, many public employees would rather leave the union. Government unions’ focus has been on getting politicians elected and increasing revenue rather than helping the employees they are supposed to represent.

The workers have long realized this but, until Janus, there was little they could do about it.

Union leaders have boasted Janus posed no threat to their activities.

SEIU 503’s executive director has even gone so far as to claim its membership has increased since the Supreme Court decision.

Fortunately, the numbers don’t lie as glibly as she does.

Quite simply, SEIU 503’s future at this point looks bleak. Not only is it hemorrhaging members — and the millions of dollars in dues they’re no longer forced to pay — but the union’s leaders are doing nothing to stop the bleeding.

Instead of trying to mend fences with disgruntled members and attract new ones by actually providing a service worth paying for, the unions are doubling down on the lies and indifference that got them into this mess in the first place.

Maybe they’ll figure it out eventually.

The question is, will there be anyone around at that point to care?

HOW HAVE OREGON UNIONS RESPONDED SINCE JANUS? Reprinted from OREGON CATALYST Feb. 7, 2019

I

t’s a lousy time to be a government union in just about any state.

But in Oregon, where Freedom Foundation canvassers are knocking on members’ doors, showing up at their offices and showering them with e-mails, mailers and myriad other messages all designed to inform workers about rights their union would prefer to suppress, it’s particularly bad.

Just ask SEIU 503, which has hemorrhaged more than 20 percent of its membership since the U.S. Supreme Court last summer in Janus v. AFSCME outlawed mandatory dues or agency fees in the public workplace.

A huge percentage of the defections were the direct result of the Freedom Foundation’s outreach strategy, but we can’t take all the credit. SEIU helped enormously by prioritizing a radically liberal political agenda over the work-related concerns of its members.

Union leaders still fulminate about their commitment to the workers they presume to represent, but that lie was exposed years ago.

These days, unions in general and government unions in particular function as little more than a money-laundering operation that confiscates billions of dollars in dues from workers and funnels it to candidates and causes that all too often have nothing whatever to do with wages, benefits or working conditions.

Many, if not most, of the workers resent this arrangement tremendously, which explains why so many of them abandon the union the instant they discover they can. Which, in turn, also explains why the unions are working night and day to keep it from happening.

A few examples of the unions’ desperation: n Personal attacks. They smear our staff, our board and even our canvassers every day. They spend hundreds of thousands of dollars on these attacks in a vain attempt to intimidate us. But their antics only validate our efforts and galvanize our team. n Frivolous lawsuits. They file lawsuits in an attempt to drain our time and resources. The litigation we were involved in last year with the city of Portland is a prime example. n Preventing people from leaving. The unions hatch countless schemes to hinder members already determined to leave and discourage those on the fence.

The most recent example is the deceptive fine print included in union membership cards that allows employees to end their union membership but forces them to continue paying dues.

Rewriting laws. When the courts rule against the unions, they sim-

ply order their hired guns in the Legislature to change the laws they break. HB-2643, currently being debated by Oregon lawmakers, illustrates the point perfectly.

If passed, the measure would deny workers the very right enumerated under Janus to opt out of union dues by empowering the state to pay the unions directly — after first reducing the employee’s salary by a corresponding amount.

Lying to their members. Unions spread lies in a fear campaign to their membership to try and prevent them from listening to the Freedom Foundation’s message.

They often claim we’re anti-worker or doing the dirty work of some faceless, out-of-state cabal.

All of these are simply postponing the inevitable.

There should only be one response to Janus and our campaign, and that’s for the unions to clean up their act.

No worker should ever be forced to surrender a portion of his or her paycheck in return for representation they don’t want or to fund political ideas they don’t agree with.

Private-sector companies cannot exist unless the product or service they provide is valued by enough consumers to make the enterprise economically viable.

That doesn’t seem like an unreasonably high bar for unions to clear.But because they know they can’t, union leaders will resort to any despicable means to maintain the current corrupt status quo.

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BEST OF THE BLOG UNIONS RESPOND TO MASS EXODUS WITH WHAT THEY KNOW BEST: LIES FEB. 6, 2019

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overnment employees, having been liberated by last summer’s landmark U.S. Supreme Court ruling in Janus v.

AFSCME, are fleeing the clutches of their former union captors in huge numbers.

But instead of responding like a private-sector company would when suddenly deprived of its monopoly – namely, working harder and providing a better product or service – unions are falling back on what they know best.

Lying through their teeth.

For starters, they’re lying about whether the mass exodus is even happening. And with the help of their allies in the mainstream media, a number of articles have been published denying Janus has had any impact at all.

But it’s one thing to lie to the public. It’s quite another to deliberately deceive your dues-paying members.

Even before the Janus ruling was issued last June, however, public-sector unions like SEIU, AFSCME, WEA, the Teamsters and many others read the handwriting on the wall and began preparing for the worst. But again, instead of simply cleaning up their act, they resorted to subterfuge.

Union operatives made a massive push to contact and, if possible, “persuade” as many workers as possible to renew their union membership.

Many were bullied and harassed, but others were simply lied to.

At the Freedom Foundation, we’ve heard from literally hundreds of government workers telling essentially the same story.

The workers weren’t told about Janus, or that they could no longer be forced to pay union dues or fees. They were told the membership renewal forms were routine – and mandatory.

Take “David,” for example, who wrote: “I signed an OPT OUT letter on March 15, 2018 to PSE, and was informed that I signed a form to authorize deduction.

I was tricked into signing the form and didn’t understand it. Please help. I want to opt out.”

By MATTHEW HAYWARD, Outreach Director

Or “Nancy”: “I work for Washington state at the University of Washington Medical Center, and I’ve been a member of SEIU 925. Their representative tricked me into signing a form without me knowing about what’s going on by saying it’s just a form the union needs you to sign if you want to keep working. I later found out I could opt out, and when I contacted the union I was told I couldn’t because I had signed the form.”

In most cases, such workers are no longer considered full-fledged (i.e., voting) members, but the union continues to skim dues from their paychecks unless or until they reapply to have the deduction discontinued during an arbitrary annual window or opportunity.

“Gill” expressed the frustration many of his peers feel: “I have a problem with continuing to be forced to pay for benefits and services I no longer receive. I find this unethical. I feel that the ‘contract’ I signed is no longer lawful as it was signed under the pretense that I had to pay dues whether I was a member or not.”

In the six months since the Janus ruling was issued, the Freedom Foundation – which has offices only in Washington, Oregon and California – has helped more than 41,000 workers opt out of a union they no longer wish to be associated with. By the end of the year, our goal is to free 100,000, depriving the unions of $40 million in revenue they would otherwise use to fund their job-killing, liberty-reducing, union-centric leftist agenda.

If you think the unions aren’t worried enough by that prospect to tell a few whoppers, you’re selling them – and the Freedom Foundation – short.

ANTI-FREEDOM FOUNDATION TASK FORCE CREATED FEB. 6, 2019

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ocuments recently made public by San Bernardino County, Calif., officials detail the creation by Teamsters Local 1932 of a committee whose sole aim is to prevent the Freedom Foundation from informing county employees of their constitutional right to opt out of union dues and still keep their jobs.

The documents were released in response to a public records request made by the Freedom Foundation after learning the union had been refusing to honor the opt-out requests of county workers.

Teamsters 1932 and its president, Kathleen Brennan, understand we are a direct threat to their unconstitutional, anti-worker, dues-skimming monopoly.

Since last October, our canvassers have been working each week to inform county workers of rights Kathleen Brennan evidently wants to suppress.

The committee’ mission statement makes no pretense about its motives. It reads: “(The) Freedom Foundation is paying people to stand outside county buildings to ‘educate’ our members on how to opt out. We

By SAMUEL COLEMAN, California Outreach Director

need our own committee to fight this.”

In addition to Brennan, other members of this anti-freedom committee include (Teamsters 1932 officers) Abraham Gallegos and Tizoc Arenas.

This committee reports to business agent Carlos Gonzales and, unlike other Teamsters 1932 committees we’ve learned about through our public records request, this one is ongoing with no set end-date.

Government unions like Teamsters 1932 understand once workers become aware of labor’s destructive agenda and indifference to worker concerns, they’re no longer willing to have their dues money used to pay for it.

The Freedom Foundation is the only organization that elicits this kind of a response from government unions because we use the union’s own tactics against them to free workers from forced unionization.

Unfortunately for Kathleen Brennan and Teamsters 1932,we’re not a group that can be bullied away – and we’re not going anywhere.

The Freedom Foundation does battle daily with labor unions — but only with those representing government employees. By and large, workers in the private sector aren’t compelled to join a union, and we’re not in the business of suppressing people’s rights. That’s what the unions do, not us.

But that didn’t stop Leo Gerard, president of the United Steelworkers from mentioning our name in a blog he posted to his union’s website. He wrote: “(They) call themselves sanctimonious and deceptive names like ‘The Fairness Center’ and the ‘Freedom Foundation’ while they plot to destroy collective bargaining...”

Actually, we do no such thing, but Gerard’s blog is such a steaming mess of lies and bad ideas it would take more space than we have in this whole newsletter to set the record straight.

Suffice to say, we’re gratified to have become the go-to policy organization when it comes to unions creating a boogeyman to explain their own failings. Even unions that have nothing whatsoever to do with our mission here. n

n

n

Politicians are like vegetables: The only thing better than buying ‘em is growing your own.

Take, for example, Mike Nelson, executive director of SEIU Leadership Council 14, who has announced he will run for mayor of Edmonds.

By coincidence, the Washington Attorney General’s Office filed a lawsuit against Council 14 in 2017 for failing to register and report as a political action committee.

“This suit was initiated by the Freedom Foundation, an extremist organization whose sole purpose is to destroy labor unions and worker protections,” Nelson told the Edmonds Beacon.

Can’t wait until the city’s contract with its employees is up and Nelson gets to negotiate a new one.

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A P U BL IC AT I ON OF T HE FREEDOM FOUNDAT I ON

FREEDOM IN ACTION CONSERVATIVE IDEAS DON’T NEED A CABAL

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ccam’s Razor, also known as the Law of Parsimony, posits that the most likely answer to any problem is always the simplest.

Then again, Occam wasn’t a befuddled liberal trying desperately to pound the square peg of his cherished socialist narrative into the round hole of truth.

How else to interpret a guest opinion published Dec. 20 on the Crosscut website headlined “Why Conservative Think Tanks Thrive in Liberal Washington.”

Author Walter Hatch, a Seattle native who teaches at the University of Maine, somehow manages to labor through 1,200 words on the subject. But to state the answer as parsimoniously as possible, it’s because not everyone in this state — or any other — thinks as he does.

Like persistent weeds, conservative think tanks — and, indeed, conservative thought — occasionally despoil even the most liberal Garden of Eden.

Owing almost exclusively to the demographics of the alternate universe that is King County, it’s true Washington does, indeed, veer sharply to the political left on most issues (the glaring exception, of course, being the liberal Holy Grail of an income tax).

In any case, “majority” and “unanimity” are two distinct terms. And while one may be the rule for Seattle tattoo parlors, Medina mansions and the editorial board of pretty much every newspaper in the state, the same cannot be assumed of those who populate its apple orchards, timber towns and military installations.

Nonetheless, like most academics, Prof. Hatch stubbornly

By JEFF RHODES, Managing Editor

refuses to accept that others not blessed with his towering intellect and keen insight into the human condition might actually prefer governance that reflects and respects their own humble ideals instead.

So while his ideological soulmates in the other Washington squander millions of someone else’s tax dollars in the vain quest for a conspiracy to rationalize an election result that simply doesn’t fit their narrow parameters, Hatch sulks in his ivory tower inventing boogeymen on whom to blame the incomprehensible presence of conservative thought where none should exist.

To be sure, there are philanthropists on the right like the Koch brothers and the Bradley Foundation whose money finds its way into the coffers of think tanks promoting dangerous concepts like free markets and limited, accountable government. But if voluntarily investing a portion of one’s personal wealth in causes he or she believes in is, by definition, sinister, why doesn’t the same standard apply to George Soros, Tom Steyer and other deep pockets on the left who provide a counterweight to conservative financiers Hatch ignores completely?

But as long as we’re discussing how political discourse in a free society should and shouldn’t be funded, let’s cut straight to the elephant in the room for which there is no conservative equivalent.

Namely, organized labor.

For generations, the entire lib-

eral establishment — the bureaucracy, the media, academia, the entertainment industry and leftist politicians — has been fueled to an enormous degree by money confiscated by unions in general and government employee unions in particular.

Until this past June, when the U.S. Supreme Court in Janus v.

AFSCME outlawed mandatory union dues and fees, millions of state and local government workers had no choice but to fund a liberal agenda at least half didn’t support.

The Freedom Foundation, Washington’s most assertive (and, thus, most reviled) conservative think tank, played a critical role in bringing Janus before the court and supplying the legal analysis on which the justices based their decision.

Disagreeable though the outcome may have been for the left, millions of decent, hardworking Washingtonians were delighted

to see the playing field finally made level. And many showed their appreciation by writing a check to those who helped make it possible.

The Freedom Foundation, it might surprise Prof. Hatch to learn, has a donor base consisting of thousands of individuals in Washington alone. And it is they — not some murky, menacing, out-of-state cabal — who form the backbone of the organization’s funding.

But since the existence of an authentic, grassroots, conservative resistance movement operating deep behind enemy lines cannot be countenanced by the left, the task of manufacturing a convincing cover story falls to its allies in the media and the self-proclaimed intelligentsia.

As a card-carrying member of both, Hatch was uniquely qualified to serve up a steaming platter of liberal-speak.

And he overachieved.

LAWSUIT: AG, UNIONS CONSPIRE TO KILL MEDICAID REFORM Continued from page 1 een, partners at Altshuler Berzon LLP; n Shane Esquibel, chief deputy in the Washington Attorney General’s Office; n Anna Rich, deputy attorney general for the California Department of Justice’s “Healthcare Strike Force;” n Kamala Shugar, special counsel to the attorney general in the Oregon Department of Justice; n Scott Kaplan, assistant attorney in charge of the special litigation unit of the Oregon Department of Justice; n Melanie Fontes Rainer, senior advisor to California Attorney General Xavier Becerra; n Kathleen Boergers, deputy solicitor general at the California Department of Justice; n Renee Gerni, associate general counsel for the SEIU; and, Teague Paterson, deputy general counsel for AFSCME. The content of the email was entirely redacted by the AGO, but the subject line

read, “CONFIDENTIAL COMMON IN TEREST AGREEMENT – Inquiries from CMS?” Several additional emails were exchanged periodically throughout June. On June 22, another email was sent by Donna Cobb in the Washington Attorney General’s Office to the individuals listed above.

Again, the email was redacted in its entirety, but the subject line read, “A challenges to CMS guidance by State of Washington.”

Lastly, on June 27, Stacey Leyton of Altshuler Berzon emailed the group, again under the subject line, “CONFIDENTIAL COMMON INTEREST AGREEMENT – Inquiries from CMS?” stating: “As you probably have realized, the NPRM was not released today. We are seeing what we can find out about the length of and reasons for the delay, and will let you know what we are able to find out.”

The NPRM to repeal the Obama-era regulation was issued by CMS just two weeks later, on July 12.

When the Freedom Foundation requested a copy of the referenced “common interest agreement” between the parties involved, the AG’s office refused to provide it in violation of the PRA. Given the amount of dues money involved and the political reliance of all three West Coast state governments on the support of unions like SEIU and AFSCME, it is unsurprising they would oppose CMS’ attempt to enforce federal law and prevent states from continuing to skim union dues out of Medicaid.

However, the discovery that these entities have created a formal legal alliance dedicated to perpetuating exploitation of home caregivers for financial and political gain, all while attempting to shield their activities from scrutiny by ignoring open government laws, is both noteworthy and unfortunate.

Given these realities, the Freedom Foundation has no choice but to continue working to protect caregivers from being taken advantage of and to protect the public’s right to know what state government officials are up to.

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A PUBLI CATION OF THE FREED OM FOU NDATION

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FREEDOM IN THE NEWS IN PRINT

JAN. 25, 2019

JAN. 25, 2019

WITH UNIONS HEMORRHAGING MEMBERS, LIBERALS HAVE A NEW PLAN TO SAVE LEFT’S CASH COW

LA TEACHERS JUST PROVED THE COMMON WISDOM ABOUT UNIONS IS WRONG “We know there are tens of thousands of educators who chafe under the left-leaning leadership of these unions,” said Jami Lund of the Freedom Foundation. “Making sure they know they now have an option will certainly have its effect.”

ONLINE

ONLINE

JAN. 14, 2019

DISASTER AVERTED? HOW UNIONS HAVE DODGED THE BLOW OF JANUS (SO FAR) “One of the most aggressive opt-out campaigners is the Freedom Foundation ... Attempting to take advantage of what it calls “the opportunity of a lifetime” to gut unions, the Freedom Foundation has targeted public employees in Alaska, California and Oregon with mailings, email campaigns, canvassing at large work sites, door-to-door visits and an ‘Opt Out Today’ website.”

“Thanks to the U.S. Supreme Court’s landmark right-to-work ruling last June (Janus v. AFSCME) and the Freedom Foundation’s efforts to inform public employees of the court’s decision, more than 40,000 union members on the West Coast have defected during the past six months alone.”

ONLINE

JAN. 13, 2019

SPREAD THE WORD TO ANCHORAGE TEACHERS “The Freedom Foundation, another think tank in our network, does excellent work advocating for individual liberty, free enterprise, and limited, accountable government in Oregon and Washington. Working with our organization, they recently sent an email to some NEAAlaska members. The email simply gave factual information to those members about how they can opt out of full union membership and get a refund.”

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A P U BL IC AT I ON OF T HE FREEDOM FOUNDAT I ON

AG SETTLES WITH SEIU FOR ‘PENNIES ON THE DOLLAR’

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ppolitical arm of the Service Employees International Union (SEIU) has agreed to pay $250,000 in fines and penalties for attempting to conceal nearly $9 million in campaign activity from the voters and its own members.

According to the official announcement from the Washington State Attorney General’s Office (AGO), which filed the suit in Thurston County Superior Court, “After receiving a Citizen Action Notice in April of 2017, the AGO determined SEIU Council 14 made significant campaign contributions but failed to register and report as a political committee in at least 2014 and 2016.”

The original complaint to the AGO resulting in the lawsuit was made by the Freedom Foundation.

And while the $250,000 judgment — which includes $233,205 in civil penalties with $104,942.25 suspended for four years contingent on no violations in that period, as well as $18,300.85 in costs and fees — appears to be the seventh largest campaign finance penalty in state history, it still represents a drop in the bucket compared to the amount SEIU was trying to conceal.

It also exposes the rank hypocrisy of Attorney General Bob Ferguson, who has gleefully socked defendants from whom he hasn’t accepted substantial cam-

By JEFF RHODES, Managing Editor

paign contributions with much more severe sanctions for similar offenses.

In 2016, for example, Ferguson won a $6 million ruling (trebled to $18 million because the violations were found to be intentional) against the Grocery Manufacturers Association, a Washington, D.C.-based nonprofit trade group that helped defeat I-522, a GMO labeling initiative here in 2013.

“This landmark case has been a long fight for accountability,” Ferguson crowed at the time.

“This ruling sends an unequivocal message: Big money donors cannot evade Washington law and hide from public scrutiny.

My office will hold you accountable.”

The grocers failed to disclose $28 million in contributions and expenditures, meaning the $6 million penalty amounted to about 21 percent of the amount not disclosed.

Likewise, in 2018, Ferguson imposed a nearly $9,000 penalty on the Freedom Foundation for reporting about $2,000 in expenditures opposing Initiative 1501 two weeks late.

In this case, SEIU’s penalty amounts to merely 3 percent of the amount it never reported.

“Bob Ferguson clearly has one standard for his friends, and another for people his friends tell him to punish,” said Freedom Foundation CEO Tom McCabe. “On orders from SEIU his other union allies, Ferguson has weaponized the Washington State Attorney General’s Office.”

Officially, Ferguson recused himself from the SEIU ruling because of his obvious conflict of interest, McCabe explained. But the subsequent ruling has his fingerprints all over it.

The release from the AG’s Office notes: “Washington law requires registration of a political committee when a person has the expectation of receiving contributions or making expenditures to support or oppose candidates or ballot propositions. The law requires these committees to regularly report information to the Public Disclosure Commission about sources of contributions, starting with those over $25.

Political committees must also regularly report information about their activities, including expenditures, debts and in-kind contributions. While Council 14 has its own registered political committee, the council itself also acted as a political committee by devoting a majority of its annual expen-

ACTION TIMELINE SPOTLIGHTING SOME OF THE FREEDOM FOUNDATION’S NOTEWORTHY ACCOMPLISHMENTS OF THE PAST MONTH

February 12 Fox & Hounds, considered by many the premier news website in California, publishes an op-ed by Freedom Foundation VP for Operations Bob Wickers. Headlined “School Contract Talks Benefit Only Those with Secrets to Keep,” the piece laments the lack of transparency in the recently concluded negotiations between the Los Angeles school district and its striking teachers while arguing that contract talks in Oakland should learn from LA’s mistake.

February 13 The Freedom Foundation releases numbers revealing SEIU 503, Oregon’s largest labor union, has suffered one of the nation’s most dramatic membership declines since the U.S. Supreme Court landmark ruling last summer in Janus v. AFSCME. In the wake of Janus, which eliminated mandatory union dues or fees for government employees, the Freedom Foundation originally reported SEIU 503 had lost 21 percent of its members. In fact, a more recent information request finds the actual loss is 26 percent.

February 13 An op-ed authored by frequent government union critic Daniel DiSalvo of the Manhattan

Institute appears in the Wall Street Journal.

The piece, which mentions the Freedom Foundation, makes the surprising assertion that last summer’s U.S. Supreme Court ruling in Janus v. AFSCME “barely dents public-sector union membership.” Ironically, DiSalvo’s opinion appears the same very day the Daily Caller publishes a story, which also cites the Freedom Foundation, noting that SEIU, Oregon’s largest union, has lost a quarter of its membership since last summer. “(DiSalvo’s article) confirms what we have said for five years,” said Freedom Foundation CEO Tom McCabe. “In order to obtain opt outs, you must expend massive resources of time, energy and money. At the Freedom Foundation, this is all we do. The West Coast defies the national trend. Unions are losing members here for one obvious reason — because the Freedom Foundation is here, too.”

ditures to electoral political activity during 2014 and 2016.”

The Council, the press release explains, contributed directly to ballot proposition committees, in addition to contributing to its own political committee, SEIU Washington State Council PAC, which in turn contributed to committees that supported or opposed candidates. SEIU Washington State Council PAC reported the contributions from the council By failing to register and report as a political committee, Council 14 did not disclose its contributions or expenditures as required by law, nor did it report the sources of these contributions.

The settlement represents the seventh time since 2015 a Freedom Foundation complaint resulted in penalties for campaign finance violations.

What the AG’s Office document doesn’t make clear is that, had Ferguson’s lieutenants not agreed to take SEIU to court for its deception, the Freedom Foundation could have done so.

“The only difference is, we wouldn’t have let them off for pennies on the dollar, the way Ferguson did,” McCabe said.

“We’d have held his union cronies to the same harsh standard he applies to everyone else when he’s trying to show what a tough guy he is.”

February 15 Washington Attorney General Bob Ferguson tried to cover up his office’s collusion with labor unions after a think tank asked for public records about their communications, according to a lawsuit filed by the Freedom Foundation. Ferguson is one of several Democrats seeking to resist the Trump administration’s directive that would prohibit states from siphoning Medicaid payments away from at-home caregivers and putting them in the pockets of labor unions, such as Service Employees International Union (SEIU) and the American Federation of State, County, and Municipal Employees (AFSCME). The Freedom Foundation requested public records about the attorney general’s communications with major public sector unions relating to the policy. In return, it received pages of emails from Ferguson’s office. The bodies of those messages were reduced to black ink, nearly everything redacted except for the salutations and signatures of the senders.

February 18

February 14 The Fox News website publishes an op-ed by Freedom Foundation VP for Operations Bob Wickers. Headlined “Kamala Harris is a longtime ally of government unions — Here’s why that should worry voters,” the piece argues that the California senator, seen by some as the frontrunner for the Democratic presidential nomination in 2020, is beholden to the state’s most influential special interest rather than her constituents.

Freedom Foundation Vice President for Communications Ashley Varner appears on One America News touting the organization’s devastating impact on public-sector union membership on the West Coast since the Janus ruling was issued last summer.