April 2023 Living Liberty

Judge grants order ending Oregon employee’s dues

When it comes to suppressing the Constitutional right public employees to opt out of union membership and dues, the agency for whom they work can be just as guilty as the union itself.

Occasionally even more so.

On March 14, U.S. District Court Judge Michael W. Mosman made permanent a temporary restraining order granted a week earlier preventing Oregon’s Department of Administrative Services from continuing to deduct dues on behalf of the Service Employees International Union (SEIU) from a state employee who never authorized the deduction in the first place.

It is believed to be the first TRO ever granted anywhere in the country forcing a state to stop collecting dues until the lawsuit can be fully adjudicated.

When Victoria Bright began working for the state of Oregon in November 2022 ironically in its Department of Human Services she made a point of declining membership in SEIU, because she took exception to its political agenda and bargaining tactics.

Starting with her first paycheck, however, the state has deducted $74.05 in dues, plus an additional assessment of $2.50 for “SEIU Issues” on the union’s behalf each month.

Bright has contacted SEIU on numerous occasions, and each time the union has agreed the dues deductions are improper and promised to issue a full refund.

But the money kept disappearing.

“This is a perfect example of why the s

By JEFF RHODES, VP for News & Information

state shouldn’t be in the dues-collection business,” said Rebekah Millard, an attorney with the Freedom Foundation, which is providing Bright with free legal representation. “It doesn’t matter whether the state is acting out of incompetence or fealty to the union. What matters is that it wouldn’t happen at all if the union was taking responsibility for its own accounting procedures, like every other independent service provider.”

Bright had been a dues-paying member of SEIU from 2013 until 2022, while she was working for the Oregon State Hospital, but did not reauthorize dues deductions when she took her new job.

In its 2018 Janus v. AFSCME ruling, the U.S. Supreme Court affirmed that mandatory union membership and dues/ fees are a violation of free speech and association rights for government employees.

Bright is seeking a declaratory judgment preventing dues deductions from her paycheck or that of any other state employee without proper authorization.

“The state clearly does not have the necessary safeguards and procedures in place to ensure this won’t happen and isn’t already happening to other public employees who simply haven’t noticed it yet,” Millard said. “This is what happens when the government partners with a private entity and both parties begin to conclude the money they’re confiscating belongs to them rather than the person who earned it.”

RUSTY BROWN

By RYAN BROOKS

Teacher Freedom Summit takes the war over our kids’ education directly to unions

For the first five years after the U.S. Supreme Court affirmed in Janus v. AFSCME that public employees could no longer be forced to join or support a union with their dues or fees, leaders of the country’s teachers’ unions steadfastly denied the ruling had made a meaningful dent in their membership.

And the numbers could be finessed to make that boast seem almost plausible.

Not anymore.

According to U.S. Department of Labor disclosure reports, the National Education Association (NEA) and the American Federation of Teachers (AFT) lost more than 59,000 working members combined during the 2021-22 school year.

That decline comes after an 82,000-member loss the previous year.

And it isn’t because fewer teachers are being hired. The Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS) recently reported that local schools added 95,000 employees between September 2021 and September 2022.

Nor were the membership losses confined to specific areas of the country. Every state affiliate but one that was required to file a disclosure report lost working members.

NEA ended the school year with 2.5 million working members, down 40,107 from the previous year.

The national union is at its lowest membership level since before the 2006 merger between NEA New York and New York State United Teachers.

AFT, meanwhile, had 1.2 million working members in 2021-22, a loss of 19,078.

It’s worth noting that only 43.5 percent of AFT’s total members work full-time anyway.

Five state unions are affiliated with both NEA and AFT. One (North Dakota United) is not required to file a disclosure report. The other four all lost working members. They include:

n New York State United Teachers — 411,811 (down 4,384);

n Montana Federation of Public Employees — 18,692 (down 1,274);

n Education Minnesota — 73,008 (down 732); and,

n the Florida Education Association — 129,445 (down 4,682).

It flatters us to think we had something to do with these defections. After all, the Freedom Foundation has visited 359,000 public employees at their homes and offices since 2018, and we’ve sent 19.1 million pieces of mail and 40 million e-mails to public employees across the country.

As a direct result of our efforts, public-sector unions have already experienced a 21.5 percent decline in membership, and a corresponding loss of tens of millions in uncollected dues revenue — dollars they would otherwise have been able to spend to advance their radically liberal political agenda.

But the reality is that union bumbling and bullying have sent more members scurrying for the exits than three Freedom Foundations could have.

By AARON WITHE, CEO

Regardless of who gets the credit, though, we know an opportunity when we see one.

That’s why the Freedom Foundation is making plans now to host its first-ever national Teacher Freedom Summit this summer.

The event, scheduled for July 10-12 at the Gaylord Rockies Resort in Aurora, Colo., will bring together up to 300 educators from around the country for a freewheeling exploration of how much they’re paying in union dues, what their union is buying with it and how to stop it.

And none of it will cost participating teachers a cent.

Though still in the planning stages, the Teacher Freedom Summit is perhaps the Freedom Foundation’s most ambitious outreach program to date.

Understanding that no one has more credibility than a friend or co-worker, our goal is to supplement our own outreach staffers with a growing number of teachers who can advise their peers about their rights and help them negotiate the union-erected barriers to their freedom.

Freedom Foundation staff and nationally known guest speakers will cover such topics as:

n how to run opt-out campaigns in their school districts;

n how to decertify and sue their unions; and,

n how to prevent unions from polluting local school curricula with subjects like Critical Race Theory and age-inappropriate sex education.

The future of this country is its children, and make no mistake, unions are determined to subvert them early by transforming America’s schools into indoctrination centers for Socialist thought.

That can’t be allowed to happen and, as always, the Freedom Foundation is leading from the front.

If we’re not willing to surrender the U.S. government to the corrosive influence of organized labor, we’re certainly not going to hand over our children, and our Freedom Summits will be a powerful weapon to see that doesn’t happen.

“ If we’re not willing to surrender the U.S. government to the corrosive influence of organized labor, we’re certainly not going to hand over our children.”

THE CASE FOR FREEDOM

FREEDOM FIGHTER PROFILE

FREEDOM FIGHTER PROFILE

When did you join the Freedom Foundation?

May 1, 2021.

What were you doing before?

Before coming to work at the Freedom Foundation, I worked on multiple outreach efforts, including the 2020 U.S. Census, nonpartisan candidate campaigns, and executive director and founder of Slavic Vote, an organization focused on helping the Russian, Ukrainian and Slavic communities get out and vote. And every year I take time to go to the White House and help with different events in Washington, D.C.

Where are you from originally?

I was born in Novokubansk, Russia. Moved to Portland, Ore., with my family in 1997 and been here ever since. Graduated from David Douglas High School.

What makes you conservative?

Growing up, we often heard stories from my parents, grandparents and their friends of the life under Soviet Union and the communist governments tyrannical iron hammer. They could not think or do anything freely. Government had full control over everyone. I strongly believe in small government and in many ways that makes me a conservative.

What does an Oregon outreach director do?

I oversee the daily outreach operations of the Freedom Foundation’s Oregon office --- including recruiting and onboarding canvassers, processing opt outs, design of mail, answering phones and making sure we have are doing everything we can to educate public employees of their constitutional rights and every Oregon taxpayer.

What’s the best thing about working for the Freedom Foundation?

I love working with a great, hard-working team of freedom fighters who share my core values. Do you have any special hobbies or talents?

In his free time, I love cooking and entertaining friends and family, practicing with my band.

OnMarch 16, the Florida Legislature made good on its promises to hold government unions accountable to the taxpayers who fund them by passing out of committee two companion bills that would curtail the influence of Big Labor over the state’s public workorce and, by extension, government at every level.

Senate Bill 256, authored by Sen. Blaise Ingoglia, and House Bill 1445, sponsored by Rep. Dean Black, both Republicans, have now passed their first committee hearings and continue on their way to the governor’s desk, sending a strong statement that public employee unions cannot command control over government employee paychecks and the politics the unions support with those union dues dollars.

The proposals, collectively dubbed the “Paycheck Protection Bill,” include language that would, among other things:

n prevent the state from deducting dues on behalf of unions from public employees’ paychecks, forcing unions to do their own billing and collections;

n require audits of unions representing public employees;

n require union membership cards to include wording echoing the U.S. Supreme Court’s 2018 ruling in Janus v. AFSCME, which recognized the right of public employees to decline union membership, due and fees with no loss of representation or benefits;

n limit the compensation of union officers to no more than their highest-paid member; and,

n close the legal loopholes unions use to prevent members from voting to decertify them.

Both bills exempt law enforcement and firefighter unions from the proposed changes.

Florida lawmakers have considered similar bills in the past without success, but the GOP currently holds decisive advantages in both the House and Senate.

Andrew Spar, president of the Florida Education Association, issued a statement characterizing the bill as “…an attack, pure and simple, on

By RUSTY BROWN, Southen Director

educators’ basic freedoms and rights.” Baloney.

The law would do nothing to prevent state, county and local workers from organizing and bargaining collectively for better wages, benefits and working conditions the rightful role of unions.

It would simply make them more transparent and accountable, which is only a problem if you have something to hide.”

For generations, states without right-to-work protections could compel public employees to either become dues-paying union members or charge nonmembers a so-called “agency fee.”

The Supreme Court, in Janus, affirmed that mandatory union participation violates the workers’ First Amendment rights to free speech and association, but the ruling has been difficult to enforce.

These measures in Florida are nothing more than a way to scale back long-entrenched protections to which unions were never entitled under the Constitution in the first place.

If workers want to be in a union, this bill would do nothing to stop them. It just protects the rights of those who don’t.”

“This is a bad bill,” Gretchen Robinson, a Florida Education Association member, told Orlando Weekly. “It’s a mean bill. It’s going to hurt families, and it’s going to hurt all educators’ families and especially it’s going to hurt working-class families.”

In fact, the only thing the bill could conceivably damage is the continued viability of the FEA, which currently only has a 54 percent membership rate a number that could easily drop even further once a safeguard is implemented to verify union membership data.

“These bills are pro-worker because they make it easier for state employees to do what’s in their best interest rather than what’s in the best interest of their union,” Brown said. “Even better, it makes the state government accountable to the residents of Florida rather than a wholly owned subsidiary of Big Labor, the way it is in too many other states.”

Florida bill would make unions more accountable, transparent

Dmitriy Saschenko Oregon Outreach Director

LITIGATING FREEDOM

Freedom Foundation fires back in ‘The Case of the Undelivered Opt-Out Forms’

Inthe wake of the U.S. Supreme Court’s 2018 ruling in Janus v. AFSCME affirming the right of public employees to decline union membership and dues, determined unions have employed a variety of unconstitutional tactics, including the functional equivalent of putting their fingers in their ears and chanting “la-la-la” to avoid hearing bad news.

During March the Freedom Foundation fought back against that one by filing a response to a motion for summary judgment filed by three Washington Teamster locals being sued in federal court for trying to simply ignore the expressed wishes of their disgruntled members.

In 2021, Teamsters 117 began refusing to accept mail from the Freedom Foundation knowing our packages contained completed opt-out cards from public employees who wanted to exercise their hard-won Constitutional rights.

Even by union standards, the idea of brazenly refusing to acknowledge receipt of a legal document was novel, but before long at least two other unions in Washington state followed suit when the Freedom Foundation’s name was on the return address.

Sending opt-out cards to unions on behalf of public employees is one important way the Freedom Foundation helps public employees leave their unions and stop financially supporting the unions’ political speech through union dues.

The Freedom Foundation tracks the mail it sends to the unions and creates a paper trail that can help workers counter union attempts to keep them in the fold and their money flowing to leftist political candidates and causes.

If the courts permit unions to refuse to even accept mail from the Freedom Foundation, the employees would have to track and keep all the documentation necessary to force the unions to acknowledge the workers’ First Amendment rights.

When the unions first refused its mail, the Freedom Foundation resorted to sending packages with different return addresses, and the strategy worked — until the unions started recognizing those new return address

What They What They

By ERIC STAHLFELD, Chief Litigation Counsel

obligation to accept mail sent on behalf of their own members, the Freedom Foundation filed suit against Teamsters 117 and two others in the Western District of Washington. Stunningly, the court issued an initial ruling that refused to require the unions to accept the opt-out cards. Then, five days after Freedom Foundation attorneys requested relevant information from the unions, their attorneys filed a motion for summary judgment, hoping to quash the case with no further discussion.

The unions clearly had much to hide.

In their January motion for summary judgment, the unions insisted they had accepted and processed the opt-out cards but neglected to mention that was only true for the cards they had been tricked into accepting.

The unions then tried to convince the court all the opt-out cards had been received and processed by them months before the Freedom Foundation filed its lawsuit.

This is yet another example of the lies unions tell.

The Freedom Foundation filed documents with the court in May that showed that the unions had refused to accept opt-out cards even after the suit had been filed.

Finally, the unions asserted the 9th Circuit Court of Appeals’ decisions in Belgau and Wright dictated the court decide the case in the unions’ favor. They argued it was simply a matter of a contract between the unions and the employees instead of recognizing there cannot be any question about a contract until after they accept and open the mail that tells them an employee wants out.

Freedom Foundation attorneys noted that an employee’s First Amendment right to resign and stop paying union dues cannot be exercised until after the unions receive notice from the employee.

WHAT SHE SAID: “The only thing the Freedom Foundation wants to break up is your and your co-workers’ collective bargaining strength so we can’t improve your pay, benefits and working conditions.”

WHAT SHE MEANT:

“The Freedom Foundation’s mission is to protect the right of public employees to make their own choice about workplace representation. If the workers desire to be in a union, nothing the Freedom Foundation says or does can stop them. But if enough opt out to weaken the union, it was never legitimate to begin with. Loyalty is inspired with service, not force.”

SUSAN OEHLER Public Relations Specialist Columbus, Ohio CWA Local 4502 Feb. 22, 2023

n n n

WHAT SHE SAID: “(The Freedom Foundation mailer) is a reminder that we must all be diligent and continue to make sure our members are all aware of the benefits they gain by being a member of CSEA and what they would lose without us.”

MARY SULLIVAN

President, CSEA Unit 9200 Albany, N.Y. March

4, 2023

WHAT SHE MEANT: “In a word, nothing. By law, public employees cannot be punished for exercising their First Amendment right to decline union membership and dues. They must still earn the same pay and benefits as unionized employees and the union must represent nonmembers just as forcefully as members. Public employees lose nothing by opting out and gain back the dues dollars their union had been confiscating.”

n n n

WHAT HE SAID: “What (Montana’s Right-to-Work bill) does is it starts to erode and defund unions.

If you have half the people coming into your union, and they don’t have to pay the freight for the benefit the others are paying for, then it starts to erode.”

WHAT HE MEANT:

“So the only fair solution is to violate the First Amendment rights of the other half at least by compelling them to pay good money for a service they don’t need or want.”

FIGHTING FOR FREEDOM

Southern states moving to reinforce Janus ruling

State Sen. Jan Hochadel ( D-Conn.)

In a state whose public schools the Connecticut Examiner describes as being plagued by “low performance … high chronic absenteeism and (problems with) student discipline,” apparently the solution is to reward teachers with a pay raise.

At least that’s the conclusion of Jan Hochadel, a Democratic state senator and the state’s assistant majority leader, who co-sponsored a bill that would establish a minimum salary for teachers and paraducators, while also requiring boards of education to offer paras the Municipal Employee Health Insurance Plan and pay their contribution required under their retirement systems.

If you’re perplexed by the seeming disconnect evidenced in the measure, Raised House Bill 6881, consider that, when not lawmaking in Hartford, Hochadel serves as president of the Connecticut chapter of the American Federation of Teachers.

In essence, Hochadel is proposing, lobbying for and voting on her own pay raise, as are House of Representatives members Christopher Poulos, Kevin Brown and Maryam Khan all teachers, Democrats and union members.

Speaking in favor the bill, Shellye Davis, president of the Hartford Federation of Paraeducators, asserted that, “There is a crisis in our classrooms. Connecticut has more than 1,300 unfilled paraeducator positions across the state.”

Writing for the Yankee Institute, Meghan Portfolio observed, “It is unclear if Ms. Davis, who is also a para in the Hartford school system, utilized her paid union time to be in person while her classroom is in crisis.”

None of which is to suggest that all Connecticut educators are undeserving of a pay increase. Many undoubtedly work hard against difficult odds and produce excellent results. They deserve to be rewarded.

But just as certainly, there are teachers in the classroom failing their students, and they need to be removed just as underperforming employees in the private sector are.

The difference is that, by and large, private-sector workers aren’t represented by unions that have not only corrupted the governing process, but in many cases, are literally infiltrating it.

Onpaper, Janus v. AFSCME, the U.S. Supreme Court’s landmark 2018 ruling banned mandatory union membership and dues in the public workforce. But in the years since it was issued, lower courts have demonstrated little stomach for enforcing the decision, emboldening union leaders to simply behave as though it never happened.

That could change soon, as several cases that could give Janus teeth are currently under consideration by the Supreme Court. In the meantime, however, at least three states — Florida, Kentucky and Tennessee (and possibly Arkansas, too)— are moving ahead with measures intended to do exactly what the ruling says.

And then some.

In Florida — where the Freedom Foundation is actively engaged, including the use of a registered lobbyist — Republicans in in the state Legislature are working to exploit supermajorities in both houses in order to enact a measure whose language mirrors that of the Janus ruling, with a few extra surprises thrown in for good measure.

On March 7 — the first day of the 2023 legislative session — GOP members of the Senate Oversight and Accountability committee quickly approved SB 256, a companion bill to a House version that was overwhelmingly approved a year ago but never received a committee hearing in the Senate.

The proposal, dubbed the “Paycheck Protection Bill,” would, among other things:

n prevent the state from deducting dues on behalf of unions from public employees’ paychecks, forcing unions to do their own billing and collections;

n require audits of unions representing public employees;

n require union membership cards to include wording echoing the U.S. Supreme Court’s 2018 ruling in Janus v. AFSCME, which recognized the right of public employees to decline union membership, due and fees with no loss of representation or benefits;

n limit the compensation of union officers to no more than their highest-paid member; and,

n close the legal loopholes unions use to prevent members from voting to decertify them.

Both the House and Senate versions would exempt law enforcement and firefighter unions from the proposed changes.

Meanwhile in Kentucky, a pair of bills moving through the General Assembly would also take the state out of the dues-collection business.

Senate Bill 7 would stop automatic transfers to political action committees from an employee’s paycheck. House Bill 364 would do the same, in addition to preventing payroll deductions for union membership dues.

House Bill 26 would prohibit public funds from being used by unions for lobbying purposes. In essence, it simply imposes rules that prevent the government from lobbying itself.

Both Kentucky bills have passed through committee and await floor action in their respective chambers.

A recent study revealed that the Kentucky Education Association directs nearly $4 out of every $10 in union dues collected from its members to the National Education Association (NEA), which uses these funds to support partisan liberal political organizations and activities.

As the final version of SB 7 is decided, lawmakers plan to strengthen the bill with an amendment that does what the Florida bill would already do — end all government involvement in transmitting funds directly to unions, including payroll deductions for membership dues.

Lastly, in Tennessee, a bill augthored by Republican Senate Leader Jack Johnson of Franklin requires the Tennessee Department of Education to “publish the annual state salary

By JEFF RHODES, VP for News & Information

schedule” on the department website, but an amendment to the bill adds a requirement that would prohibit union dues from being deducted from teachers’ salaries.

The amendment explicitly prohibits any Local Education Agency (LEA) from deducting dues from an employee’s payroll for any “professional employees’ organization,” or union. Instead, it would be up to the individual employee to pay those voluntarily.

“This section does not prohibit an employee of an LEA from personally and voluntarily remitting dues to a professional employees’ organization,” the bill notes.

Union caterwauling notwithstanding, nothing being proposed in either state would prevent workers from forming or belonging to a union if they so choose. The legislation would simply make unions responsible for their own dues deductions.

Moreover, while the Florida , Kentucky and Tennessee proposals all include provisions not specifically mentioned in the Janus ruling as written by Justice Samuel Alito and affirmed by four of his colleagues, each is entirely consistent with its unambiguous intent.

The ruling clearly states, “Neither an agency fee nor any other payment to the union may be deducted from a nonmember’s wages, nor may any other attempt be made to collect such a payment, unless the employee affirmatively consents to pay.”

What better way to ensure public employees do, in fact, agree to support their union than by making them directly responsible for paying dues rather than allowing the state to deduct it preemptively at the union’s behest?

“When unions are allowed to outsource their own billing and collection activities to a taxpayer-supported state agency, pretty soon it starts to feel like the money belongs to them instead of the worker who earned it,” said Aaron Withe, CEO of the Freedom Foundation, which has filed numerous lawsuits around the country on behalf of public employees whose First Amendment right to opt out is being violated with impunity by their union.

“It’s time unions were reminded which side is working for the other,” Withe said.

FIGHTING FOR FREEDOM

SU and it goes

By AARON WITHE

Reprinted from FOX NEWS

March 8, 2023

On March 1, President Biden nominated Julie Su to serve as the nation’s next Secretary of Labor, and the choice checks all the expected liberal boxes. “If, in fact, you were not picked to be Secretary of Labor, I would be run out of town,” he joked to those assembled at Su’s introductory media event.

The rest of us, however, would have preferred someone qualified and capable of leading the agency in a manner that serves the public, not the president’s union friends.

Biden didn’t have to cast a very wide net to find his choice. Prior to her promotion, Su was serving as Assistant Secretary of Labor under departing Secretary Marty Walsh, who is leaving to head the union representing National Hockey League players.

Walsh, the one-time mayor of Boston, more recently served as president of Laborers Local 223, and under his benighted leadership the union lost nearly one-third of its membership, while he pulled down salaries north of $200,000 every year between 20072015.

Since taking the Labor Department’s top spot in 2021, of course, Walsh has been the point man in Biden’s quixotic effort to reverse the dwindling union membership trends if it takes every cent taxpayers have.

In this respect, at least, Su is manifestly qualified to follow in his footsteps.

As California’s Labor Secretary from 2019 to 2021, Su oversaw the state’s Department of Employment Security and, according to Orange County Register columnist John Phillips, “On her watch, 5 million Californians had benefits delayed and 1 million had benefits improperly denied.”

Simultaneously, Su transferred somewhere between $30 and $40 billion in state money to undeserving criminals.

Former State Rep. and now Congressman Kevin Kiley (R-Rocklin) described this fleecing as the “largest fraud of taxpayer dollars in history.”

Not even Su could shift the blame. During a Los Angeles Times Facebook live chat, she said, “I acknowledge that problem. I own it. I want you to hear from me directly that that is not acceptable and we are going to fix it.”

And her preferred method for doing so is by moving on to the U.S. Department of Labor, leaving the mess behind for someone else to clean up.

During the same Facebook forum, Su further conceded her Employment Security operation was woefully unprepared to cope with the unprecedented demand for unemployment assistance generated when California Gov. Gavin Newsom threw millions of residents out of work with his almost theatrical

overreaction to the COVID pandemic.

California Assemblywoman Cottie Petrie-Norris, the Democrat who chairs the Accountability and Administrative Review Committee, told the LA Times, “(Su) has done a tremendous job on many different initiatives, but she has not done a good job at running the Employment Development Department and, as a result, has wasted billions of dollars and, more importantly, caused heartache for millions of Californians.”

Su also championed the drive to hike California’s minimum wage, a move wildly popular with her union allies, but one that poured gasoline on the fire burning in the state’s alleys, boosting retail prices, moving home ownership beyond the reach of even more state residents and forcing businesses to lay off low-skilled workers they could no longer afford to employ.

Thanks to her efforts, California currently shares with New York, Ohio and West Virginia the nation’s seventh-highest jobless rate at 4.1 percent, far exceeding the national average of 3.4 percent.

In some cases, Su’s work in California did the opposite of what was promised. To cite just the most egregious example, Su was an enthusiastic supporter of the state’s AB5 Law, which has made it nearly impossible for independent contractors to operate in the state of California. The measure has “cost tens of thousands of freelance workers and independent contractors their economic livelihoods.”

If this is the nominee Biden would have been run out of town for not nominating, it boggles the mind to ponder what the reaction would have been had he put forward someone even less qualified.

Aaron Withe is CEO of the Freedom Foundation.

Not surprisingly, Biden’s choice for Secretary of Labor is just as beholden to the unions as he is.

FREEDOM STATE BY STATE

WASHINGTON: Phillips argues PDC case before Appeals Court

FreedomFoundation attorney Sydney Phillips went before the Washington State Court of Appeals on March 9 to argue that the Washington Federation of State Employees (WFSE) is indeed a political committee and should be required under the state’s campaign finance laws to report its election spending activity.

Washington’s Public Disclosure Commission (PDC) had earlier dismissed a Freedom Foundation complaint alleging the union violated the state’s Fair Campaign Practices Act (FCPA).

By BRIAN MINNICH, Executive Vice President

The agency further maintains its rulings are final and unreviewable.

“What’s the point of having a court system at all if individual government agencies are above the law?” Phillips asked. “The PDC is empowered to make determinations, but there’s no reason its rulings should be beyond scrutiny. It doesn’t have the power to weaponize campaign finance laws.”

Phillips argued the Freedom Foundation is an appropriate organization to appeal the PDC’s decision. As one of the most active watchdogs of union political spending in Washington, the organization filed litigation against the PDC for failing to hold WFSE accountable for breaking campaign finance laws.

The Freedom Foundation uses information about a union political spending to inform public employees about where their union dues are being spent.

When the PDC fails to hold unions accountable to the FCPA, the Freedom Foundation is hindered in its mission to educate public employees about their constitutional rights.

“If the Freedom Foundation can’t challenge the PDC, there’s nothing to stop special interests like WFSE from continuing to violate the state’s campaign finance laws with impunity,” Phillips said. “Court decisions are appealed — and overturned — every day of the week. The rulings of this state agency are no more sacrosanct than they are.”

CALIFORNIA: Myart-Cruz, UTLA up to their familiar, destructive tactics again

Don’tblame the Freedom Foundation. We’ve gone on record many times over the years to expose United Teachers of Los Angeles (UTLA) President Cecily Myart-Cruz and her scheme to use the union as the vehicle to advance a radical, socialist, anti-Semitic political agenda rather than advocate on behalf of teachers — let alone students.

But in 2022, she was re-elected with a 75 percent majority to another term. And right on schedule, she’s teamed with Service Employees International Union (SEIU) to involve her own union’s members in a three-day strike starting on March 21 that the far-left Los Angeles Times characterizes as the “largest and longest full disruption of education in the nation’s second-largest school system since the six-day teachers’ strike of 2019.”

The strike is being orchestrated by SEIU 99, which represents about 30,000 bus drivers, teacher aides, campus security aides, special education assistants, custodians, gardeners and cafeteria workers. Myart-Cruz has encouraged UTLA’s 35,000 teachers, nurses, counselors, therapists and librarians to join the walkout.

SEIU is seeking a whopping 30 percent across-the-board wage raise for its workers, while the Los Angeles Unified School District (LAUSD) says it has offered a 10 percent raise up front, along with another 9 percent to be phased in over time.

largest school budgets and largest reserves in the nation, teachers and essential school workers are struggling to support their own families and live in the commu nities

By ORLANDO IBARRA, California Outreach Director

they work for,” Myart-Cruz said in a statement last week. “To add insult to injury, the district has chosen to violate their legal rights as workers, resulting in an unfair labor practice strike.”

But, of course, teacher pay is just a starting point for someone who, in a 2020 interview, asserted, “The union has to be about social justice.”

In this instance, the union’s sweeping list of bargaining priorities takes in such issue as funding for the Black Student Achievement Program, specifics on organizing the district, building affordable housing for low-income families, environmental justice, healthy food, trauma-informed teaching, techniques for de-escalation of conflict and increased access to ethnic studies.

And yet Myart-Cruz has the gall to claim it’s all about the students.

This is the same woman who shrugged off the educational devastation wrought by the nearly two-year COVID-related school closures by asserting, “(I)t’s OK that our babies may not have learned all their times tables … they learned resilience. They learned survival.”

Whatever else the looming strike may be about, for Myart-Cruz and her allies at SEIU 99, it was never about the workers, students or their parents. It’s about the larger goal of imposing by bullying, blackmail and backroom deals a failed political philosophy they know would be rejected at the ballot box even in loony, left ist Califor nia.

OHIO: Using ambassadors to extend our influence

At the Freedom Foundation, outreach is a serious business. But there’s no reason it can’t be enjoyable, too, and by listening intently to the teachers and other public employees whose yearning for freedom is the reason we exist, we’re able to develop strategies that are not only creative but highly effective, too.

The voices of those who’ve grown disenchanted with their union representation are currently shaping our most promising strategy to date.

The Freedom Foundation’s outreach team is in the process of identifying ambassador candidates ¾ public employees who have successfully opted out of union membership and dues and whose experience can benefit co-workers anxious to do the same.

We are empowering these leaders to be a voice of reason and transparency in their workplace.

Though still in its formative stages, the ambassador program is already showing

By LAUREN BOWEN, Ohio Director

signs it will be among our most successful and popular outreach tactics.

To cite a recent example, the Freedom Foundation was contacted by a Columbus maintenance worker who had completed all the steps necessary to get out of AFSCME 8 within the union’s specified two week annual opt-out window. He reached out to us to double check his actions and ensure the unions would have no grounds to decline his request.

Asked how he found the Freedom Foundation, the employee said, “You helped my buddy at work do this over a year ago, and he helped me. I wouldn’t have known otherwise.”

His words validated our methods. The time spent on the phone with public employees and teachers, helping them over the

hurdles erected by unions to suppress their rights, is invaluable.

And it creates an opt-out ripple effect in government offices and schools.

Workplace relationships can be a difference-making weapon in the war against union oppression, and they serve as an important tool to get the truth out about optional dues and union membership, especially in workplace situations where unions have created a contentious environment.

People who care about one another and work together closely in the trenches have a common interest in weakening the grip unions over their lives. We’re privileged to hear from these people every day, asking us to put a stop to the bullying and intimidation.

The Columbus worker ended our conversation with a sobering reminder of why our work is so critical. “I have three small children,” he said. “They need my dues money far more than the union does.”

And who better to help put it back in their pockets than a trusted friend?

NY: For CSEA, scam is as scam does

Given the ever-widening scope of the Freedom Foundation’s outreach efforts in New York, it was only a matter of time before Big Labor took notice, placing us firmly in the crosshairs of their well-funded propaganda machines.

In fact, we’ve been made aware of campaigns by several unions representing public employees in the Empire State to discourage their members from engaging with us. CSEA/AFSCME Local 1000 (CSEA) has gone above and beyond in its attempts to frighten their members from even thinking about looking into their First Amendment rights.

Unfortunately for CSEA, even its members aren’t falling for the lies. Not only are they continuing to opt out in larger and larger numbers, but they’re also telling us about the sad state of affairs facing CSEA members still ensnared by the union.

As noted in the Freedom Foundation’s Valentine’s Day update, CSEA boldly went as far as placing a phony “scam alert” on the front of its website for all their 230,000 members to see.

We’ve also been informed by former CSEA members the Freedom Foundation continues to be a hot topic of discussion at local union meetings, with union leadership continuing the trend of lying to their members and hoping they won’t investigate the facts for themselves.

But when we follow up with CSEA members to see for ourselves how they really feel about their union, they don’t hesitate to tell us that paying dues to CSEA is the real scam.

One former dues-paying member told us he opted out because he had seen his co-workers left twisting in the wind without representation too many times, and that CSEA had thrown them under the bus during contract negotiations.

Using the resources at optouttoday. com, he was able to break free of the union with ease, and now he urges his co-workers to follow suit whenever he gets a chance.

Another former CSEA member told us she had never seen such a corrupt union, and that she was greatly relieved to have finally stopped contributing to a divisive machine that clearly didn’t have her best interests in mind.

She was so delighted to have opted out, and she even volunteered to hand out literature about opting out to her co-workers.

Yet another member, who recently opted out CSEA, told us he has friends represented by other unions, and they used to poke fun at him for paying for such lousy representation from CSEA.

By RYAN BROOKS, New York Director

The same employee told us he had previously been a member of two other unions, but CSEA was the worst union he had ever been involved with, hands down.

His local rarely held union meetings didn’t inform members about their financial contributions to political causes and, for a time, didn’t even provide a union representative to call if he had a workplace grievance.

When he was initially contacted by the Freedom Foundation’s outreach team, he was thrilled to discover he didn’t have to pay for such sorry representation. And now that he’s opted out, he gets to have even more fun telling his unionized buddies about the money he’s saving.

These were just a few examples of the many encouraging stories coming in from former dues paying members of CSEA.

Even though CSEA is actively discouraging its members from looking into their First Amendment rights to decline union membership and dues, many of those members aren’t buying it.

WASHINGTON: Survey says ... WFSE members fed up

InWashington state, one of the many ways the Freedom Foundation is reaching out to public employees this year is by survey. Members of the Washington Federation of State Employees (WFSE) were the first to be reached, and the numbers are already telling a story.

Of the members surveyed:

n 86 percent of the respondents pay dues;

n 60 percent are not strong WFSE supporters;

n 73 percent think their dues are too expensive;

n 73 percent disagree with WFSE’s

By ERIN VOLZ, Washington Outreach Coordinator

spending priorities;

n 80 percent think WFSE protects poor-performing employees;

n 73 percent don’t feel their values align with WFSE’s; and,

n 73 percent don’t feel that their concerns are a priority to WFSE.

The kicker?

Only 20 percent would continue to pay dues to WFSE, while 80 percent would

consider opting out or already plan to.

In the feedback section, one employee commented, “WFSE completely failed me,” explaining he was forced to resign by his union rep over an unfortunate miscommunication.

Another employee stated, “The union should be standing up to the woke agenda being forced on employees, and in my experience the union doesn’t do anything to help employees. If you want employees to continue to be in the union, you should actually do something to support them.”

The numbers don’t lie. WFSE members are ready to get out.

FREEDOM in ACTION

LETTER to the EDITOR

Walll Street Journal

March 13, 2023

WSJ’s March 3 Weekend Interview with Phillip Howard offered a troubling glimpse into how the unions representing this country’s public employees aspire to function as a shadow government accountable only to themselves.

If anything, his message wasn’t troubling enough.

The comparison, for example, of how public-sector unions and private-sector special interests operate probably understated the critical distinction that, however many millions of dollars corporations and advocacy groups may spend to influence government policy, at least the money comes from free Americans who’ve donated it willingly.

By contrast, until the Supreme Court’s 2018 ruling in Janus v. AFSCME, unions in about half the country were able to finance their socialist political agenda using someone else’s dues and/or “agency fees.”

This put candidates and causes not aligned with the unions at a massive competitive disadvantage.

Howard is also spot on when he laments that organized labor’s grip on state, county and municipal governments throughout the country will almost certainly have to be broken judicially rather than legislatively, and there are signs the Supreme Court may have found just the case to do so.

In January, the justices indicated they might be willing to consider the case of a California benefits clerk and the Los Rios Classified Employees Association (LRCEA), which has resisted her efforts to opt out of union membership and dues since 2018.

Represented by the Freedom Foundation, Kristine Kurk argues LRCEA’s actions violate her First Amendment right to free association.

By taking the case and ruling in Kurk’s favor, SCOTUS could take that needed first step toward enforcing SCOTUS and returning control of the government to the people, not the unions.

New book exposes how government unions threaten to topple democracy

By DAVID FREDDOSO Excerpted from the WASHINGTON EXAMINER Feb. 16, 2023

Only10 percent of workers are now union members, according to the new Labor Department report on union membership, released in late January. And private sector unions, which peaked at 35 percent in 1954, now include just 6 percent of all workers as members.

Yet the story is quite different for unions in the public sector. The unionization rate of public employees remains robust, at more than 33 percent of all government workers nationwide.

Local government workers are the most likely to be unionized, at a rate of nearly 39 percent, and public-sector union members are concentrated in states that mandate collective bargaining.

The states with higher rates of unionization seem to correlate with the nation’s least functional state governments: California (54.5 percent), Illinois (48.7 percent), New York (66.7 percent) and New Jersey (59.3 percent) among them.

As their private-sector cousins starve, public employee unions are fat and happy — a strange development, given that there was no public-sector collective bargaining at all 70 years ago, when unions were at their apex.

Public-employee unions are as relevant and formidable as ever, thanks to the unique political power and influence they wield.

For starters, public-employee union members can be relied upon, and are relied upon by Democrats in many states, to come out in force to support higher taxes and more government spending, to oppose anything that threatens their meal ticket.

Even beyond their ability to project force through protests and voter mobilization efforts, public-sector unions enjoy immense and undue influence over government decisions, often to the detriment of voters and taxpayers.

To give one recent example, at the height of the coronavirus pandemic, public sector unions literally dictated the Biden administration’s public health policies, as internal emails from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention later revealed.

“Unlike trade union negotiations, public employee unions have little downside risk with excessive collective bargaining demands,” wrote Philip Howard in his new book, Not Accountable: Rethinking the Constitutionality of Public Employee Unions. “No matter how much unions take from taxpayers and the public good, government can’t go out of business.”

The collective bargaining process not only lacks constraints upon what unions can demand, but it also damages democracy itself. It effectively cuts elected officials out of the loop on critical policy questions.

Instead of voters and their representatives making decisions about spending priorities through elections and then votes in the appropriate legislatures, the process we were all led to believe is the American system, those decisions end up being made in closed negotiating rooms, behind whose doors union representatives swap promises with friendly politicians or unelected arbitrators unilaterally settle issues between the unions and unfriendly politicians.

Howard argues persuasively that “(T)he abuse of public power by public employee unions is the main story of public failure in America … It is not possible to bring purpose and hope back to political discourse until, as a threshold condition, elected leaders regain the authority to run public operations.”

Not only are public-employee unions a nuisance to the taxpayer and a drag on government effectiveness, but they also comprise an unconstitutional fourth branch of government.

“Government cannot delegate to private parties essential governing choices,” Howard said, yet that’s exactly what happens when negotiators or arbitrators make policy disguised within collective bargaining agreements.

“More federal employees die on the job than are terminated for poor performance,” Howard said.

Howard believes it is obvious public-sector unions form an illegal locus of power that has placed itself outside the reach of the elected legislatures and executives. As long as “no decision is too small to be vetoed by a union entitlement,” unions are effectively frustrating the institutions of democracy itself.

This, in turn, is making citizens “justifiably cynical and distrustful because modern government is organized to fail.”

But if collective bargaining agreements are putting the unions outside the reach of democratic accountability, how can this problem be fixed democratically? Howard believes the Constitution and Supreme Court jurisprudence provide a means to untangle the mess into which the public employee unions have made of governing.

And the Supreme Court’s decision in Janus v. AFSCME, Howard explained, was “a major turning point” because Janus embraced the idea that the very act of collective bargaining by a public employee union is inherently political.

“Most of Janus,” he said, “is about how public unions have rendered government inoperable.”

David Freddoso is the Washington Examiner’s online opinion editor.

BRIAN MINNICH Freedom Foundation Olympia, Wash.

March 10, 2023

Oregon judge deals state early loss in dues deductions case

“ ‘This is a perfect example of why the state shouldn’t be in the dues-collection business,’ said Freedom Foundation attorney Rebekah Millard. ‘It doesn’t matter whether the state is acting out of incompetence or fealty to the union. What matters is that it wouldn’t happen at all if the union was taking responsibility for its own accounting procedures, like every other independent service provider.’ ”

ON

March 10, 2023

Florida Republicans introduce bills prohibiting paycheck deductions for public-sector union

“Freedom Foundation representative Rusty Brown said, “There’s nothing in this bill that curtails organizing or collective bargaining for wages, benefits, or working conditions, which is what a union should be doing. (This bill) gives the employees represented by the union the opportunity to vote … if they would like to continue allowing that union to represent them.” ”

Feb. 9, 2023

Is Ohio red, purple or beholden to unions and special-interest groups?

“But late last month, the non-profit Freedom Foundation, whose “sole mission,” notes CEO Aaron Withe, is “fighting government unions” and helping workers understand their rights in relation to those unions, uncovered a different potential explanation for state Republicans’ hesitancy to embrace core conservative values.”

FREEDOM in the NEWS

Feb. 17, 2023

Patriots Better Americafor a

Government unions: The nation’s largest, most toxic publicly funded lobbyists

“The huge problem for the public exposed in this article by Freedom Foundation special projects director Rusty Brown is that the unions spent $778 million in 2021, a non-election year promoting left-wing candidates and causes that are harmful to the public. And to add insult to injury, most of those millions came from the taxpayers’ pockets.”

March 13, 2023

Freedom Foundation exposes fraud in Paycheck Protection Program dues

“As Maxford Nelsen, director of labor policy at the Freedom Foundation, puts it, “Disconcertingly, the apparently inappropriate Payroll Protection Program loans may have been granted due to fraudulent loan applications or other questionable conduct by applicants or the private lenders operating under the SBA’s delegated authority to approve loan applications.”

Colorado bill would give some union protections to public employees

March 15, 2023

“Meanwhile, the Freedom Foundation ... maintained that public-sector unions are already too powerful. “Government employees in (Colorado) are in danger of having their rights trampled, as they have been in too many other government union-controlled states,” said Rusty Brown, director of special projects for the organization. ”

Oregon judge deals state early loss in dues deductions case

March 10, 2023

“U.S. District Court Judge Michael W. Mosman of Oregon granted a temporary restraining order Wednesday preventing the state’s Department of Administrative Services from deducting dues on behalf of the Service Employees International Union from a state employee who never consented to the deduction. Victoria Bright ... declined SEIU membership because she disagreed with the union’s political agenda and bargaining tactics, according to the Freedom Foundation.”

Feb. 17, 2023

“We’re doing something a little different this week: We are joined by Rusty Brown of the Freedom Foundation for a bit of government-worker union wonkery. Brown and his colleagues have been researching certain financial products that the National Education Association markets to its members, and they have many questions about how it all works and whether members are being taken for a ride.”

ACTION TIMELINE

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

that she not only has a record of epic failure in California, but she is even more a tool of organized labor than Biden himself.

March 9

By the Numbers

Feb. 14

Freedom Foundation outreach staff go door-to-door on Valentines Day encouraging public employees to end their abusive relationship with their union.

March 8

An op-ed authored by Freedom Foundation CEO Aaron Withe is published on the Fox News website. Headlined, “Why Biden’s choice for Labor secretary boggles my mind,” the piece examines Julie Su, nominated by the president earlier in the week to head the U.S. Department of Labor. It notes

Freedom Foundation attorney Sydney Phillips goes before the Washington State Court of Appeals to argue that the Washington Federation of State Employees (WFSE) is indeed a political committee and should be required under the state’s campaign finance laws to report its election spending activity. Washington’s Public Disclosure Commission (PDC) had earlier dismissed a Freedom Foundation complaint alleging the union violated the state’s Fair Campaign Practices Act (FCPA).

March 11

Freedom Foundation attorneys file a response to a motion for summary judgment filed by three Washington

During the first three months 2023, Freedom Foundation’s outreach efforts have had a dramatic impact on government unions in the golden state of California. SEIU 1000, representing state employees, have dropped 332 dues paying members. SEIU 2015, representing caregivers, have lost 215 members, with CSEA (California School Employees Association) shedding 198 dues payers.

Teamster locals being sued in federal court for trying to simply ignore the expressed wishes of their disgruntled members. Working with the Freedom Foundation, the plaintiffs were attempting to opt out of their union, but the Teamsters repeatedly thwarted their wishes by simply refusing to accept delivery of their signed opt-out forms because they arrived in an envelope marked with the Freedom Foundation’s letterhead.

March 13

A letter to the editor from Freedom Foundation Executive Vice

President Brian Minnich is published in the Wall Street Journal Headlined, “How public unions game the political arms race,” the letter refers to a WSJ review of a book addressing the excesses of public-sector unions. Minnich agrees with the author’s conclusion that the stranglehold unions have on the governing process will almost certainly have to be broken judicially rather than legislatively, but he points out that a Freedom Foundation case currently under consideration by the U.S. Supreme Court could be the one to do the job.

March 14

U.S. District Court Judge Michael W. Mosman grants the Freedom Foundation’s request for a permanent injunction preventing Oregon’s Department of Administrative Services from continuing to deduct dues on behalf of the Service Employees International Union (SEIU) from a state employee who never authorized the deduction in the first place. It is believed to be the first TRO ever granted anywhere in the country forcing a state to stop collecting dues until the lawsuit can be fully adjudicated.

For you, maybe.

“The

Dec.

“The amount of money and attention spent just dealing with (the Freedom Foundation) is terrible.”

RANDI WEINGARTEN, President, American Federation of Teachers