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