Jan 2023 Living Liberty

AFL-CIO dues hike has a whiff of desperation to it 4 Court grants AG Ferguson’s capital gains tax motion 5 California worker’s rights case appealed to SCOTUS 8 JANUARY 2023

LIVING LIBERTY

Santa’s helpers bring holiday opt-out cheer to thousands

Every year at the Freedom Foundation, we have a tradition of making the holidays an extra special time for government employees — by freeing even more of them from their union than we do in other months of the year.

After all, when could be a better time to spend your own dues money rather than watching it line the pockets of union leaders and fund a political agenda only a Grinch could love?

Thousands of public employees put extra presents under the tree last year, and this year, we went all out. So far, our holiday outreach efforts have resulted in nearly 3,500 public employees gaining their freedom, and that number is only growing.

In Washington, canvassers once again donned their festive apparel to visit government buildings in the Puget Sound region and beyond. Informational opt-out cards — and candy canes, of course — were handed out to public employees, who were ecstatic to learn more about their constitutional right to cease paying union dues.

They even paid a visit to the Scrooges at the Department of Labor & Industries.

In Oregon, Santa visited a number of state agencies around Salem and left information in the lobbies of a number of public office buildings.

Down in sunny California, canvassers visited government buildings all over Sac-

By SAMUEL COLEMAN, Assistant National Outreach Director

ramento and spoke with hundreds of public workers. Many of our canvassers reported the joyous mood of public employees being greeted by our jolly helpers.

Over on the east coast, canvassers in Ohio spoke to a pair of union-represented janitors who were having difficulties making ends meet due to the current state of the economy. Both jumped at the opportunity to save an additional $700 every year.

It’s not just canvassing that makes Christmas so special at the Freedom Foundation. This year, we sent hundreds of thousands of holiday-themed opt-out mail pieces to public workers mailboxes across the country.

In fact, we sent mail to 25 states — half the country.

But that’s not all. We also sent more than 1 million e-mails informing public employees they “didn’t need to depend on Santa to put some extra gifts under the tree this year.”

Lastly, we’re also running a digital media campaign to more than 160,000 public employees across the country we believe are highly likely to cease paying union dues.

It’s been a big year here at the Freedom Foundation, and December is shaping up to be the largest month of an already record-breaking year. Around the country, more employees are being informed about their right to cease paying union dues than ever before.

While there’s plenty to celebrate, everyone here at the Freedom Foundation knows that our success this year means we need to try even harder in 2023.

We can’t rest on our laurels, there are still hundreds of thousands — if not millions — of public employees across the country who still lack the proper education to make an informed choice about their union membership.

By AARON WITHE

By JEFF RHODES

By RYAN BROOKS

By BRIAN MINNICH

By CAROLINE DOWNEY

By JEFF RHODES

By JASON DUDASH

Teacher’s union apparently resolved to double down on militancy in the coming year

Ayear ago at this time, most of us were celebrating the demise of 2021 and looking ahead to the new year confident things couldn’t get worse. And maybe they didn’t, but it’s hard to see where they got much better.

For the most part, the COVID pandemic that defined the previous two years is behind us, but the policy failures and economic havoc wreaked by a chief executive more beholden to the radical fringe of his political base than to the population in general somehow managed to get even worse in 2022.

Today Americans are poorer, weaker and more divided than at any time in recent history — and not by accident.

Sadly, it seems to be the goal of those largely responsible for electing the current president to defile and degrade everything positive about this country in hopes of producing a citizenry permanently dependent on the government they alone are permitted to control.

And no group better personifies this toxic truth or exerts more influence over Joe Biden than the leaders of Big Labor in general and teachers unions in particular with whom the Freedom Foundation is locked in a death struggle this and every year.

Former U.S. Secretary of State Mike Pompeo, who has found himself more than once sitting across the negotiating table from such despots as North Korea’s Chairman Kim and China’s Xi Jinping, last month unsparingly told an interviewer the greatest threat to our constitutional republic is American Federation of Teachers (AFT) President Randi Weingarten.

“And it’s not close call,” he said.

As an individual, Weingarten’s shrill, self-serving outbursts seem almost clownish. And the Freedom Foundation has frequently lampooned her antics. But the organization she leads — in concert with the even larger National Education Association (NEA) — no longer even pretends to be an advocate for teachers or, even more improbably, education.

Not only do these organizations ferociously resist any rule or regulation that might hold teachers accountable for achievement scores that had plummeted to Third World levels even before students spent the better part of the past two school years exiled to a union-demanded homeschool purgatory, but now they’re insisting they — not parents or even the teachers they claim to represent — be given sole authority over what our youngsters are taught.

Not surprisingly, the unions’ preferred curriculum gives short shrift to outdated subjects like reading, writing, mathematics, hard science or, heaven forbid, civics. In their place, Weingarten and her acolytes would substitute a witches’ brew that emphasizes racial scapegoating, environmental scaremongering, revisionist history and unapologetic admiration for all things socialist.

But it gets even worse.

In addition to transforming taxpayer-supported public schools whose goal should be to turn out educated, produc

tive, well-adjusted young adults into the sort of indoctrination center more commonly associated with a Soviet gulag, teachers’ unions have now added sexual deviance to their to-do list.

By AARON WITHE, CEO

Case in point: As chronicled in this and previous issues of Living Liberty, an Ohio teachers’ union — with the apparent blessing of local school district authorities — not only permits but actively encourages educators to wear a lapel pin identifying themselves as someone even the youngest of students can safely (translation: without the knowledge, let alone permission, of their parents) discuss highly sensitive questions of sexuality and gender identity.

The button worn by participating teachers helpfully includes a QR code that, when scanned by a smart phone, directs the unwitting student to a variety of online resources, including several with step-by-step instructions for a laundry list of alternative sexual techniques and practices.

The only thing more jaw-dropping than the sheer hubris of making such obviously inappropriate programs available in the first place is the union leaders’ feeble attempts to cover their tracks by, a.) lying about it and, b.) demonizing anyone who dares expose their scheme.

Weingarten, who has been president of the AFT since 2008, told The Guardian she thought Pompeo was attacking her because she is “Jewish, gay, teacher and union.”

“It’s all of the above,” Weingarten said. “It’s an anti-public school strategy. The anti-Semitic tropes are there. The anti-gay tropes are there. It’s anti-union. It’s anti-teacher. It’s all of the above. But the effect is it really hurts what teachers are trying to do to help kids every single day.”

Weingarten’s own ironic anti-Semitic remarks have been well-documented. She doesn’t speak for Jews or gays. Nor does she speak for teachers, as the growing wave of AFT and NEA members opting out of their union in the wake of the U.S. Supreme Court’s 2018 ruling in Janus v. AFSCME proves conclusively.

Whether the sort of lessons she wants her members to teach “help kids every single day” is a matter to be decided by the very parents whose values she holds in such obvious contempt.

And the sooner that happens, the better for everyone concerned.

“ The only thing more jaw-dropping than the sheer hubris of making such obviously inappropriate programs available in the first place is the union leaders’ feeble attempts to cover their tracks.”

THE CASE FOR FREEDOM

FREEDOM FIGHTER PROFILE

FREEDOM FIGHTER PROFILE

AndreaSnoke

Administrative Director

When did you join the Freedom Foundation?

November 2020

What were you doing before?

Prior to the Freedom Foundation, I spent most of my working life managing restaurants and, later, an optometrist’s office.

Where are you from originally?

I was born on an Army base in Augsburg, Germany. I spent most of my childhood on the east coast until my family moved to Washington in the spring of 1992.

What makes you conservative?

I believe in small government and personal responsibility. I come from many generations that served in the military, which gave me a sense of duty. I was raised to believe in the Constitution and to work hard for what you want in life.

What does an administrative director do?

My duties at the Freedom Foundation include, but aren’t limited to, managing the administrative department operations and the staff members to make sure the organization operates in a smooth, well-organized manner. I also work closely with our development team by helping to manage our database and give support to the users.

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

Without a doubt the people and the cause. We have some of the most dedicated, hardworking staff I’ve ever worked with. And they genuinely believe in our mission. It is a great place to work.

Do you have any special hobbies or talents?

Cooking, smoking meats and cheeses, baking. I have a ridiculous collection of cookbooks. I love hiking and walks, no matter the forecast. Otherwise, my children keep me busy with all their activities.

AFL-CIO dues hike reeks more of desperation than opportunity

By JEFF RHODES Reprinted from REDSTATE.com

Nov. 28, 2022

TheAFL-CIO, the country’s largest labor union, voted in mid-October to hike union membership dues for the first time in 17 years in what its leaders are calling an all-in effort to recruit 1 million new members.

Bloomberg Law reported the union anticipates the hike in dues will raise $10 million per year from AFL-CIO’s 12 million members in 58 affiliated locals.

Buried under a mountain of meticulously arranged compost, however, the announcement yields several nuggets of information unflattering to Big Labor in general and AFL-CIO in particular.

For starters, the Bloomberg story explains that the AFL-CIO executive board voted to raise its per-capita monthly membership fees starting in January, with a second increase to be phased in later.

Conspicuous by its absence, of course, is any reference to how the rank and file responded to the increase. Perhaps that’s because the union leadership — which describes itself on its own website as a “member-driven organization, based on democratic principles,” couldn’t be bothered to ask permission before approving the higher dues deduction or solicit feedback afterwards.

Like everything it does, the union’s only motivation for the move was an insatiable appetite for more and more of someone else’s money, with which to line the pockets of its leaders and corrupt politicians who pass laws keeping the whole dirty enterprise legal.

If it were, indeed, a “member-driven organization,” AFL-CIO would be more interested in limiting the supply of labor available to keep wages artificially high for those affiliated with the union.

As Nobel Prize-winning economist Milton Friedman explained the phenomenon, “(U)nions raise wages for their members by restricting entry into an occupation, (and) those higher wages are at the expense of other workers who find their opportunities reduced.”

Even if it were possible (and it isn’t), adding another 1 million workers to the AFL-CIO’s membership rolls would do nothing to benefit those already turning over a portion of their paycheck every month to AFL-CIO.

Rather, it would almost certainly reduce their incomes and put their very jobs in jeopardy as employers struggled to absorb the glut of comparably trained workers all expecting to be paid inflated union wages.

Such a scenario would also pour gasoline on an economy already reeling under the manifest incompetence of a president largely installed in of-

fice by AFL-CIO and other luminaries of Big Labor.

On the other hand, the increase will generate a projected $10 million per year to spend on recruiting efforts. Or whatever Shuler decides to spend it on.

Since the revenue comes with no strings attached, we have only the assurances of Madame President that it won’t simply disappear down the same rathole that consumes every other union dues dollar.

Happily, these optimistic projections have about as much basis in reality as the rest of the left’s dogma.

As is true when liberal politicians impose a tax of a given amount on a finite number of taxpayers, the result is rarely what they promise because it’s not a zero-sum game.

With each new assessment, more and more Americans decide to find a tax shelter or move their assets offshore rather than giving Uncle Sam an ever-larger share of their shrinking paychecks. So, too, will AFL-CIO members decline in greater numbers to play the game by the union’s suddenly more expensive rules.

In 2018, the U.S. Supreme Court recognized that government employees have a First Amendment right to refuse to join a labor union or pay dues to one as a condition of employment. In the years since, hundreds of thousands of American workers have opted out of union servitude.

The Freedom Foundation, a national public policy organization specializing in exposing and thwarting the abuses of government unions, has helped to free nearly 130,000 public employees and deprive unions of a corresponding $250 million in dues revenue — which doesn’t even include those who’ve opted out on their own.

It’s these losses the AFL-CIO is desperately trying to backfill by shifting the burden onto the backs of the dwindling number of members it has left.

For how many of these will the union’s latest scheme be the straw that breaks their back?

“We’re making an unparalleled investment dedicated exclusively to organizing to build power for America’s workers seizing this unprecedented moment,” Shuler said in making her announcement.

The trouble is, that investment — as always — comes from someone else’s pocket, and the only thing unprecedented about the moment is that the Supreme Court and dire economic necessity are finally forcing union leaders like Liz Shuler to confront it.

LITIGATING FREEDOM

Court sides with Ferguson, will impose tax now, figure out later whether it’s legal

Washington’s Supreme Court on Nov. 30 agreed the state can begin writing rules to collect its hotly contested capital gains tax before even considering arguments about whether Douglas County Superior Court Judge Douglas Huber was correct in ruling the measure unconstitutional.

In a one-page announcement citing no reasons and accepting the state’s argument it could stay Huber’s ruling without considering its merits, the justices granted a motion filed in November by Washington State Attorney General Bob Ferguson allowing the state’s Department of Revenue to proceed with plans to impose the tax despite a looming Jan. 26 hearing on its merits.

The Democratically controlled Legislature last year passed and Gov. Jay Inslee signed into law a measure that would impose a 7 percent tax on income from capital gains above $250,000 a year, such as profits from stocks or business sales.

Exceptions include the sale of real estate, livestock and small family-owned businesses.

The Washington State Constitution, however, requires that such taxes be applied uniformly and cannot exceed 1 percent without voter approval.

Backers of the tax describe it as an excise tax, but previous court decisions have consistently regarded income as property — which must be taxed at the same rate for everyone.

Freedom Foundation attorneys, working with the Seattle law firm Lane Powell, PC, filed a lawsuit challenging the tax within days of its passage, and Judge Huber last spring issued a ruling siding with their arguments. He wrote:

“As a tax on the receipt of income, ESSB 5096 is also properly characterized as a tax on property pursuant to that same case law. This court concludes that ESSB 5096 violates the uniformity and limitation requirements of article VII, sections 1 and 2 of the Washington State Constitution. It violates the uniformity requirement by imposing a 7 percent tax on an individual’s long-term capital gains exceeding

What They What They

What she said: “I’m really concerned about (the) use of the word ‘filth’ to talk about what teachers do.”

What she meant: “Incidents in which teachers’ unions are backing the teaching of horrendously inappropriate sexual material to school children have been reliably verified by numerous sources. The point is, you’ll notice I didn’t say I was concerned about the filth we’re encouraging activist teachers to spew in their classroom. I’m only concerned about it being exposed.”

RANDI WEINGARTEN President, American Federation of Teachers (AFT) The

Guardian Nov. 21, 2022

n n n

What he said: “Now it’s time for Democrats to show that their pro-worker agenda isn’t just talk. One good way to do that would be for the legislature, as a first order of business, to repeal Michigan’s decade-old right-to-work law.”

By BRIAN MINNCH, Executive Vice President

$250,000 but imposing zero tax on capital gains below that $250,000 threshold. It violates the limitation requirement because the 7 percent tax exceeds the 1 percent maximum annual property tax rate of 1 percent.”

Eric Stahlfeld, the Freedom Foundation’s chief litigation counsel, said, “The ruling puts an undue burden on Washington residents doing their end-of-year financial planning. Taxpayers must now prepare to set aside money to pay the state 7 percent tax on capital gains when they file their 2022 federal income tax return in 2023,” he said, “even though the Supreme Court very well may not rule on the constitutionality of the tax by the federal income tax deadline in April.”

In addition, taxpayers face far more difficulty in determining whether to take gains this year, or next.

“In his eagerness to start soaking Washington taxpayers, Bob Ferguson is creating chaos and confusion among Washingtonians preparing for the upcoming tax season,” said Freedom Foundation CEO Aaron Withe. “As usual Ferguson is playing with house money. It costs him nothing but the public’s tax dollars to fight the Washington constitution and the consistently expressed will of the people he is supposed to represent.”

This ruling shows far more concern for the convenience of the state’s tax-collecting apparatus than for its residents.

The tax is just as unconstitutional now as it was a year ago.

Despite this perplexing development, the Freedom Foundation remains confident the justices will come to the same conclusion in January that Judge Huber did last spring and previous Washington courts have for nearly 100 years.

STEVEN

GREENHOUSE

Senior

Fellow

The Century Foundation Detroit Free Press Nov. 19, 2022

What he meant: “Oops, I meant to say anti-worker. How could a law that denies workers the right to make their own decisions about what’s best for themselves and their families possibly be anything but anti-worker? The only institutions more anti-worker are the unions themselves. And I’m supporting legislation that allows them to keep getting away with it.”

n n n

What he said: “Union rights have taken a beating in Republican-led states in recent years.”

What he meant:

“First of all, it’s debatable whether unions even have constitutional rights per se. But even if they do, would anyone argue they take precedence over individual rights?

JOHN O’CONNOR Reporter Associated

The only states where unions have ‘taken a beating’ are those where the First Amendment rights of workers to opt out of union tyranny have been defended. I’m what passes for an objective reporter these days.”

FIGHTING FOR FREEDOM

Gov. Gretchen Whitmer ( D-Mich )

Having somehow managed to win re-election by 11 percentage points this fall in her own race for governor, Gretchen Whitmer is understandably eager to exploit what she sees as a mandate.

Like any radical leftist, her wish list includes things like ignoring the Second Amendment and the usual attacks on free enterprise under the guise of “environmental responsibility.”

Democrats also have a majority in both houses of Michigan’s Legislature for the first time in 40 years, but the margins there were much narrower, prompting many of her party members to urge moderation.

Unfortunately for them, Whitmer is a wholly owned subsidiary of the state’s labor unions. Consequently, her top priority is repealing the state’s 10-year-old right-to-work laws.

“No one should be surprised about what my position has been on right-to-work,” Whitmer said, noting Democrats must have “robust conversation” about the law, timing of potential repeal and how to make sure the public “understands what and why we’re pursuing this.”

In fact, it’s because Michigan’s labor unions have lost more than 140,000 members since the state approved right-towork in 2013.

Labor unions are pushing hard to repeal the law, which has cost them at least 140,000 members in the past 10 years.

Repealing the law would also go against public opinion, which shows wide support for it.

That’s the finding of the most recent poll on the issue as well as most of a dozen polls taken over the past 20 years from a variety of Republican and Democratic polling firms and media organizations.

A December 2022 survey commissioned by the Mackinac Center for Public Policy found that voters supported the law overwhelmingly, with 60 percent in support and only 17 percent opposed.

Even union households support the law by a margin of nearly 2-to-1, and Michigan’s business interests ---- anxious to keep the state as competitive as possible in the midst of the Biden economic crisis, are unified in favor of maintaining right-to-work protections.

But when you work for the unions rather than the people who actually elected you to office, your duty is clear.

Forgery cases give SCOTUS a chance to enforce Janus

By ASHLEY VARNER Reprinted from REDSTATE.com

Dec. 6, 2022

Four years ago, in its landmark Janus v. AFSCME ruling, the U.S. Supreme Court struck down a 41-year-old precedent cited by 22 left-leaning states to justify forcing millions of public employees to join and/or fund a labor union against their wishes.

Since then, several hundred thousand government workers have parted company with their union — and kept billions of dues dollars in their own pockets — after deciding the association no longer made sense for themselves and their families.

The question is how many more would have done the same had information about Janus and the freedom to exercise the rights it affirmed not been suppressed by the very unions claiming to have only their best interests at heart.

Literally before the ink on the ruling had dried, union leaders had concocted a laundry list of shady schemes by which to skirt the court’s clear intent in Janus if not ignore it altogether

These included limiting defections to an arbitrary, union-created two-week annual opt-out “window” and conspiring with union operatives in government agencies to block lawful public disclosure requests for employee contact information submitted by organizations threatening to tell workers what the union didn’t want them to know.

Horrified by the prospective loss of billions in dues revenue with which they had lined their own pockets and corrupted elected officials for generations, public-sector union leaders resolved to challenge every single request for freedom — with pre-emptive intimidation in the workplace and, for those who didn’t frighten easily, legal action.

And when those tactics weren’t enough, there was always fraud to fall back on.

In approximately a dozen cases currently being litigated in the west coast states of California, Oregon and Washington, public employees were denied the right to opt out because their unions produced forged documents claiming they are valid union dues authorization agreements.

Two such cases, in fact, were appealed to the U.S. Supreme Court just this month.

In Zielinski v. SEIU 503, the 9th Circuit Court

of Appeals let stand a lower court ruling that no constitutional issue was raised despite the reality that the state of Oregon’s largest public employee union forged the plaintiff’s signature twice on two separate dues authorizations, concluding that as long as the union says that it has the employee’s permission, the state may rely on the union’s statement and need do nothing to protect the First Amendment rights of public workers.

In the second case, Wright v. SEIU 503, the union forged the employees’ signature electronically. While the court presumed the forgery took place, the 9th Circuit concluded neither the state of Oregon nor the union have any constitutional duty to obtain consent from the employee. Both decisions constitute an unadorned Janus workaround.

The Janus ruling, authored by Justice Samuel Alito, makes unequivocally clear that states cannot force a public employee to pay money to a union unless he or she has provided affirmative consent in the form of a waiver of their First Amendment rights.

The state of Oregon and SEIU 503 have long demonstrated they have no respect for workers’ rights. Now the 9th Circuit has rubber-stamped the state’s decision to let unions take what they want from individual workers — with or without their consent.

More to the point, when the same shady tactics crop up again and again in cases involving essentially the same defendants and the same motives, it can’t simply be written off as a coincidence.

Taken collectively, the forgery cases clearly suggest a coordinated strategy on the part of unions panicked into breaking the law at the prospect of losing hundreds of millions of dollars in dues money when members they’ve spent decades preying on discover the power to decide about workplace representation has always been in their own hands.

The Supreme Court made its intentions in Janus crystal clear. Public employees have an ironclad First Amendment right to keep their job even if they choose to have nothing to do with a union.

And they can opt out on their terms, not those dictated — let alone forged — by union thugs.

Ashley Varner

is the

Freedom Foundations’s vice president for communications and federal affairs.

FIGHTING FOR FREEDOM

UTLA can’t tolerate principled opposition to its ideals

United Teachers of Los Angeles (UTLA) regards Glenn Laird as its most indispensable member.

Not financially, of course. The roughly $800 a year he surrenders in dues is a drop in the ocean when you consider the union has 35,000 just like him on the hook, too.

But as an example to all the others, no one is currently more critical to UTLA’s very existence than Laird — precisely because he no longer wants any part of it.

That’s why Laird and the union are set to square off this spring in the 9th Circuit Court of Appeals.

In the 40 years he spent teaching high school in the Los Angeles Unified School District, Laird was more than a respected, much-honored educator.

He was also an enthusiastic union member and CTA officer.

That changed, however, in June 2020 when the union announced it had launched a campaign to defund the presence of armed police officers on school grounds.

Laird, who had witnessed countless fights and several stabbings over the years, lost a student to gun violence during the 1980s.

He vividly recalls that school police were on scene at the time and one officer performed CPR while another officer pursued the shooter.

The incident left him with a profound appreciation for law enforcement in general and an armed presence on campus in particular.

Defunding the police was one of several conditions UTLA claimed the school district would have to meet before its members would agree to resume in-school instruction during the COVID pandemic.

And like the union’s demand that charter schools be abolished, it had nothing whatsoever to do with making teachers safe, as the union claimed.

The final straw came when Laird observed UTLA officials appearing on Zoom video conference calls wearing anti-police T-shirts and received union communications that included rhetoric accusing police officers of being murderers and a force for evil in society.

All funded with his dues money.

a black marker before signing and returning the document to the union, exempting him from its limitations.

Or so he thought.

The Freedom Foundation, a national public policy watchdog specializing in the abuses of public-sector unions, in 2020 filed a lawsuit on Laird’s behalf alleging, “UTLA’s continued deductions and expenditures forced Laird to betray his convictions, demeaning his status as a free and independent citizen.”

By JEFF RHODES, VP for News & Information

Earlier this year, however, the United States District Court for the Central District of California sided with UTLA, concluding the mere existence of a prior agreement between Laird and UTLA for union membership and dues’ deductions, no matter its actual terms, was sufficient to find that no constitutional analysis of Laird’s claims was necessary.

But this cannot be correct.

In June 2020, Laird made the decision to terminate his membership and dues deductions.

Two years earlier, in its landmark Janus v. AFSCME ruling, the U.S. Supreme Court had addressed just such actions when it affirmed that public employees cannot be forced to join or support a union as a condition of employment.

UTLA responded by agreeing to end Laird’s membership but continued to deduct dues from his wages until February 2021, insisting his request hadn’t been filed during a union-created annual two-week opt-out “window.”

In early 2018, realizing it was likely to lose the looming Janus decision, UTLA began pressuring teachers like Laird to sign new dues-authorization forms that, for the first time, incorporated language specifying that opt-out requests would only be processed two weeks a year.

Laird, however, carefully redacted the provision with

Had the court bothered to review the terms of Laird’s union membership agreement, it would have realized UTLA had no contractual authorization from Laird to continue the deductions, and such a lack of contractual authorization meant that the only basis to take Laird’s wages was the state system.

The case has now been appealed to the 9th Circuit and, depending on the outcome there, could eventually find its way to the same U.S. Supreme Court that fully intended to safeguard the First Amendment rights of individuals like Glenn Laird when it decided Janus two years ago.

With billions of someone else’s dues dollars at stake, it’s little wonder UTLA is hell-bent on making an example of Laird for others contemplating the same course of action.

What couldn’t be glossed over quite as easily, though, is another ruling deferential to the influence of powerful labor unions rather than the U.S. Constitution.

NEW YORK: Thanksgiving email pays off handsomely

Sendingemail to strangers can be a tricky job. What are the odds that you’d open an email from someone you don’t even know, let alone read it?

This past Thanksgiving, the Freedom Foundation beat those odds by launching its most successful email campaign to date in the wonderful state of New York. In the days leading up to the Thanksgiving holiday, tens of thousands of public employees from various unions received a special email with the subject line, “Thanksgiving Special For Union Employees!”

From that one email alone, we received an unprecedented amount of questions, comments, concerns, outrage and, most importantly, opt-outs.

We’ve been working around the clock to introduce ourselves to thousands of New Yorkers over the past two months, so many of those public employees that received our Thanksgiving message had already heard from us at least once, making it even more impressive to see this one email motivate hundreds of members of the Public Employees Federation (PEF) in particular to respond to us on such an unprecedented level.

By RYAN BROOKS, NY Outreach Coordinator

How unprecedented? Well, the Thanksgiving email resulted in so many PEF members opting out that the Freedom Foundation ended up setting a new record for the most opt outs in a single day in New York, obliterating the previous high and getting more opt-outs in a day than the Empire State previously had achieved in any given month prior.

Not only did our message prompt a record number of government workers to opt out of their abusive relationship with PEF, it also inspired the defectors to share their horror stories about the union.

And the best part? We’re still just getting warmed up. The holiday season is here, and Christmas cheer will be spread across New York on a level never before seen in the Excelsior State. The scouts have returned from the field with fresh intelligence, the heavy artillery is locked on target, and the generals have given the word. So stay tuned, as we expect to see even greater results in December.

CALIFORNIA: Worker’s rights case appealed to U.S. Supreme Court by Freedom Foundation

By LAWRENCE WILSON Reprinted from The Center Square Nov. 28, 2022

Doesan employee have a constitutional right to resign from a labor union at any time? That question could be decided by the U.S. Supreme Court if it accepts an appeal filed by Washington state-based think tank the Freedom Foundation.

The case in question, Kurk v. Los Rios Classified Employees Association, concerns the enforceability of so-called maintenance of membership requirements in union contracts, which prevent employees from leaving the union except within 30 days of the expiration of a collective bargaining agreement.

Those provisions violate the free speech rights of workers, according to the Freedom Foundation.

“The Supreme Court ruled four years ago in Janus v. AFSCME that mandatory union membership, dues and fees in the public sector are a violation of the worker’s First Amendment rights,” Freedom Foundation Chief Litigation Counsel Eric Stahlfeld said in a statement. “But the unions have largely ignored the ruling, and lower courts have let it happen. Hopefully by appealing several different Janus-related cases, the justices will recognize the need to enforce their earlier ruling.”

The Kurk case originates with the 1997 decision by plaintiff Kristine Kurk, an employee of Los Rios Community College, to sign a “dues checkoff form,” agreeing to permit payroll deduction of LRCEA dues. The form did not contain an expiration date or

any statement of a maintenance of membership requirement.

In 2017, California enacted a law stipulation that public employees cannot leave their union while the union’s collective bargaining agreement with their employer is still in effect.

In 2018, the Supreme Court’s Janus v. AFSCME decision ruled that mandatory union membership may not be required of public employees because it violates their First Amendment rights.

Kurk attempted to withdraw from the union in September 2018, but union officials denied the request, saying she could not resign until 30 days prior to the end of the collective bargaining agreement, Jun. 30, 2020.

The Freedom Foundation sued LRCEA in 2019, asserting the union contract violates the First Amendment.

Given the Janus ruling, the maintenance of membership provision is unconstitutional, the suit argued. Further, the 2017 California law could not be retroactively applied to Kurk

The suit was summarily dismissed by Judge Kimberly Meuller of the U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of California.

The dismissal was upheld on appeal.

The case was appealed to the Supreme Court this November.

The Supreme Court receives well over 7,000 appeals each term, according to court documents, and accepts about 100 to 150 of them and hears oral arguments on about 80.

Generally, it takes six weeks for the court to decide whether to accept a case.

OHIO: Union agenda has nothing to do with education

Duringthe 2021-22 legislative session, a bill was introduced in the Ohio House of Representatives that would establish criteria a child must meet before a doctor in Ohio could prescribe puberty blockers or hormones. In addition, life-altering surgeries would be prohibited for anyone under the age of 18.

The legislation — House Bill 454 (HB 454) also known as the Save Adolescents from Experimentation Act — was assigned to the Families, Aging, and Human Services Committee, where it has had five hearings and received backlash from more than 100 people who attended and testified in opposition , most recently, on November 16.

The bill has yet to receive the support required to pass out of committee.

Still, the Ohio Federation of Teachers (OFT) has made it clear its union opposes

By CHARLI BROWN, Communications Specialist

this bill, as is evidenced in this November 16 tweet.

Nothing contained in this legislation concerns teachers’ working conditions, testing requirements or the curricula surrounding reading, math and science. However, this hasn’t stopped union leadership from publicly opposing an idea that most people recognize provides a protective benefit for struggling minors weighing permanent, life-altering decisions.

In a guest column for the Columbus Dispatch earlier this year, OFT President Melis-

sa Cropper wrote, “Supporters of these bills have hijacked the statewide conversation about education policy and have turned our schools into a battleground for a divisive culture war riddled with false claims that teachers and administrators are indoctrinating students on issues of race and gender.”

Frankly, it is the teachers’ union bosses that have turned our schools into a battleground and used our children as pawns to further their radical social agenda.

OFT’s opposition to HB 454 is only the most recent example of teachers’ union leaders in Ohio and across the country promoting a radical agenda, which has nothing to do with education. It’s high time the union stopped social engineering and focused its efforts to assist teachers in the classroom and improve student outcomes.

FREEDOM STATE BY STATE

Oregon: Cutting OEA down to size

By JASON DUDASH & COREY DeANGELIS Reprinted from FOXNEWS.com

Dec. 7, 2022

Byits own admission, the Oregon Education Association (OEA) — the state’s largest teachers’ union — finds itself in the throes of a full-blown membership “crisis.”

It is a crisis of its own making.

According to the union’s most recent documents, OEA reported an active membership of 41,784 out of 48,774 represented educators during the 2019-20 school year. By 2020-21, however, that number had shrunk to 41,127 — perhaps in part because the workforce shrank by nearly 1,000 teachers during the COVID pandemic.

But in the most recent 202122 school year, OEA membership continued to decline to only 40,634 dues-paying members, even though the total number of OEA-represented teachers topped 50,000 for the first time.

Nearly one in five teachers have now broken ranks with OEA. In just three years, OEA’s membership rate has dropped from 85.6 percent to 81.2 — with no end in sight.

If the union wants to blame someone for those defections, its leaders need only look in the mirror.

Until 2018, Oregon was one of 23 states without right-to-work protections for government workers, meaning teachers and thousands of other public employees had to financially support union activities.

That changed when the U.S. Supreme Court, in Janus v. AFSCME, affirmed that mandatory union payments violate public employees’ First Amendment rights.

Knowing members could suddenly walk away without losing their jobs, OEA and other government unions could have responded by simply working harder to provide a service worth paying for.

But of course, that is not what happened.

Over the last several years, teachers and the American public have seen firsthand how government unions are more aggressive political organizations than membership-based professional associations.

Nothing illustrates the union’s priorities better than their own finances. The National

Education Association (NEA), OEA’s parent affiliate, reported spending more than twice as much on political expenditures than it did on representational activities for its members.

This is far from the only example of how teachers unions’ actions are often at odds with the interests of the teachers they represent.

Remember, these are the same unions that had no qualms about politicizing the COVID pandemic. For example, while demanding public schools remain closed to

in-person learning despite credible evidence showing youngsters seldom contract the virus and almost never die of it, OEA and its labor allies successfully blocked hundreds of children from continuing their education at virtual public charter schools.

Predictably, already-poor student assessment scores plummeted to record low levels. Once again, however, Oregon legislators ran interference for the unions by quietly approving a union-backed bill in August 2021 extending until 2024 a temporary suspension of the state requirements that students demonstrate proficiency in reading, writing and math to graduate from high school.

In the meantime, the union resumed its stealth war against parental influence by demanding even the youngest students be exposed to explicit sexual content and embracing corrosive Critical Race Theory curriculum.

Is it any wonder educators are leaving their unions in droves?

Strangely enough, teachers want to teach. They’re embarrassed that their students are falling further and further behind every year in the educational basics they need to hold a job and support a family because unions and the politicians they’ve corrupted want to turn our classrooms into indoctrination centers.

Teachers are realizing that their unions support policies that are actively harming the students and profession they love.

In Oregon and across the country, thousands of teachers are telling their union, “We’re sick of this, and we’re done with you.”

That may seem like a crisis for the unions, but it’s great news for the rest of us.

Jason Dudash is the Freedom Foundation’s Oregon director; Corey DeAngelis, PhD, is is a senior fellow at the American Federation for Children and executive director at the Educational Freedom Institute.

CALIFORNIA: And the opt-out records just keep falling

Momentum from the Freedom Foundation’s record-breaking October propelled California to its largest one-month opt-out total ever in November.

A jaw-dropping 1,398 public employees submitted request forms during the month to the Freedom Foundation’s California team, which processed every one.

As more and more workers at every level of government come to understand the rightto-work protections affirmed by the U.S. Supreme Court in Janus v. AFSME (2018), a new wave of independent-minded thinking has arisen.

When state employees truly understand their livelihood is no longer contingent on union membership, huge numbers opt to keep their dues dollars in their own pocket

By ORLANDO IBARRA, California Outreach Coordinator

rather than watching as union leaders use it to fund a radically liberal political agenda they don’t support.

Among the November total are more than 500 teachers, professors or school workers and roughly 700 SEIU members who considered their unions unfit to continue representing them.

Most of the credit for the spectacular results can be attributed to one of our most successful mailing campaigns so far — a survey form sent out in June that had only just barely reached our hands during the last week of November reflect-

ing the opinions of an estimated 1,800 employees.

While some expressed a positive attitude toward their respective union, many more detested the ways their leadership overlooked the needs of the rank and file, how they handled contract negotiations or how they funded extremely woke policies in their classrooms.

The feedback provided the Freedom Foundation with valuable data that will help us understand the overreach and negligence of California’s public-sector unions.

As we await the replies of our subsequent Thanksgiving and Christmas mail campaigns, we have every reason to believe record-breaking months will be the rule rather than the exception in the Golden State.

FREEDOM in ACTION

ON VIDEO

As the Freedom Foundation expands nationally, we’re seeing an epidemic of desperation from large unions, especially teachers’ unions like the National Education Association (NEA) and the American Association of Teachers (AFT).

Case in point: With waves of public employees in Connecticut choosing to leave their union in the past few weeks (with an assist from the Freedom Foundation) , the AFT in that state has put together a video begging its members to stay.

The video resorts to fearmongering and outright lies to smear the Freedom Foundation as something other than it is --- a beacon of hope for public employees fighting in vain against the union machine. Here are just a few of the lies and pieces of misinformation in their video.”

n “They want to take away Connecticut’s union rights.”

False. We’re simply providing public employees information about their rights.

n “(They’re) attempting to break our collective right to a union.”

False. We’re simply providing public employees information about their rights.

n “(They’re) tricking our co-workers to chip away at our union power.”

False. We’re simply providing public employees infomration about their rights.

n “So they are harvesting our personal information.”

False. We make legal requests for public infomoration about government employees.

The real irony is a union that claims it is strong and doing well, yet clearly in panic mode. Just maybe the picture isn’t quite as rosy as they claim. Why else would they be spending large sums of money putting out videos, mailers, emails and doing door-to-door visits to convince their members to keep handing over their paychecks?

--- MATTHEW HAYWARD, National Outreach Director

Oregon teachers’ union has lost nearly 20 percent of its members since 2020

By CAROLINE DOWNEY Reprinted from the NATIONAL REVIEW Dec. 7, 2022

Oregon’s

largest teachers’ union says it’s dealing with a membership crisis, with its ranks shrinking dramatically in recent years.

Since 2020, the Oregon Education Association lost 1,150 members and the percentage of union-represented teachers who qualified as active members dropped from 85.6 percent to 81.2 percent, according to data compiled by the Freedom Foundation.

Another 600 members have reportedly cut ties since April, bringing union membership to below 80 percent, the organization said. Nearly one in five teachers have left the union in the past two years alone.

“The cabinet is updated on locals that are experiencing downward trends in membership and locals that are in a membership crisis,” the union said in its 2022 handbook. “We are made aware of plans to support these locals, plans of membership drives within these locals, and plans to connect with active members as well as potential members in local associations.”

The union doesn’t do a great job of disguising its progressive motivations, writing in its handbook that it will lobby the Department of Education to impose mandatory LGBT training in all school districts.

It included in that document an affirmative action report, which includes race and gender hiring quotas.

For its representative assembly protocol, the OEA tells delegates to use their gender pronouns when identifying themselves on the floor.

“If OEA wants to blame someone for those defections, its leaders need only look in the mirror,” Freedom Foundation Oregon Director Jason Dudash said. “Our teacher outreach has been increasingly successful, but the arrogance of the unions themselves was a big help.”

Last January, a local affiliate of the union allegedly assisted with the recall campaign against two conservative-leaning school-board members in Newberg, Ore., circulating flyers and mailers around the district featuring the pride flag and Black Lives Matter solidarity fist, the Yahmill Advocate reported.

In November, Oregon teachers’ union ally Tina Kotek defeated Republican candidate Christine Drazen for in the state’s gubernatorial contest.

Before her gubernatorial run, Kotek, as leader of the Oregon House, repeatedly led votes along party lines to stop Republican-led attempts to reopen the state’s schools.

Yet in September, Kotek decried plummeting math and reading scores among children in the state, tweeting that she will “push to make sure all kids are reading by third grade, schools are expanding career technical education, and we’re all working together to help every student succeed.”

“Teachers want to teach,” said Dudash. The unions are “embarrassed that their students are falling further and further behind every year in the educational basics they need because unions and the politicians they’ve corrupted want to turn our classrooms into indoctrination centers.”

Dec. 12, 2022

Oregon teachers quit union, Kansas teachers looking for legislative relief

“Jason Dudash, Freedom Foundation Oregon director, says the membership decline disclosed in internal documents obtained by his organization indicates unions have overstepped their authority in the classroom. ‘Teachers are realizing their unions support policies that are actively harming the students and profession they love. Thousands of teachers are telling their union, ’We’re sick of this, and we’re done with you.’ ”

Dec. 7, 2022

Oregon teachers’ union has lost nearly 20 percent of membership since 2020

“Since 2020, the Oregon Education Association lost 1,150 members and the percentage of union-represented teachers who qualified as active members dropped from 85.6 percent to 81.2 percent, according to data compiled by the Freedom Foundation Another 600 members have reportedly cut ties since April, bringing union membership to below 80 percent, the organization said. Nearly one in five teachers have left the union in the past two years alone.”

Nov. 30, 2022

Capital gains tax gets the go ahead as state Supreme Court considers case

“The legal challenge stems from two lawsuits that were later consolidated. The first was filed last April by the Freedom Foundation, an Olympia-based conservative think tank. A month later, former Washington Attorney General Rob McKenna filed the second on behalf of state residents, including manufacturing business owners, investors, and the Washington State Farm Bureau.”

Dec. 9, 2022

FREEDOM in the NEWS

Dec. 8, 2022

Oregon Education Association sees drop in membership totals

“These numbers do not reflect the additional 600 Oregon teachers the Freedom Foundation has directly helped leave the OEA since April, when the union’s numbers were reported. All told, the union’s active membership has dropped below 80 percent. ‘If OEA wants to blame someone for those defections, its leaders need only look in the mirror,’ said Freedom Foundation Oregon Director Jason Dudash.”

ON

“So, in Oregon, are we shocked that teachers’ union membership has plummeted some 20 percent recently? Freedom Foundation Oregon Director Jason Dudash said no autopsy is needed to explain the collapse. These union officials only need to look in the mirror to see what’s wrong. Many teachers are devoted to their job, passionate, and want to teach—I know, a shocking development.”

Nov. 29, 2022

Washington state capital gains tax can move forward with Supreme Court case pending

“The tax would apply only to capital gains of more than $250,000. And it would exempt many other potential capital gains including real estate land and structures; retirement accounts; livestock for farming or ranching; and the sale of timber and timberlands, among other exceptions.The tax faced two lawsuits that were consolidated. The first was filed by the conservative Freedom Foundation.”

Nov. 23, 2022

Thank you for recognizing our freedoms of press and speech

“Just a short note following last week’s letter to the editor regarding the Freedom Foundation opinion piece. Thank you, Star News, for practicing and believing in the freedom of the press and speech. I am sure the British felt the same way about Thomas Paine’s pamphlets many years ago. Not that either are in the same class, both were dissenters at the time.”

— Deanna Wagner, Donnelly

Dec. 8, 2022

Internal documents reveal Oregon teacher’s union exodus is a crisis of its own making

“The breaking point for many Oregon teachers came during the pandemic. As the Freedom Foundation reports: “While demanding public schools remain closed to in-person learning despite credible evidence showing youngsters seldom contract the virus and almost never die of it, OEA and its labor allies successfully blocked hundreds of children from continuing their education at virtual public charter schools in 2020.”

Why Oregon teachers’ union has lost 20 percent of its membership

ACTION TIMELINE

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

Nov. 28

The Center Square publishes an article about a California lawsuit being appealed to the U.S. Supreme Court. The case in question, Kurk v. Los Rios Classified Employees Association, concerns the enforceability of so-called maintenance of membership requirements in union contracts, which prevent employees from leaving the union except within 30 days of the expiration of a collective bargaining agreement. The defendant is being represented by the Freedom Foundation

Nov. 30

With oral arguments scheduled for Jan. 26 in a Freedom Foundation lawsuit over Washington’s pending

By the Numbers

The Freedom Foundation’s massive Christmas outreach campaign across the nation resulted in nearly 4,000 public employees opting out of their unions during the month of December. This is $4 million denied union bosses and put back into the pockets of workers.

ruling last spring declaring it unconstitutional. But the justices issue a unanimous, one-page ruling in the state’s favor that includes no explanation or discussion of the merits.

Dec. 6

the U.S. Supreme Court in which a government employee’s right to opt out of his or her union is being denied based on a signature forged by the union itself on a membership/ dues-authorization agreement.

Dec. 7

Fox News publishes a guest opinion co-authored by Freedom Foundation Oregon Director Jason Dudash and Corey DeAngelis, national director of research at the American Federation for Children and adjunct scholar at the Cato Institute. Headlined, “Internal documents reveal Oregon teacher’s union exodus is a crisis of its own making,” the piece spotlights a report from the Oregon Education Association confirming the union has lost around 20 percent of its membership in the past two years alone. While OEA blames COVID and other factors, the article asserts most of the defections can be blamed on the union’s own arrogance and mismanagement. A second article, written by a staff writer and headlined, “Oregon teachers

its tradition of dispatching canvassers dressed as Santa Claus and his helpers to government offices with a message to public employees that they can ensure a merrier Christmas for themselves and put a few extra dollars in their pocket by exercising their First Amendment right to opt out of their union. The visits — always welcomed by the workers themselves but often fought vigorously by their unions — started in Washington in 2018 in the wake of the U.S. Supreme Court’s ruling in Janus v. AFSCME and have expanded to other states as the organization’s footprint has grown.

Dec. 20

The Freedom Foundation appeals a pair of Oregon lawsuits to the U.S. Supreme Court. Both cases — Zielinski v. SEIU 503 and Wright v. SEIU 503 — involve state employees whose request to cease paying dues to Oregon’s largest government employee union was denied or delayed based on SEIU 503’s insistence that the workers had signed a membership agreement that limited opt-outs to a two-week annual

“Supporting the Freedom Foundation is one of the very best investments you can make in getting a job done that no one else in America is taking on. It’s something you can do immediately to help turn the tide of how we’re governed in this country.”