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.