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THE CASE FOR FREEDOM Weingarten’s anti-Semitic diatribe exposes the utter depravity of her character
On March 9, the self-proclaimed “party of unity” drove yet another wedge into the partisan divide of our country with the passage of HR 842.
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As a practicing attorney who has spent countless hours working on lawsuits intended to help re-open California schools to in-class instruction over the objections of the unions representing that state’s educators, I long ago learned to
By SHELLA SADOVNIK, Litigation Counsel
ignore the cringe-worthy pronouncements of Randi Weingarten, president of the National Federation of Teachers.
But as a practicing Jew, I can neither ignore nor tolerate the anti-Semitic comments she directed this week toward Jewish parents whose children — like millions of others throughout the nation — continue to languish at home pretending to learn while school districts and politicians dicker with unions over the terms under which teachers will do the jobs for which they’re being paid.
In an interview with the Jerusalem Post, Weingarten said:
“American Jews are now part of the ownership class. What I hear when I hear that question is that those who are in the ownership class now want to take that ladder of opportunity away from those who do not have it. She continued:
“Jews were immigrants from somewhere else. And they needed the right to have public education. And they needed power to have enough income and wealth for their families that they could put their kids through college and their kids could do better than they have done. Both economic opportunity through the labor movement and an educational opportunity through public education were key for Jews to go from the working class to the ownership class.”
The jaw-dropping irony, of course, is that Weingarten herself is Jewish — married since 2018 to a rabbi.
Wikipedia has a long entry on the controversial phenomenon of “self-hating Jews,” but for the purposes of this discussion, there’s no reason to engage in psychoanalysis.
Whatever Randi Weingarten does or doesn’t think about herself or the religion she professes to follow, she clearly has no qualms about throwing it under the bus in order to score cheap political points.
With anti-Semites.
Who else would so eagerly buy into the tired, long-discredited stereotype of Jews as the sinister, unseen puppet masters whose edicts are responsible for whatever calamity befalls the unfortunate and the envious?
In her eagerness to shift the blame from union leaders like those in Los Angeles, who have openly demanded concessions such as the defunding of law enforcement, housing for the homeless and universal health coverage in return for returning to the classroom, Weingarten revived all the old prejudices by making her own people a scapegoat. How she squares all this with her conscience — assuming she has one — is her affair. But there’s little question her comments render her unfit to lead the American Federation of Teachers for another minute. If she has a shred of concern for the organization she’s led since 2008, Randi Weingarten will resign immediately. If not, the AFT leadership and members can either remove her or forever share the stain of bigotry and ignorance.
Invoking God to smear right-to-work? Sickening
By JEFF RHODES Reprinted from THE KEENE (NH) SENTINEL
April 2, 2021
(The article below appeared as a letter to the editor in response to a guest opinion published a week earlier in a New Hampshire newspaper.)
I’m flabbergasted to think anyone could twist the truth about right-to-work protections so shamelessly, let alone three members of the clergy.
But the Sentinel’s March 25 guest opinion by Rev. Jason Wells and Bishops James Hazelwood and A. Robert Hirschfeld about New Hampshire Senate Bill 61 (“ ‘Right-towork’ harms everyday NH workers) isn’t merely inaccurate.
In a very real sense, its irresponsible mischaracterizations pose a far greater risk for anyone foolish enough to take them seriously than anything the proposed legislation could be accused of.
What their snake oil pitch conveniently neglects to mention is the unassailable truth that right-to-work laws don’t compel anyone to do anything.
Nor are they an attempt to “weaken the ability of working people to organize.”
There’s no reason whatsoever a worker in a right-to-work state couldn’t form a new union — or remain in his or her current union — if they so desire.
All the legislation would do is extend the same right of conscience to those who see the question differently.
Perhaps most offensive of all is Wells, Hazelwood and Hirschfeld’s invocation of Exodus 3:7, comparing nonunionized workers in a free society to the Hebrew slaves of ancient Egypt.
As painful as it must be for the trio to discover they don’t speak for everyone, however, there are, in fact, millions of workers in this country who don’t share their favorable opinion of union representation. Nor do they embrace the radical leftist political agenda their dues have for too long been forcibly confiscated to help fund.
In Janus v. AFSCME, the U.S. Supreme Court empowered workers by giving them the freedom to choose for themselves whether association with a labor union makes sense in their unique situation.
If they choose to waive their right to opt out, so be it.
But if workers defect in sufficient numbers to weaken the unions, whose fault is it but the unions themselves for offering an inferior product?
In any case, conscripting millions of free Americans to fund a powerful special interest — or the leftist agenda of a handful of politically engaged clergymen — more closely resembles slavery than does the freedom of choice safeguarded in right-towork laws.
It is the height of hypocrisy for Wells, Hazelwood and Hirschfeld to abuse this forum to exercise their own freedom of speech while advocating for laws that deny the workers for whom they claim to care so passionately the same right.
Shame on them.
SEIU 503 faces racketeering charges in connection with forged documents, wire fraud
Staci Trees isn’t the first Oregon public employee to file suit against her union over its refusal to grant her opt-out request. Nor is hers the first instance of the union clearly forging a signature on a membership form so it could continue to confiscate dues from a worker who no longer wanted to pay.
But Trees’ case is the first to invoke the Racketeer Influenced and Corrupt Organizations (RICO) Act, alleging the union engaged in a pattern of fraudulent activity victimizing both her and other union members.
By JEFF RHODES, VP for News & Information
The lawsuit was filed on March 29, in U.S. District Court in Eugene by the Freedom Foundation.
It names Service Employees International Union (SEIU) 503, the Oregon Department of Administrative Services and its director, Katy Coba, as defendants.
Trees, employed by the Oregon Department of Transportation, was required to either sign a union membership card or pay an agency fee to SEIU 503 when she was originally hired in 2009.
But in June 2018, the U.S. Supreme Court affirmed 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.
Within a month, Trees contacted the union and requested her release.
After numerous delays, SEIU 503 finally canceled her membership in December 2020.
But Trees was informed in an email that the union would continue deducting around $100 a month in dues until at least February 2021 because, under the terms of a new agreement she signed in 2016, all memberships would be renewed automatically unless the worker opted out during an annual twoweek window.
Trees, however, couldn’t remember signing such an agreement and, when she demanded to see it, not only had her signature been forged, but important personal details had simply been made up.
“If Staci Trees was the only person this had ever happened to, you could conceivably blame it on inefficiency or incompetence,” said Freedom Foundation attorney Rebekah Millard. “But this isn’t an isolated case.”
Millard said SEIU’s actions violate both state and federal RICO laws because the union issued numerous electronic communications that fraudulently claimed Trees authorized deductions she didn’t.
Moreover, the complaint cites four other current lawsuits in which the SEIU 503 engaged in similar behavior against other Oregon public employees.
“It’s time for the courts to recognize these are not isolated instances and take action to hold SEIU 503 accountable,” she said.
Oregon
Update
Unions aren’t fooling anyone about their true priorities
As organized labor continues its push for the deceptively named Protect the Right to Organize (PRO) Act on the national stage, let’s not forget that union leaders in Oregon have, time and again, lobbied lawmakers in Salem for their own set of rules designed for essentially the same reason — to tilt the playing field entirely in their own favor and away from workers.
They’ve done it successfully for years, turning Oregon’s collective bargaining laws for government workers into some of the most lopsided in the country.
But they always want more.
The latest damning example is House Bill 3029, sponsored by a trio of House Democrats at the request of Oregon AFSCME, one of the state’s most powerful government unions.
The seemingly innocuous measure would have allowed union “card check” campaigns — a type of expedited union drive in which organizers collect signed authorizations from workers — to be completed electronically rather than using paper copies.
Sounds entirely reasonable, right?
In one sense, yes. After all, many of us regularly bank online, shop online and sign legal documents electronically, don’t we? There’s nothing necessarily wrong with transitioning Oregon’s labor laws into the 21st century.
Except that’s not what AFSCME leaders really wanted. What they really wanted in HB 3029 was a two-part equation, each part as important as the other: First, to organize unions using modern technology and, second, to deny those same capabilities to any dissatisfied workers seeking to challenge them.
In fact, AFSCME leaders wanted this unfair advantage so badly that they outright lied to lawmakers about it.
During the bill’s first committee hearing, AFSCME Associate Director Joe Baessler claimed it was an innocent measure designed to bring Oregon law “in line” with existing federal regulations for private-sector unions.
What he conspicuously neglected to mention was that while federal regulations do allow for electronic signatures in union campaigns, they allow them for all types of campaigns, including workers’ attempts to change or remove their union.
My organization notified committee members of the falsehood, and lawmakers quickly introduced an amendment to fix the bill.
Specifically, the amendment would extend the same electronic capabilities described in HB 3029 to all types of union-related campaigns equally.
Problem solved, right? AFSCME leaders would still get what they supposedly “wanted,” and the amended bill would accomplish precisely what they had told lawmakers their goal was in the first place.
Apparently not. As it turns out, union bosses aren’t too pleased with the idea of a level playing field.
When asked in the next committee hearing about why AFSCME’s original version of HB 3029 sought to give union organizers the benefits of modern technology while denying it to others, Baessler was forced to acknowledge the truth about the bill and gave a shockingly honest comment about AFSCME’s disregard for dissenting workers’ rights, saying, “We didn’t think (campaigns to change or remove a union) was a priority… and we still don’t.”
Say again? Your organization specifically crafted a bill to allow union proponents to organize with the click of a button while denying similar capabilities to union dissenters, all because it didn’t think they were a “priority”?
That’s kind of like saying workers should be able to sign up for union membership online but should have to send a physical letter via horse-drawn carriage at high noon on the equinox during an odd-numbered year while standing on one foot should they ever wish to resign because they’re not a “priority.”
But that would be ridiculous. Oh wait… AFSCME does that, too.
Are such things really because union leaders believe nonmembers and those who don’t agree with the union’s onesize-fits-all model aren’t a priority? Or is it because, in reality, stifling any dissent is their priority?
Try as they might, union bosses aren’t fooling anybody. Make no mistake, they want laws that work only for themselves and their supporters, not all workers.
By BEN STRAKA, Policy Analyst
Illegals learning in person while San Diego residents stay home
By AARON WITHE, CEO
As if California hadn’t long since cemented its status as the most tonedeaf, irresponsibly liberal enclave in the nation, the San Diego County Office of Education (SDCOE) during April announced it would be “providing the educational program for the unaccompanied migrant children” (emphasis added)staying at the San Diego Convention Center.
At least the Golden State is overachieving at something.
Using volunteer teachers, the plan is to instruct the youngsters in English language development and something called “social-emotional learning opportunities” (no doubt including the obligatory leftist indoctrination and a comprehensive overview of the myriad free products and services available to anyone able to shinny over or under border fences erected specifically to keep them out). And all of this will happen face to face.
In a classroom. COVID be damned.
Meanwhile, the district’s 130,000 regular students — whose parents have the misfortune to live in this country legally and pay the taxes that fund its education system — continue to languish at home trying to educate themselves with a laptop computer as the union representing their teachers continues to wrangle with California’s governor over how many concessions will be needed to make them agree with the opinion of the federal Centers for Disease Control that it’s long past time to end prohibitions on inclass learning.
Even provided one accepts the highly dubious (in the real world, at least) proposition that illegal aliens somehow have a claim not only on this nation’s Constitution al rights but also its taxpayer-provided privileges, it’s still incomprehensible that they should be moved directly to the front of the line when they’re being handed out.
Whatever rights “undocumented immigrants” have, they do not supersede those of actual Americans — particularly in light of the latter’s documented suffering.
Studies have shown conclusively that distance learning has brought about an epidemic of depression, obesity, substance abuse and suicide among youngsters accustomed to socializing face-to-face with their peers every day in school.
Where’s the urgency to serve their needs?
The actions of San Diego school district officials this week have once again exposed their cynical lies.
Again, not that we needed more proof.
Unions would gain influence under the PRO Act. What does that mean for California?
By KATE IRBY Reprinted from the SACRAMENTO BEE March 23, 2021
Am high-profile bill that House Democrats passed this month will make it easier for private-sector workers to join unions, but it won’t do much directly for labor organizations representing California government employees.
That’s by design.
Unions already feel strong in the public sector, but they’ve lost influence among private companies. That’s led to union advocates to want to push for more action in the private sector before turning to the public sector, according to Steve Smith, spokesman for the California Labor Federation.
“We have a high level of unionization in the public sector, especially here in California,” Smith said. “The Janus decision, as challenging as that’s been for us, unions have actually lost very few members because of it.”
Nationally, about 35 percent of public-sector workers are unionized, while only 6 percent of private-sector workers are unionized, according to a 2020 report from the Bureau of Labor Statistics.
In California, about 18 percent of all employed workers are represented by a union.
Democrats passed the PRO Act, in the House on party lines, but it’s stalled until the Senate chooses to take it up or not. Though Democrats narrowly control the Senate, it would still require at least 10 Senate Republicans to support it in order to pass to break a potential filibuster.
Part of the Protecting the Right to Organize Act, known as the PRO Act, would allow private-sector unions across the country to charge fees to workers who benefit from contracts they negotiate even if the employees do not want to participate in the organization.
Those charges are known as “fairshares” by advocates, but called forced dues by people who don’t want to pay them.
California public employee unions lost the power to levy fair share fees in 2018, when the Supreme Court handed down a decision known as Janus vs. AFSCME that prohibited the practice among labor groups representing govenment workers.
But there are other provisions in the bill that would be a change for private sector unions in California.
Notably, it changes the definition of “employee,” which would allow millions of gig workers such as rideshare drivers the right to organize and form a union.
Some Republican lawmakers have called the law a federal version of California’s Assembly Bill 5, a labor law that passed in 2019 and required businesses to give employment benefits to more workers.
But the PRO Act different from the California law in that it doesn’t guarantee those employees certain wages and benefits. Instead, it just allows them to participate in unionizing efforts.
Another change that has union critics up in arms is one on binding arbitration. Currently, unions and employers have to negotiate in good faith, and neither has to agree with a proposal made by the other.
Under the newly proposed process, unions and employers would have three months to come to an agreement before a government mediator could step in. If the parties still don’t agree for another month, the mediator can impose a contract regardless of either party’s agreement.
“Under this proposal, the government is weighing in on the outcomes. It decides what terms are negotiated and decided,” said Maxford Nelsen, Director of Labor Policy at the Freedom Foundation. “That’s an incredible encroachment on the part of the federal government on the rights part of private business to conduct their own affairs. It’s really quite sweeping.”
Finally, the proposed law would make it easier for private unions to form. Right now, if a majority of workers indicate they want to unionize then the employer can voluntarily recognize the union or request a
secret ballot.
Employees vote on whether they’d like to unionize, and if a majority votes to unionize then it’s recognized by the National Labor Relations Board and the employer.
Under the proposed changes, unions would have two chances to organize if the employer requests the secret ballot.
If the vote fails, the union can challenge the results based on allegations of employer interference, including intimidating employees into voting against unionization.
If the National Labor Relations Board agrees with that assessment, employees can organize through a process called card check.
Card checks mean union representatives can approach each employee individually to ask them to vote to unionize.
If they get a majority of employees to sign on that way, they can unionize.
Spotlight on California A closer look at the successes being achieved by the Freedom Foundation’s office in the Golden State.
