By Matthew Hayward Originally posted Nov, 202017 on Freedomfoundation.com With news that the U.S. Supreme Court will hear  Janus vs. AFSCME  and the widely held belief that Mark Janus will win, ultimately bringing right-to-work (RTW) to public employees all across the country, we can anticipate Big Labor will not just give in and allow people to walk away from paying dues. You can bet government union leaders are organizing all across the country to concoct new scams that will allow them to continue to treat public employees as a cash cow for their ideological fantasies and political realities. In fact, I recently attended a  conference  put on by the  Labor Education and Research Center (LERC) , a small, taxpayer-subsidized outfit headquartered at South Seattle College. The title of the conference was “ Emerging Leaders Conference 2017  –  Social Justice Unionism in the Face of RTW. Saturday morning started out with a radical left-wing panel dis...

In a legal battle that has lasted for years, This Friday, you can watch the Oral argument in T690 v. LC on Sept. 18 @ 1000,   here , under Division III.    This will certainly not be the end, but will there ever be an end?   Summary of a modernized Charles Dickens novel, Bleak House , about Jarndyce and Jarndyce transformed into a real court case in interminable legal proceedings. Lincoln County v Teamsters 690 or (Jarndyce v Jarndyce) concerns the fate of many a man's livelihoods. The case has dragged on through generations of legal counsel, leaving workers to work without a contract, legal costs amounting to far more than would have ever been granted by contract, and no end in sight. Teamsters, like other unions, take their foe to the Chancery, knowing it would be better to "Suffer any wrong that can be done you rather than come here!" “Jarndyce and Jarndyce drones on. Over time, this scarecrow of a suit has become so complicated that no man alive know...

If past actions by government union leadership are any indication, it's fair to assume unions will spend hundreds of millions of dollars targeting the presidential election and conservative candidates across the nation. Two big questions exist: 1.       Will labor unions change their model back toward the workplace issues the rank-and-file care about, or will they remain hyper-partisan political players? 2.      W ith public employees now having the option to cease all union dues payments, and organizations like the Freedom Foundation working 24/7 to make sure they're informed of their rights and able to exercise them, will government unions still be able to generate enough revenue by overcharging their members to make record donations? Let's travel back to 2017 to assess these questions. With the death of Antonin Scalia, the U.S. Supreme Court deadlocked 4-4 in Friedrichs v. California Teachers Association . Had Scalia cast a tie-break...

By Matthew Hayward Thanks to the U.S. Supreme Court’s 2018 ruling in Janus v. AFSCME , public employees can no longer be fired for refusing to pay their designated labor union dues . Unfortunately, state laws often still require them to remain in a relationship with a union even though they’re no longer members or paying dues. In a genuine sense, this is like the government granting an abused spouse a divorce but ordering him or her to remain with their abuser. The court recognized in Janus that forced union membership or dues is a violation of the worker’s First Amendment rights to free speech and association. But by any logical interpretation of the ruling, it also bans forced representation. So-called “union security clauses,” which stipulate that a union must represent every employee in its bargaining unit — even nonmembers — are routinely inserted into state law or the collective bargaining agreement between a governmental jurisdiction and the union claiming to repr...

One great thing about the Freedom Foundation is that nearly everything we do is successful. Even when we appear to lose a battle, by the simple act of climbing into the ring and fighting, we’re always advancing in the overall war to defund and distract the political influence of government unions. A great example of our win-win policy is our door-to-door opt-out today program . The hundreds of thousands of dollars in lost dues to the S ervice Employees International Union ( SEIU) annually because of members opting out is a win. Still, we’re also winning because of the time and money SEIU is forced to devote to countering it. In response to our efforts, SEIU has recruited a small army of thugs to spread lies to prevent people from learning and exercising their rights. SEIU 775 is currently running ads offering to pay hired goons upwards of $50,000 a year to “encourage” individual providers to sign the membership cards, which entitles the union to skim money from workers...