As  Douglas County  prepares to have a  hearing  on  Feb. 18  to discuss making their  collective bargaining process more transparent ,  union leaders opposing  transparency   will be  descending on   the rural Eastern Washington town of Waterville to  make a show of force.    What  tired arguments will the  unions  bring to oppose this commonsense policy? Some of their  favorite arguments  against transparency  are :   “ The Freedom Foundation supports it , so it must be bad ”   “Nobody negotiates in public”   “It will hamper the process” “It’s a recipe for gridlock”    In the   22 states  that  allow  more  public  transparency with  negotiations, including Idaho  and  Oregon , they are not having the imagined problems unions in WA are afraid of.   We aren’t having any of th...

By Matthew Hayward Before the U.S. Supreme Court issued its 2018 ruling in Janus v. AFSCME , public employees could opt out of the non-representational portion of their dues, primarily political and ideological causes that were essentially an overcharge. In some cases, this portion of dues (overcharges) amounted to 40 percent of their total dues . Of course, exercising their right to opt out of the political portion of their dues meant opting out of their membership, too. Opting out as a member meant the employee was paying 100 percent of his or her representation share but opting out of the “overt” political portion. Thus, these workers surrendered their membership, which prevented them from voting in union elections, including contract votes, and prevented them from attending union meetings to stay informed about their representation — even though they were still paying for the privilege. In the post- Janus world, public employees no longer have the option to opt out of th...