Posts tagged FOIA
State employees’ union says NH Department of Labor must reinstate administrative judge
June 4, 2025 // News 9 received more than 1,000 pages as a result of the right-to-know request, but most were blacked out. In March, News 9 reported that the Department of Labor was taking steps to terminate Richard Brown's employment. Brown was an administrative judge who pleaded guilty in 2012 to several charges including organized fraud, money laundering, grand theft and filing false insurance claims, according to court paperwork from Florida.
New documents show TSA screeners illegally unionized, pro-worker group says
February 11, 2025 // “During the Obama administration, the TSA administrator did an abrupt about-face, and TSA moved ahead with allowing screeners to unionize in violation of the law,” Dave Dorey, an attorney specializing in labor and employment law who represented AFFT, told the Washington Examiner. “Multiple administrators of TSA have stated publicly that TSA screeners are not covered by Title V, which includes significant rights for unionized workers — including the ability to file claims of unfair labor practices with an independent board and ultimately vindicate their rights in federal court. TSA screeners have none of these protections.”
Report Shows Extent of Tax Dollars Spent on Public-Sector Unionism
January 17, 2025 // The results of the 2024 presidential election were a repudiation of Biden’s “most pro-union administration in American history,” in favor of one that sides with actual workers, as opposed to union bosses. Congress has every right to demand oversight over the expenses of the executive branch, especially when taxpayer dollars are funneled to union bureaucrats that are working in the interests of themselves and not the American people.
(I4AW) Report Shows Extent of Tax Dollars Spent on Public-Sector Unionism
January 17, 2025 // After the last official report was compiled in 2019, the OPM stopped reporting the hours and costs involved in union-related “official time” despite repeated calls from House Education and Workforce Committee Chairwoman Virginia Foxx for President Trump’s 2018 Executive Order to be honored. Pushback continued in 2023 when Sen. Marsha Blackburn (R-Tenn.) directed a letter to the OPM querying why the website reporting page went missing in July of that year, only to be told the site was undergoing “maintenance”. In March of last year, Sen. Joni Ernst (R-Iowa) introduced legislation entitled the Taxpayer-Funded Union Time Transparency Act which called on a return to reporting on the part of the OPM regarding time spent on collective bargaining. In August, Sen. Mike Lee (R-Utah) introduced a bill entitled the No Union Time on the Taxpayer’s Dime Act to curtail union activities by federal employees during work hours. All these attempts to increase transparency for taxpayers were roadblocked by Democrats in Congress and even now, the site still has not re-emerged – making I4AW’s report even more critical.
TSA Union Formation Faces Scrutiny
May 30, 2024 // The union that represents TSA agents was put into place via a series of administrative actions undertaken by the Obama Administration. This has led some labor experts to wonder if the union representing these tens of thousands of workers was properly instituted. To address these concerns, Americans for Fair Treatment (AFFT) sought answers through a series of requests made under the federal Freedom of Information Act (FOIA).
School District Lies—Goldwater Sues
February 6, 2024 // First, the district demanded $74,000 in public records fees from concerned mom Nicole Solas just to find out what her daughter would be learning in kindergarten. Then, the nation’s largest teachers union sued Nicole for filing those records requests—even though that’s what the district had asked her to do. Next, the district barred Nicole from attending secret meetings of the taxpayer-funded Black, Indigenous, and People of Color (BIPOC) Advisory Board, where the board developed policies for the district. And now the latest revelation, which came to light after the Goldwater Institute sued the district for violating Rhode Island’s Open Meetings Act: district officials didn’t just conduct BIPOC Advisory Board meetings behind closed doors, but they denied the very existence of public records regarding the board meetings when officials had those records in their possession.
ILLINOIS STILL HASN’T FINALIZED CONTRACT WITH STATE WORKERS
December 18, 2023 // The contract negotiated between the state and AFSCME Council 31 was ratified by members in July. But the final contract has yet to be released, meaning taxpayers don’t yet know how much it will cost them. Little-known government union fact: When government workers ratify a union contract, they don’t necessarily see the exact contract. That’s what happened earlier this year when Illinois state workers ratified a contract between the state and the American Federation of State, County and Municipal Employees Council 31, the union representing them. The language of the contract itself wasn’t final, but the state and union had agreed to the terms.
Boarded The Teachers’ Union Takeover of NY School Districts
November 21, 2023 // NYSUT’s involvement in state and federal elections is well-documented, but the low turnout in New York’s generally nonpartisan school board elections has given it an even bigger opportunity. The union also isn’t stopping with school boards: its electoral efforts involve elevating members to local, state and federal office, positions from which union members could eventually affect every facet of education policy. The system of campaign finance rules that regulate everything from elections for governor down to town assessors does not cover school board elections.
This group says it keeps federal unions accountable to their members
August 14, 2023 //
Five Years Later, Janus Is Decimating Government Unions
June 30, 2023 // Government unions never should have exercised so much control over so many people for so many years. The Supreme Court righted this wrong in 2018, and five years later, more than a million public sector workers have exercised their freedom, keeping at least $720 million of their hard-earned money every year. These numbers are all but certain to grow over the next five years. Perhaps by the 10th anniversary of the Janus decision, government unions will admit how much they’re hurting and change to a less partisan and more effective model of member persuasion.