Posts tagged Freedom Foundation
Study shows how Missouri taxpayers are subsidizing teachers’ unions
March 13, 2025 // While it may not sound controversial, Straka explains the reality is that “union participation in NEOs [new employee orientations] is designed to pressure employees into joining the union, contributing to union political funds, and inculcating pro-union sentiment among employees.” “All of these meetings take place during work hours at the taxpayers’ expense,” he continues. “Missouri lawmakers should ensure that no teacher or public school employee is required by their employer to attend union events, listen to a union sales pitch, or otherwise interact with a union against their will.
The Freedom Foundation creates teachers’ union alternative
March 10, 2025 // “Public employees are leaving their unions in record numbers, frustrated by the funding of radical agendas driven by union bosses,” Freedom Foundation CEO Aaron Withe said in a news release. “The Teacher Freedom Alliance offers an alternative for pro-America educators who seek to restore traditional values in the classroom and provide students with the high-quality education they deserve– free from political influence and union control.”
Freedom Foundation Applauds OPM Directive to Report on Government Union Work
March 5, 2025 // In Nov. 2023, the Freedom Foundation reported that OPM had not only stopped reporting on the amount of official time used by federal employees — as it had done under presidents of both parties since the late 1990s — but had taken down the page on its website housing years of reports on the use and cost of official time to taxpayers, all while promoting expanded use of taxpayer-funded union time. The following month, citing the Freedom Foundation’s investigation, Sen. Marsha Blackburn (R-TN) and nine other Republican U.S. Senators sent an oversight letter to OPM demanding to know why the webpage was removed and whether OPM would publish any further updates on taxpayer-funded union time. After Biden’s OPM director responded that her agency had no intention of restoring the official time webpage, much less conducting another study on the costs of taxpayer-funded union time, Sen. Joni Ernst (R-IA) and Rep. Scott Franklin (R-FL) introduced the Taxpayer-Funded Union Time Transparency Act, which would require each federal agency to track and annually report the amount of time its employees spend on union business and the cost of such official time to taxpayers.
GOP lawmakers demand info on Biden-era spending used to declare student-athletes as employees
March 3, 2025 // While the change in how college athletes are treated has been welcomed by many, others have been concerned about the move's potential implications. Earlier this month, the Trump administration rescinded the Biden administration NLRB's September 2021 memo insisting college athletes be recognized as employees under federal labor laws. The Trump administration this month also revoked guidance issued by President Joe Biden on his way out of the White House that required schools to distribute direct NIL payments equally to female and male athletes. Aaron Withe, an expert in government unionization and a former college athlete, said he fears continued momentum toward viewing college athletes as strictly employees will destroy college sports. "Are unions going to step in between a coach and their athletes for yelling at the players, or because practice went long or because they're making them run an exceptional amount of lines?" Withe wondered. "If you're represented by a union, they're now your bargaining agent. You have no ability to go represent yourself in anything with the university if it is deemed they are your employer. You've got no ability to go negotiate with them anymore."
Jewish Teachers Forced to Pay Dues to Anti-Semitic Labor Union They Don’t Belong To
November 24, 2024 // The lawsuit says the EERA and the collective bargaining agreement (CBA) that the union signed leaves the plaintiffs trapped in a union at odds with their political and religious beliefs. “UTLA inserted requirements into the CBA for adoption of model curricula for the classroom that is openly ant-Semitic, and has provided teacher training opportunities where teachers are taught how to avoid detection for anti-Israel rhetoric. UTLA also supports anti-Semitic and anti-Israel professional development classes–classes that can advance teachers’ careers.” The end result is that both “the EERA and the CBA compel Plaintiffs to associate with UTLA’s anti-Semitic speech and curriculum despite Plaintiff’s objections based on their sincerely held beliefs.
A year after Oct. 7 attack, Jewish teachers say LA union promotes antisemitism
October 8, 2024 // “UTLA has also supported professional development that teaches anti-Israel and anti-Semitic content,” the lawsuit alleges. “The UTLA-supported Liberated Ethnic Studies Model Curriculum is patently anti-Semitic, and has been adopted by LAUSD in various ways and at various schools at the behest of UTLA.” The lawsuit says those curriculum materials “denounce the idea of a Jewish homeland.” Other lawsuits have been filed challenging ethnic studies courses alleging they are antisemitic. While the lawsuit lists specific positions and actions of the teachers union, it is directed toward California’s provisions that require a sole union to represent all employees in a workplace.
In California, There’s Hope for IHSS Workers Facing Rampant Union Abuse
September 19, 2024 // As Olivia attended the IHSS provider orientation necessary to obtain state funding to meet her son’s medical needs, she didn’t expect a closed-door meeting with officers of the United Domestic Workers of America (UDW). If Olivia declined to sign up for union membership, the union representatives threatened, she would be unable to complete her timecard and lose payment as a result. Though Olivia had a “gut feeling” to refuse, she signed a union membership card anyway, yielding to “peer pressure” and an optimistic belief that the UDW officers were acting in accordance with their promise to defend IHSS provider rights.
Commentary: The Media Are Doing Free PR for Big Labor
September 13, 2024 // According to a new report from the union watchdog Freedom Foundation (where I work), Big Labor’s return to the spotlight coincides with unionization efforts that have taken newsrooms by storm, securing one in six American journalists as dues-paying members. With journalists “more knowledgeable and sympathetic to labor issues” than ever before, recent union reporting insists that Big Labor is making a comeback; “that unions are good not only for individual workers but also for America itself”; and that legislation meant to ensure union accountability is a threat to democracy.
Commentary: The Rise of “Pro-Labor” Conservatism
September 9, 2024 // Yet O’Brien’s move has attracted the attention of commentators from both sides of the political spectrum who see it as a bellwether. It is what conservative commentator Sohrab Ahmari has called a “brave gambit” and veteran labor reporter Steven Greenhouse dubbed a “huge gamble.” “A glacier of hostility has divided the GOP from organized labor for two generations,” Ahmari wrote in Compact. But the Teamsters president “took a pickaxe to that glacier” by speaking at the RNC. Ahmari attributes the rise of this strain of pro-labor, anti-union conservatism to Senator Josh Hawley (R-MO), a MAGA firebrand who has come out as perhaps the lone GOP senator to oppose right to work legislation, the anti-union laws on the books in 28 states.