Posts tagged Freedom Foundation
Commentary: When Wokeness Implodes: An Irony-Steeped Showdown in Florida, Echoes of Janus v. AFSCME, and a Fresh Start for Florida’s Public Employees
July 3, 2023 // In an environment of “wokeness,” the NEA—one of the largest teachers’ unions in the country—is tasting a bitter concoction of its own brewing, served up by its ideological kin, the Saint Paul Federation of Educators (SPFE). The SPFE has declared a boycott of the NEA’s 2023 Representative Assembly in Orlando, Fla., in response to the NAACP’s travel advisory warning of Florida’s purported hostility toward African Americans, people of color, and LGBTQ+ individuals. This irony-steeped drama unfolds alongside the fifth anniversary of Janus v. AFSCME, a landmark ruling that strengthened public employees’ rights by allowing them the freedom to choose whether to join and pay dues to a union. Federal reports show a drop in the NEA’s membership of more than 200,000 workers (7.6 percent) since the Janus decision. The Freedom Foundation, in that same period, has assisted more than 143,000 government employees in opting out of their unions. This legacy of empowerment starkly contrasts with the NEA’s current predicament, where ideology appears to overshadow dialogue and mutual respect.
Commentary: To Unions, Organizing Time Is Fine When It’s on the Taxpayers’ Dime
June 29, 2023 // Despite public sector unions, and particularly teachers’ unions like Weingarten’s American Federation for Teachers, facing mounting scrutiny for their role in school closures and broader left-wing political activism, the practice of release time has garnered little attention.
CELEBRATING THE HISTORIC JANUS DECISION FIVE YEARS LATER
June 27, 2023 //
Commentary: The Left and their Union Masters
June 27, 2023 // Since Janus, government employee unions have lost nearly 800,000 members, taking with them billions in dues revenue that can never again be used to fund a machine that suppresses the rights of its own members in order to advance policies that rob the rest of us our God-given freedoms.
Op-ed: Trader Joe’s union is not what we bargained for
June 13, 2023 // First, as reported by the Freedom Foundation, SEIU and Workers United have also targeted my previous employer, Starbucks, with a multimillion-dollar unionization campaign featuring some of the very organizers involved in the Hadley Trader Joe’s campaign. Untold numbers of paid union “salts” — many fresh out of college with little to no work experience — have been deployed to get jobs at targeted employers and covertly organize them from the inside. Second, few resources are available to workers skeptical of or opposed to unionization. The National Labor Relations Board (NLRB) staff I’ve contacted have shown they only care about workers that want to unionize.
Florida: State officials sued by education unions over SB 256
May 22, 2023 // SB 256 outlaws requiring the state to deduct union dues, restricts the freedom of educators and other working people to join unions, forces local unions to undergo monitoring, and requires that an arbitrary 60% supermajority of eligible employees pay dues in order for a union to exist. “Dues will no longer be deducted from their paycheck along with Medicare, Medicaid, Social Security, and taxes,” Brown told the Florida Record. “Union dues don't belong on there anyway. The state should not be collecting money on behalf of private organizations anymore. Unions can just call their members and get their credit card information, their bank account and have it set up as a direct payment that way if they would like to.” Defendants include Donald J. Rubottom, chair of the Florida Public Employees Relations Commission, Jeff Aaron, commissioner of the Florida Public Employees Relations Commission, and Michael Sasso, commissioner of the Florida Public Employees Relations Commission.
AFT president Randi Weingarten scores $15K annual teacher’s pension in deal with union and NYC
May 16, 2023 // “The New York Post has refused to provide us with the supposed analysis this story is based on. Regardless, it’s pure speculation because Ms. Weingarten is not retired,” AFT spokesman Andrew Crook said. “Ms. Weingarten has worked on behalf of UFT members—including teaching in NYC public schools—for nearly 40 years.” Weingarten began serving as a legal counsel at UFT in 1986 before becoming a teacher. Other records obtained by the Freedom Foundation show she worked about two hours a day as a substitute from September 1991 to August 1994, amounting to about a year of service in her retirement account.
Hunter Tower: Is Pittsburgh a blueprint for other union-dominated blue cities?
May 1, 2023 // SEIU leaders now hold key posts in Gainey’s administration. Silas Russell, SEIU Healthcare executive vice president and political director, co-chaired Gainey’s transition team. Maria Montano, former SEIU Healthcare communications director, is now Gainey’s press secretary. And Lisa Frank, former SEIU vice president and director of strategic communications, is now the city of Pittsburgh’s chief operating officer. Emails uncovered through right-to-know requests by CBS Pittsburgh reveal that Russell provided the mayor with union-generated talking points ahead of a meeting last year with UPMC officials.
Arkansas teachers freed from compulsory union membership; what about Kansas?
April 28, 2023 // K.S.A. 75-5501 currently has an unconstitutional minimum 180-day dues-withholding requirement with no provision for employees to resign and stop paying dues whenever they wish. The Kansas National Education Association (KNEA) only allows teachers to resign and stop paying dues in August. Restrictions of this nature effectively make union membership compulsory. There have been several attempts to protect public employee rights in the Legislature, but teachers’ and other public employees’ rights are still not recognized in Kansas, but legislators are not giving up.