Posts tagged opt-out
Commentary: Mayer’s Concurrence Says What Every American Worker Already Knows
May 8, 2026 // The numbers tell the story. Workers in the original Rieth-Riley case filed their petitions in 2020. Those petitions remain dismissed to this day. Smith's petition has been in limbo for over two and a half years, with no hearing date in sight on the underlying case. As Mayer put it, "the open-ended dismissals approved in Rieth-Riley have deprived employees in case after case of any opportunity to vote in a Board-conducted election for years."
OPINION: You shouldn’t get fired for opting out of a union
May 8, 2026 // You don't restore workers' rights by letting employers fire them for making the "wrong" decision about union membership. And yet that's precisely what Attorney General Aaron Ford (D) has promised to do if he gets elected governor in November. As reported in The Nevada Independent, Ford promised during a podcast late last year that he would get rid of Nevada's "right-to-work" law that was passed in 1953. "I ain't waiting," Ford told union leaders hosting the podcast at the time. "It can be done legislatively. They can send me a bill. And if they send it to me, I'm signing it."
Op-ed: Blue States Are Insulating Unions From Debate
April 8, 2026 // My research shows that teachers and other public-employee unions have long been state-subsidized political actors. Beginning in the 1970s, many states adopted labor laws and bargaining arrangements that made it cheaper and easier for these unions to recruit members, collect dues and mobilize members in politics. Those policies gave unions a built-in advantage. Reform groups—including parent activists, school-choice advocates and the Freedom Foundation—must organize and compete from the outside. By contrast, public-sector unions operate from the inside, with advantages created by the state itself. For example, in most states, public-sector unions aren’t required to win re-election and instead get the privilege of representing all employees (even dissenters) year after year.
How CA state worker unions have fared since landmark SCOTUS decision reshaped membership
March 17, 2026 // According to eight years of data obtained from the State Controller’s Office on the number of dues-paying state workers, some unions have slowly bled members since the Janus decision. For other bargaining units, the membership level has dropped 20% over that period. Labor groups representing peace officers and prison staff, however, hardly saw a change pre- and post-Janus. And still other units have increased the percentage of workers who pay monthly membership dues, the data revealed. Nearly 10 years before the Janus decision, the public’s approval of unions hit a historic low. In 2009, Americans’ approval ratings dipped below 50% for the first and only time since the public opinion polling company Gallup began assessing ratings of labor unions in 1936. In the years since, the public’s opinion of labor unions has improved substantially. Last year, 68% of Americans reported approval of unions.
Opinion Aaron Withe: Why unions love the ‘Billionaire Tax’
March 12, 2026 // It has attracted a coalition of supporters — chief among them government employee unions. That might seem like an odd pairing, but the logic becomes clear once you trace where the money is supposed to go. Sanders’ legislation would redirect the projected revenue — $4.4 trillion over a decade — into an array of new federal spending programs, including direct cash payments, a federal salary floor for public school teachers and expanded Medicare benefits. Not coincidentally, pouring money into such programs means more federal employees, more union-eligible positions and more dues flowing into union bank accounts.
Op-ed: The $921M Special Interest Machine That Controls California
February 21, 2026 // The California Policy Center’s analysis lays it bare: California’s public sector unions collected $921 million in 2018 alone. That’s not campaign contributions—that’s annual revenue. The prize they’re protecting? According to Govern For California, state and local governments spend $240 billion per year on public employee compensation and benefits.
UPS Is the Symptom, Not the Disease: How Labor Policy Shapes Long-Run Worker Outcomes
February 18, 2026 // The question, then, is not whether the gains are real, but how the trade-offs unfold. Why do headline-grabbing contracts so often coincide with downsizing, automation, and job losses in sectors governed by exclusive, monopoly bargaining arrangements? When short-run wage gains are secured through monopoly bargaining power, where do the adjustments occur—and who ultimately bears the costs?
Cornell Ph.D. Student’s Appeal to NLRB’s Top Prosecutor Urges Agency to End Union Control Over Graduate Students
February 18, 2026 // Case attacks Obama-era federal ruling that exposed graduate students to union boss power and forced dues
Freedom Foundation Challenges Oregon’s Unconstitutional Speech Law in Federal Court
February 17, 2026 // “We made a strong constitutional case today. HB 3789 uses undefined terms and severe financial penalties to target speech the unions don’t like,” said Freedom Foundation Litigation Counsel Rebekah Schultheiss. “The First Amendment doesn’t allow that, and we’re confident the court will recognize this law for what it is.” The law, which took effect on Jan. 1, allows unions to sue the Freedom Foundation for “impersonating” a union.
William F. Buckley’s Forgotten Contribution to the War Against Union Oppression
February 17, 2026 // In his 1970 lawsuit, Buckley noted that he joined AFTRA when the show was launched in 1966 because union membership and dues were a condition of employment imposed by New York’s WOR-TV, where the show was produced, and its parent company, RKO General, Inc. Later, he came to resent having to support an organization whose values clashed with his own and sought to opt out — just as hundreds of thousands of public employees have since Janus v. AFSCME affirmed their First Amendment right to do so in 2018.