Posts tagged opt-out
Opinion: Teachers Unions Get Desperate
February 17, 2026 // Antichoice plaintiffs “usually file lawsuits right before families sign up for the program just to be particularly cruel. They know they’ll lose nearly every case, but delaying or enjoining the programs in any way is the last-ditch effort to slow maximum uptake for families,” says Tommy Schultz, CEO of the American Federation for Children. Many suits are striking out. Idaho’s high court just ruled 5-0 in favor of the state choice program. Top courts in Arizona, Florida, North Carolina and West Virginia have upheld choice programs. The U.S. Supreme Court has continued to issue beneficial rulings. Yet the legal threat is real, and unions, often accompanied by local school districts, continue to throw millions at litigation and disruption, forcing states to spend huge amounts to defend against them. Then the unions and the districts claim schools are underfunded.
Op-ed: Teachers’ unions have hijacked classrooms across the US to indoctrinate students with far-left propaganda
February 11, 2026 // The teachers’ unions fired the starting gun by blasting out anti-ICE propaganda to teachers, urging them to rally against immigration enforcement and turn schools into battlegrounds for their partisan fights. The National Education Association is also pushing teachers to print out immigration-related political propaganda posters and put them in their classrooms.
Op-ed: Public employee unions facing final showdown
January 5, 2026 // Some have even been caught locking employees in rooms until they sign membership cards, as plaintiffs in one California lawsuit allege. When you’re spending 86 percent of your dues revenue on political causes that only a fraction of your members support, transparency becomes a threat. The $47.5 million workers are keeping this year represents more than a financial loss for unions. It means a loss of power to expand the size government, raise taxes, resist accountability and fund progressive causes and politicians
Oregon Punishes the Freedom Foundation
December 30, 2025 // The censorship is masked in the good-government language of fighting fraud, but don’t be fooled. The Workers Fraud Protection Act, which takes effect Jan. 1, makes it “unlawful to falsely impersonate a union representative” and imposes punitive fines. The law cites a definition of fraud that includes merely giving a “false impression” of union matters. The bill was written specifically to give unions a cudgel against the Freedom Foundation. The nonprofit sends mailers informing workers of their right to decline union representation. Unions say the Freedom Foundation misleads workers by using union colors and logos to make the mail seem as if it is coming from the union itself.
Op-Ed Aaron Withe: Public-Sector Unions Have a Transparency Problem
December 18, 2025 // California takes it a step further. State law actually prohibits public employers from informing workers of their constitutional right to opt out. The Freedom Foundation is challenging these “gag rules” in court on behalf of Shasta County. The government actively prevents workers from learning the truth because it serves union financial interests. If unions provided valuable services that members wanted, they wouldn’t need to ensnare people through intimidation and bureaucratic obstacles.
Pro-Worker or Pro-Union? Why Choice—not Coercion—Is the Future of Labor Policy, Disunion: The Government Union Report; Commonwealth Foundation
December 18, 2025 // This week on Disunion, host David Osborne is joined by Austen Bannan of Americans for Prosperity and Vincent Vernuccio, president of the Institute for the American Worker, to break down a sweeping new report: How to Empower Workers: Embracing a Pro-Worker Agenda Built on Choice. With Congress rolling out a flurry of labor bills—from right-to-work reforms and secret ballot protections to proposals backed by unions and even some Republicans—this episode cuts through the noise. The panel explains why many so-called “pro-worker” policies actually empower union bosses and government regulators, not workers themselves.
Teachers Union Anti-Trump Lawfare Cases Have Little Connection to K-12 Public School Education
December 4, 2025 // The AFT began as exclusively a teachers union but has six separate divisions that also represent other public school employees, such as teacher aides, custodians, and bus drivers, as well as health care workers and higher education faculty. The union’s website says it also represents public employees, including federal and state employees. “The AFT’s lawsuit spree against the Trump administration reveals what we’ve long known: these organizations have strayed far from their mission of representing teachers,” Aaron Withe, president of the Teacher Freedom Alliance, a conservative education group, told The Daily Signal. “This is exactly why so many teachers are choosing to opt out—they want representation focused on their profession, not a political action committee.”
MAXFORD NELSEN: The Other Education Choice: Freeing Teachers from Monopolistic Unions
November 17, 2025 // Public-sector collective bargaining tends to crowd out the interests of students, families, and taxpayers in education policymaking, but teachers unions’ power comes from subjecting teachers to a monopoly system of workplace restrictions. While individual educators now have the legal right to forgo union membership, state policymakers have many opportunities to improve educators’ ability to exercise that right. To level the playing field and increase teachers unions’ accountability to the public and their own members, policymakers should consider reforming or replacing collective bargaining in public education.
GOP Senators Push Bills to Modernize Labor Laws
November 10, 2025 // The proposed bills aim to bring outdated labor statutes into the 21st century by addressing how work is done today rather than how work was done nearly a century ago, according to the senators who introduced the bills. Sen. Bill Cassidy, R-La., chair of the Senate Health, Education, Labor and Pensions (HELP) Committee, led the effort with support from Sens. Jim Banks, R-Ind., Tommy Tuberville, R-Ala., and Tim Scott, R-S.C.
California Just Blew Past Last Year’s Record — And We’re Still Climbing
November 7, 2025 // California public employees are opting out of their unions in record numbers thanks to the work of the Freedom Foundation. Last year, 16,500 chose freedom over union control, while this year we’ve already eclipsed that mark by more than 20 percent with a few months of the year left – at over 20,000 opt outs! This has cost the unions an estimated $17,100,00 in one year alone and will only compound moving forward.