In 2018, the US Supreme Court issued a monumental decision in the case of Janus v. AFSCME. This decision affirmed the right of all government employees to opt OUT of joining the union, AFSCME, which represents them in negotiations with their employer. Now, you need to think about this case, and about the idea of a Union of Government Employees. Normally, labor unions are representing private-sector workers in negotiations with their private-sector employers. Workers and companies are on two different sides, and are considered adversaries. Workers and managements have mostly opposing interests (management wants costs low and employees quiet and contented; workers want the best wages and benefits, and congenial working conditions).

In a Government setting, both the Workers and their Management are on the SAME side. They are both Government employees, with many, if not most of the same interests. Essentially, government employee unions and managements are seeking the same results. In general, government has no interest at all in reducing costs, and much interest in maximizing benefits, working conditions, and tenure of government employees. Many government units meet the public in the course of their work, but their main interest is not Customer Service, but in increasing the power and reach of their own agency. Government is in the business of increasing its own power, and government unions are happy to help with that.

One very well-known fact is that the Management of the Unions are mostly, if not entirely, Leftists. And a large percentage of the Union spending of their members’ dues is on Political Support of DemocRat parties at the national and the state level. This article describes such spending. If there were no government employee unions, the DemocRat Party would be in a world of hurt, so it is in their interest to cultivate government employee Union Bosses. Union members themselves don’t have much power, but their dues pay for high salaries for their bosses, and for influence in government.

The reason the Janus decision was so important was that it gave individual government employees the option to leave the union, and not pay dues which go primarily to support Democrats. A large percentage of government employees are leftists, and are happy with their dues paying to support leftist policies. However, there are many government employees who are not leftists, and are unhappy with their dues supporting the Left. Since 2018, those dissatisfied employees have the ability to opt out of the Union. But most have not, which reflects the Unions power. Those unions have made it extremely difficult for individual employees to opt out of the union, with onerous regulations and proscriptions. Many employees wanting out just give up due to all the red tape put up by the unions to prevent their leaving.

Now, we see, at the State level, an organized campaign by Blue States to forbid communications by an organization that promotes government employees leaving their Unions. The Freedom Foundation, active on the West Coast, has been sending literature to government employees, informing them of their right to opt out of the Leftist unions, and multiple states are literally passing laws forbidding outside interests to give employees information about their rights. Below is an article from the Gateway Pundit on this First-Amendment Violating legislation being promulgated by individual states.

The state of Oregon passed a law last year that should outrage every American who believes in the First Amendment.

Not because it bans speech outright. Not because it targets a newspaper or a broadcaster. Because it targets a letter. An email. A text message. A conversation telling public employees they have a constitutional right to opt out of their union.

That’s what Oregon made illegal.

The Freedom Foundation has been communicating with public employees for years. We do it because back in 2018 the U.S. Supreme Court affirmed in Janus v. AFSCME that every government employee has a constitutional right to decline union membership and dues — a right workers will never find out about if they’re waiting for their union to inform them of it.

Someone else, most likely the Freedom Foundation, has to do it for them.

Oregon’s HB 3789, which took effect Jan. 1, was written specifically to shut down our outreach activities in that state — and potentially others. Egged on by their union puppet masters, lawmakers in that state approved legislation threatening heavy financial penalties for what the law describes as impersonating a labor union.

Mind you, backers of the bill couldn’t cite a single example in which Freedom Foundation marketing materials had done so. But actual guilt was never the point.

Because the measure was intentionally written so broadly, a labor-aligned judge could conceivably interpret just about any overture to union members as a violation of the new standard and impose a fine of $6,250 per communication.

Not a single verified incident of fraud. No impersonation. No real victims. Just a law designed to make one organization stop sending workers accurate information about their rights.

We challenged the measure in federal court the moment it took effect, but a District Court judge dismissed the case. It has since been appealed to the Circuit Court.

Meanwhile, no doubt motivated by Oregon’s audacity, New York last month introduced SB 9577.

It is the same bill. Not similar, but identical.

The statutory language is parroted word for word with only one meaningful difference: New York’s penalty is $15,000 per incident, more than double the Oregon fine.

This story originally was published by Real Clear Wire

By Aaron Withe

They didn’t copy Oregon’s model. They made it even more unconstitutional.

Not to be outdone, Hawaii’s SB 3055, introduced in late January, has already passed the full Senate, cleared its first House committee, and is scheduled for a final hearing this week.

The Freedom Foundation has been singled out by name as the bill’s target. One union operative told Hawaii legislators our mailers are “deceptive.” Another was more candid than he probably intended to be, testifying that the bill was specifically meant to “get out in front of” the Freedom Foundation’s outreach to union members and citing Oregon as the motivation.

According to the Hawaii AFL-CIO, the bill simply “requires honesty about who is speaking and whether that speech is authorized.” That’s their defense. We’re not honest about who we are.

In fact, our mailers always state exactly who sent them. Workers know these aren’t the union’s words. The argument isn’t about deception, it’s about the reality that workers are reading the information and exercising their rights.

That’s the crisis unions are trying to address, and passing a law is how they’re doing it.

Three states. Identical legislation. In the span of a few months. Our 9th Circuit appeal in Freedom Foundation v. Rayfield hasn’t even been decided yet, and New York and Hawaii are already advancing the same framework.

The coordination is neither subtle nor coincidental.

If our information was actually misleading, unions would have given examples. They would have produced workers who were confused or deceived.

They didn’t, because they couldn’t. The problem isn’t the content. The problem is that workers are leaving in numbers Big Labor can’t ignore.

When you can’t win the argument, you make the argument illegal. At least in deep-blue states whose elected leaders owe their jobs to huge infusions of union cash.

Oregon proved the strategy works, at least long enough to tie up the opposition in federal court while the dues keep flowing. Now New York and Hawaii are trying to lock in the same model before the courts can stop them.

If they succeed, other states will surely follow. They have to because without an unconstitutional Hail Mary pass, government employee unions are destined for extinction.

Every legislature that takes up one of these bills is answering a simple question: Do workers have a real right to opt out, or just a theoretical one that no one is allowed to tell them about?

Aaron Withe is the CEO of the Freedom Foundation, a nonprofit organization dedicated to protecting workers’ rights and advancing employee freedom across America.

This article was originally published by RealClearPolicy and made available via RealClearWire.

So now, Government Employees, you know that YOU HAVE THE CHOICE TO OPT OUT OF YOUR UNION, which spends your union dues on supporting the Left almost exclusively. If you are unhappy with the union wasting your dues on politics and not improving your conditions. opt out today! MAKE THE JANUS DECISION WORK FOR YOU!

It has already been shown that, when states adopt a “Right To Work” framework that specifically outlaws the “union shop” that all government unions support, union membership plummets, and workers save the money that they would have been sending to the union for their own use. Teachers unions always lose members when their states become Right to Work states, which shows that a pretty high percentage of government employees are chafing at the binding red tape and leftist support of their union bosses.

Please, apply the Janus decision to your own life, opt for Freedom and not Leftist Tyranny.