One of the last legal, systemic civil rights violations in the United States of America is the payment millions are forced to make to finance the union campaign to reshape politics, government and culture.
Fortunately, the U.S. Supreme Court is poised to scrap this experiment.
In a decision due by July of this year, the justices are expected to rule on behalf of a disgruntled public-sector employee, Mark Janus, and end the compelled political speech of all government workers.
Union executives are aware of this impending decision and are preparing for a business model that earns customers rather than using government to force them to pay.
Just kidding.
Why work harder when you can rig the game in open defiance of the U.S. Supreme Court and the Constitution?
Instead, union leaders are taking a number of steps, including asking the politicians they financed to guarantee their cash flow.
Several bills introduced during the current session of the Washington State Legislature take these steps, but four require immediate action.
- House Bill 2624 – Would require employers to provide exclusive bargaining representatives reasonable access to new employees for the purposes of presenting information about their exclusive bargaining representative. This appears to be a state-mandated arm-twisting session to make people sign union membership cards, locking themselves into dues payments for at least a year. (SB 6229 is the same)
- House Bill 2751 – Concerns the deduction of union dues and fees. This bill is even more insidious. It amends the soon-to-be-unconstitutional elements of state law allowing payroll deductions under a union contract. This likely would allow the union to continue collecting money even if formal union security clauses are struck down. (SB 6296 is the same)
- Senate Bill 6082 – Would ensure the neutrality of public employers and state contractors with regard to employees exercising their rights to collectively bargain. This would allow unions to threaten and file harassing “unfair labor practice” complaints if public employers are thought to be telling workers the truth – that union payment will be optional.
- Senate Bill 6079 – Would exempt public employee dates of birth from public disclosure requirements. Even though 4.6 million voters have their date of birth available for instant download, the union does not want the Freedom Foundation to be able to identify public employees and thus communicate with them. The union executives know we have been effectively informing workers that paying hundreds of dollars to the union to do whatever it pleases is no longer a requirement for government service. This bill is intended to give unions a monopoly on communicating with workers since, of course, it does not apply to them.
It’s clear this set of bills is designed to keep the cash coming to the union machine and subsequently to the politicians and causes they finance.
What you can do
Speak up. Fill out the form(s) below to send notes to the lawmakers on the committee considering this attack on workers’ rights on behalf of a powerful electioneering special interest group.
Oppose HB 2624 and HB 2751 – violating workers’ rights
Oppose SB 6082 and SB 6079 – special privileges for unions
