*Note: this post will be updated as more information becomes available. 

A newly discovered report from the National Education Association (NEA) spells out, in a rare display of honesty that’s as brutal as it is surprising, just how worried the nation’s largest teachers union is about losing dues-paying members following the U.S. Supreme Court’s 2018 ruling in Janus v. AFSCME — and exactly who it blames in places where the exodus has been greatest. 

That would be the Freedom Foundation.  

And as for how seriously the NEA is taking its decline in dues-paying membership, the answer lies in a document titled “The Road to Student Success: A Report on NEA’s Student-Centered Bargaining and Advocacy Grant Program,” which summarizes the results of several grants provided to 11 of its local affiliates around the country during the 2021-22 academic year.  

According to the report, the NEA awarded a grant to the Salem-Keizer Education Association (SKEA), which represents teachers in Oregon’s second-largest school district, for the specific purpose of reversing the local’s membership losses resulting from the Freedom Foundation’s campaign to help teachers leave the union. 

The grant report for SKEA begins: 

“Heavily targeted by the right-wing, anti-public education Freedom Foundation that encouraged membership opt-outs, the Salem Keizer Education Association (SKEA) membership numbers were at an all-time low. While the Supreme Court of the United States’ Janus decision certainly emboldened anti-union opposition, the leadership of SKEA knew there was more to the story.”  

(emphasis added). 

What’s “more to the story,” as it turns out, is the union’s supremely ironic plan to reverse the damage by implementing a pro-taxpayer reform championed by none other than the Freedom Foundation itself. 

The report continues, 

“For the past several decades, bargaining had taken place behind closed doors. There was minimal transparency and, therefore, members were not well-informed or engaged. And certainly, engagement with parents and the community was absent. 

After years of stagnant activism and engagement, they saw that the opportunity to improve languishing working conditions while also rebuilding their union and increasing their power through community partnerships was ripe. So that is what they set out to do with the support of their NEA SCBA grant.” 

It’s difficult to overstate the irony: To reverse the membership losses resulting from the Freedom Foundation’s educational campaign to teachers, the NEA directed funds to SKEA to implement a reform, transparent collective bargaining, the Freedom Foundation has supported for years — and that government unions themselves have long opposed. 

There’s an admission in there, isn’t there? 

Since at least 2014, the Freedom Foundation has worked tirelessly to advance state legislation, local resolutions and other measures requiring the government’s contract negotiations with unions to be open to the public.  

In almost all cases, the response from union leaders has been to vehemently oppose such measures at every step of the way.  

From testifying against the Freedom Foundation’s state and local reform efforts to even filing lawsuits aimed at keeping the negotiations secret, government unions in states like Oregon, Washington and California—including the NEA and its affiliates—have long fought to protect their undeserved ability to bargain over taxpayer dollars behind closed doors. 

In Oregon, state law technically requires that collective bargaining sessions be conducted in public meetings. But a loophole allows negotiators to close the meetings if they choose.  

More often than not, they do. 

In fact, it’s unclear if SKEA has agreed to hold any open labor negotiations since receiving its grant from the NEA, despite that being the primary stated justification for receiving the funds. The Freedom Foundation has contacted Salem-Keizer Public Schools (SKPS) for confirmation and will provide more information as it becomes available.  

If not, it begs the question — did the NEA’s grant to the struggling SKEA achieve anything at all? 

It certainly hasn’t revitalized SKEA’s dues-paying membership. According to the union’s self-reported membership rolls at the end of last year, the local claims to have made marginal increases relative to greater staffing levels when compared to district reports showing its supposed “all-time low” in both 2021 and 2022. But the number of teachers paying union dues to SKEA remains well below what it was prior to the Janus ruling. 

And with the Freedom Foundation gearing up for another intensive opt-out campaign to Oregon teachers during the month of September — the arbitrary window to which union leaders restrict their ability to stop paying dues — it’s entirely possible SKEA membership could soon hit another “all-time low.” 

If so, perhaps the NEA will have to issue SKEA another grant. 

In any case, the apparent failure — or at the very least, the slow adoption — by SKEA to open up collective bargaining sessions to parents and taxpayers is as telling and consequential as its struggle to maintain its own dues-paying membership.  

The union and the district narrowly averted a strike earlier this year as SKEA — following the example of its fellow NEA affiliate in Portland — demanded concessions on class sizes, scheduling and other controversial items that aren’t required to be bargained over under Oregon law. 

If the NEA, SKEA and other affiliates truly wish to bring public transparency to the collective bargaining process, the Freedom Foundation fully supports that goal.  

But it’s only fair to point out that: (1.) these unions have fought tooth-and-nail against such measures in the past, so we’ll believe it when we see it; and, (2.) it constitutes an admission that union leaders invariably don’t want to make — namely, that Freedom Foundation policies are actually good for creating more accountable unions. 

While the NEA’s grant report emphasizes transparency in collective bargaining as a key to reversing its ongoing membership losses in Oregon and elsewhere, the union’s leaders also have a long way to go before they truly understand why many teachers respond to the Freedom Foundation’s message and choose to opt out. 

As long as the NEA and its affiliates continue to prioritize divisive political agendas with their members’ dues and host extremist groups at their offices, they’re unlikely to reverse the trend.