What happens when you combine a Supreme Court ruling allowing workers to leave their union with a comprehensive Freedom Foundation campaign to inform workers of their rights? Recently obtained state data provides the answer.
When the U.S. Supreme Court ruled last year in Harris v. Quinn that “partial-public employees” no longer had to pay union dues as a condition of employment, 100 percent of Washington’s 6,633 family child care providers were paying dues to SEIU Local 925.
In the year since the court’s decision, the Freedom Foundation has undertaken an extensive campaign to make sure that every family child care provider has the knowledge and tools to effectively exercise their constitutional right to cease financially supporting SEIU. The results have been dramatic.
According to information obtained from the state, as of May 2015, the number of providers paying dues to SEIU 925 had plummeted to 3,738 (53.2 percent) out of 7,024, meaning that 3,286 (46.8 percent) were not paying dues.
Internal union sources report the Freedom Foundation is being referred to as the, “group that killed SEIU 925.”
When the state and SEIU 925 made it clear they would take no action to inform providers of the Harris decision and its implications, the Freedom Foundation stepped up to the plate.
The outreach effort first had to overcome attempts by SEIU 925 to block the Freedom Foundation from accessing providers’ contact information from the state under the Public Records Act.
Since last November, the Freedom Foundation has contacted providers with multiple direct mail pieces, emails and phone calls. Other components of the effort have included creating an informational website, OptOutToday.com, social media advertising and TV ads featuring former SEIU members.
Over the summer, the Freedom Foundation launched a door-to-door canvassing program to contact every family child care provider and personally explain their right to opt out of SEIU and answer their questions.
Early indications are that the canvassing effort has depleted SEIU 925’s membership even below May levels.
These results are nothing short of historic. To the best of our knowledge, never in Washington’s history of forced unionism has a union experienced such a decline in membership.
The data confirm that the large declines in union membership experienced by states like Wisconsin, Michigan and Indiana after they passed workplace freedom protections are also possible in Washington, as long as there is a tenacious effort to counter the unions’ misinformation and obfuscation.
The Freedom Foundation is happy to oblige.
