As the month of April came to a close, Washington opt-out numbers were through the roof.
Our recent national Tax Day mailer sent shock waves through the state’s largest unions – the Washington Federation of State Employees (WFSE); the American Federation of State, County and Municipal Employees (AFSCME) Council 28; the Washington Education Association (WEA); and Service Employee International Union (SEIU) Locals 1948 and 925.
At last count, WFSE alone had hemorrhaged by more than 100 members in less than 25 days.
WFSE is Washington’s largest state employee union, representing roughly 32,000 members as of last year.
As our team processes the piles of WFSE opt-out requests coming in, a notable thing is happening. There are large stacks of forms piling up with the box for “Retired, no longer in the union” checked off. Washington adopted some of the country’s most stringent vaccine mandates during the COVID scare, and public employees were forced to be vaccinated or risk losing their job.
The government unions fully supported the mandates by having bankrolled the lawmakers – including Gov. Jay Inslee – who passed them. Union leaders, meanwhile, abandoned their dues-paying members they are pledged to support by leaving them to make the most difficult medical choices of their lives. Job or jab.
It can’t be a coincidence that so many of the disaffected union members we’re hearing from are recently retired.
In fact, the most poignant message we received was from a retired state employee and former WFSE member who wrote, “I was forced to retire after my medical exemption was denied. The union didn’t protect me! Keep up the good work!”
