The Freedom Foundation’s Valentine’s Day message to public employees struck a nerve with at least one New York labor union.
When the organization sent a themed piece to public-sector employees in February, the Civil Service Employees Association (CSEA) was quick to push back.
The mailer posed the question, “Time to Break-Up?” Underneath were five different colored hearts with reasons why the recipient might want to consider breaking up with their union.
They were told if a union lies to workers, gaslights them, tells them they’re nothing without the union, doesn’t listen to them and spends their money on someone else, just maybe there’s no future in this relationship.
The Freedom Foundation aims to provide union members with the facts about their union so they can make an informed decision as to whether they want to support it by continuing to be a member.
Unions were created to bridge the gap between workers and employers. Over the years, however, too many have shifted their focus from fighting for worker’s rights to funding political campaigns.
For example, CSEA recently donated $21,500 to the Coalition on Human Needs, whose mission statement asserts, “We must tear down the entire law enforcement apparatus.”
The CSEA also donated money to the American Prospect. This organization said, “Police in America remain, fundamentally, enforcers of white supremacy.”
Are these the sentiments of every member of the union or just its radical leadership?
Regardless of one’s personal beliefs, it is unnecessarily divisive for a union to get involved with political affairs – especially those that do not deal with workplace issues like pay and benefits.
The Freedom Foundation had sent a Halloween mailer the previous year that posed an important question: “Why should workers pay dues to a union that spends more time telling them how to vote than representing them?”
This question probes the very essence of what a union is meant to be. Over the years, unions like CSEA have evolved into political action committees whose interest is in advancing a liberal agenda rather than advocate for the workers whose dues pay the bills.
The Freedom Foundation’s Valentine-themed mailer was spot on because it exposed what unions should be doing but aren’t.
The CSEA responded by creating a Valentine’s themed gift-card competition in which members were encouraged (ordered?) to submit a love letter in hopes of winning a $50 gift card funded by their own dues. The message from the union was, “We’re doing a great job, you know we’re doing a great job and if you tell us how great we are doing you can win a prize from your own pocket.”
As lame as the effort was, it spoke volumes about CSEA’s frame of mind. The union is on the defensive, and this is the best it’s got.
The “Scam Alert” notification posted on the CSEA website’s main page warns workers not to give their personal and work information to any groups that present them with material about quitting their union.
All of which begs the question: If the union was actually doing its job, wouldn’t its members already know it?
This article is the second installment of a series highlighting New York CSEA’s increasingly hyperbolic attempts to scare people out of quitting their membership.
