Unions

On his substack, Peter Greene offers a reminder that anti-union, anti-worker snake oil salespersons are not your friends. They promise you a little more now, but you're going to pay a lot later. 

Greene offers a quick inventory of some of these con artists and their funders, and regardless of their highfalutin names-- the "Liberty Justice Center," for example, and something called "Free To Teach," which is diabolically ironic--the goal of these frauds is to break and destroy the union. Full stop.

If you're familiar with the Janus case in which the Supreme Court ruled that public sector unions could not collect fees from non-members even for the limited purpose of representing the non-members in collective bargaining (agency fees), you already know that members now support freeloading nonmembers who get for free! the terms negotiated by the union. What you may not know is that Act Two is about to start. Please take your seats.

From Greene:

But Janus and the union busting crowd are not done.

They've been shopping about thirty follow-up cases, suing to have the union give back all the dues it ever collected from them. They appear to be using the same strategy as before-- zip on up through the lower courts with unfavorable rulings so that they can go to the big show, and so Janus has petitioned the Supreme Court to hear his case.

This case is aimed at literally busting the unions. Janus himself is suing over a whopping $3,000, but of course that's not the point. If the unions can be compelled to refund the back dues collected from every union member who left after Janus, the resulting bill would be crippling.

That, of course, is the point. There's more, and I encourage you to read and subscribe to Greene's substack and check in frequently on his outstanding CURMUDGUCATION blog.

These are my thoughts on one of the union busters, from last year. And I'm still getting the damn postcards!

Wednesday, November 2, 2022

Freedom Foundation: YOU MAY ALREADY BE A WINNER!

The Enemies of Public Schooling - Part 2 of 10googol

Have you been getting post cards from something called the "Freedom Foundation" telling you to stop paying your union dues? 

According to SourceWatch, "[t]he Freedom Foundation, formerly known as the Evergreen Freedom Foundation, is a libertarian think tank based in Olympia, Washington," and is "funded in part by the Bradley Foundation and the Charles Koch Foundation." 

It is aggressively anti-union--specifically public-sector unions. In the aftermath of Janus, attack ads and these "opt-out" post cards are part of the Freedom Foundation's campaign to dismantle the union (and, as a consequence, de-fund the Democratic Party). For additional reporting, there's this, from the L.A. Times in 2018.

These sleazebags have offered me a "summer bonus" (I didn't scan to find out), told me I'd have an extra $1000 for gas and vacations, sent me a "Labor Union Satisfaction Survey," and even wrote the "opt-out" letter for me (just fill it in!).

Are you thinking about how much more money you'd have in your paycheck if you didn't have to pay those bloody union dues? Then think about this: Your administration is still barred from forcing you to work weekends, during the summer, during your lunch. The union bargains for you, too, and now you want to ask them to do it for nothing? 

You get the raise, and you keep and extra thousand bucks! Sounds good, right? 

It's like the guy who saved money by teaching his dog to eat less and less each day. Just when he got the dog down to zero, the dog died. 

They are trying to kill the union. If they are successful, you can kiss your raise, your sick days, and your summers good-bye. 

They are scammers looking for suckers. Don't be a sucker.

***

That's it. I've said it before and I'll say it again: Join your union. Stay in your union. I paid my first union dues to the United Auto Workers in 1975. I'm a member of SAG-AFTRA and a life member of UTLA. UTLA is not perfect, no union is, and I've had my fights with them. Maybe you're like me: you want your union to fight harder, demand more. What we've got and what we've gotten is not enough--not nearly. But if you think things suck now, imagine how much worse they could be. Then imagine worse than that, and that's where you end up without a union. 

If you're a teacher, the only thing between you and fifty kids in a class (apologies and massive respect to PE teachers), between you and unpaid training days and zero say in what you teach, is your union. The only thing between your job description which is actually written down, and "duties as assigned," is your union. The only thing between being paid not enough to buy a house in L.A. and being paid even less than that, is your union. The only thing between a satisfying if challenging career and being ground into dust ten years too soon, is your union. 

If you're writers in WGA or actors in SAG-AFTRA or the hospitality workers of UNITE HERE Local 11 or SEIU 99 or SEIU 721 or UPS Teamsters or my first home--the UAW, or any of the other unions advocating and marching and striking and picketing during this hot labor summer, the only thing helping us go from bad to better instead of worse, is our union.

And if you are somebody who just takes the collectively bargained money and vacation and delineation of duties and doesn't pay union dues, then fuck you.