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Promoted from the diaries by streiff. Promotion does not imply endorsement.
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In June 2018, the Supreme Court declared it unconstitutional for government employees to be forced to join a union, or have union “agency fees” deducted from their paychecks, in order to keep their job – overturning more than 40 years of union monopolies on government employment.

Today, state and local public employees can choose whether they want to join a union, and those who have previously been union members can now give themselves a raise by opting out of union membership and stopping the automatic deduction of union dues from their paychecks.

The Freedom Foundation is focused on informing government employees of their First Amendment rights to free association – or NON-association – and protecting their freedom of speech against forced monetary support of causes with which they disagree.

State and local governments do not necessarily inform their employees of this new right. The unions CERTAINLY aren’t going to tell them – so that’s what we do here at the Freedom Foundation: we use union tactics against the unions themselves to make sure people know they do NOT have to be a union member to have a government job.

Freedom Foundation operates on the Left Coast to weaken union strangleholds on our state and local policymakers: we send postcards and emails, make phone calls, and even visit government employees personally at their homes or workplaces with teams of canvassers across Oregon, Washington, and California. We also have a website for government employees across the country with information about how to opt out of their union: www.optouttoday.com.

The response we get from those we contact is overwhelmingly positive because people appreciate information, and they aren’t getting it anywhere else.

In just the six months since the Janus v. AFSCME decision in June 2018, the Freedom Foundation has helped more than 40,000 people leave their union or stop having agency fees deducted from their paychecks. This means millions upon millions of dollars NOT going into union coffers.

The unions do not make it easy for anyone to free themselves of automatic paycheck deductions. Sometimes it takes legal action, which Freedom Foundation embraces with gusto. In this RedState diary, we will keep you updated of the fights and the victories as we continue to weaken the government union stranglehold over our state and local policymaking.