OLYMPIA, Wash. – In the ongoing war over whether home caregivers in Washington and Oregon can be notified of their legal right to opt out of any involvement with a labor union, the Freedom Foundation this week raised the bar exponentially by announcing the addition to its staff of Greg Overstreet, one of the nation’s most respected authorities on public records laws.
He will manage the Freedom Foundation’s legal team, which is presently involved in 28 lawsuits with government employee unions in both states.
Overstreet is a former open government ombudsman in the state attorney general’s office and general counsel with the Building Industry Association of Washington, where he worked under current Freedom Foundation CEO Tom McCabe.
In the wake of the U.S. Supreme Court’s 2014 ruling in Harris v. Quinn, home-based healthcare and childcare workers can no longer be compelled to pay union dues if they choose not to. But the unions representing those workers have been predictably reluctant to notify the providers of their newly affirmed rights, so the Freedom Foundation has created a series of outreach programs to do the job itself.
The workers can’t be informed, however, unless their contact information is known. Being compensated by Medicaid, their names, addresses and phone numbers are a matter of public information, but the unions have waged a persistent, though largely unsuccessful, court battle over the data.
Overstreet specializes in just such disputes.
“The addition of Greg Overstreet to our team is a game-changer,” McCabe said. “Literally no one in Washington or Oregon knows more about public records laws than he does. And no one is better equipped to use those laws to free workers from the bondage of a union they don’t care to support.”
In addition to his work with the AG’s Office and BIAW, Overstreet was formerly a member of the Perkins Coie law firm in Seattle, and was a founder of the Allied Law Group. He has also worked in private practice and served as regulatory counsel for Money Tree.
“I’m very excited to be with the Freedom Foundation because its goals line up perfectly with my area of interest and experience,” Overstreet said. “The public records laws were created for the purpose of giving citizens a window into the workings of their government. But in this case, the unions are ignoring those laws in order to keep their own members uninformed about their legal rights.
“That’s an appalling situation,” he said, “and I’m delighted to be here with the Freedom Foundation exposing the culture of corruption that’s choking liberty in this state and many others around the country.”
