The Arkansas Legislature just handed a major victory to the teachers of their state by passing a Freedom Foundation-backed measure dubbed the “Teacher Paycheck Protection” bill.

Officially designated as Senate Bill 473, the measure prohibits the state from acting as a debt collector on behalf of teachers’ unions. Henceforth, responsibility for collecting dues will rest with the unions, as it does for nearly every other subscription service or membership organization.

Predictably, the legislation brought howls of outrage. Not only will the change cost unions time and money by requiring them to perform their own invoicing, collections and accounting services, but union leaders know full well members will be far less likely to hand over their hard-earned wages when the transaction involves getting a bill and writing a check rather than having the money quickly and pre-emptively deducted by the state agency for which they work.

Once teachers have to open up their pocketbooks for routine dues payment, they may start to question whether the services provided are actually worth the money being paid for them — a question the unions would prefer were never asked.

With more than 141,000 teachers having resigned their union membership nationally since the advent of the COVID pandemic, unions are keenly aware they have awakened a sleeping giant, and the mass exodus has only just begun.

The Freedom Foundation has catalyzed a movement that has government unions in disarray. The Arkansas Times slammed the organization’s legislative success by asserting, “(A)ttacking teachers unions has become a popular culture war, with right-wing union-busting groups like the Freedom Foundation leading the charge.”

After the state’s duly elected lawmakers revoked collective bargaining rights last session, the state’s teachers’ unions are hanging on by a thread. But rather than accepting responsibility for the setbacks and working to actually earn their members’ loyalty, they and their enablers in the mainstream media would rather find a convenient scapegoat.

We don’t mind. By now, we’ve grown accustomed to their petulant antics.

While Arkansas enjoys this win for teachers, the Freedom Foundation won’t be resting on its laurels. With states like Michigan repealing its right-to-work protections during March, unions are pulling out all the stops to reverse their dwindling membership rates.

How else to explain the spectacle of public-sector unions from all over the country contributing nearly 10 percent of the record-breaking $45 million into the Wisconsin Supreme Court election of Janet Protasiewicz. They also worked hard to elect Chicago Mayor-elect Brandon Johnson, with over 95 percent of his campaign donations coming from organized labor.

Passage of Arkansas’ Teacher Paycheck Protection bill is a huge and gratifying victory for the Freedom Foundation, but it’s still just one battle in the ongoing war over workers’ rights.