Last week, the Freedom Foundation crossed 300,000 all-time union opt-outs. That number represents 300,000 teachers, nurses, state workers and city employees who found out they had a choice and took it.

This is not a vanity number. Those workers have already cost government unions an estimated $870 million in dues.

That is $870 million that stayed in their paychecks instead of bankrolling a radical, left-wing political machine most of them never voted for.

In mailboxes, at worksites, and in courthouse filings, the Freedom Foundation keeps telling public employees the truth their unions will not: You cannot be forced to fund a union as a condition of keeping a public job.

The Supreme Court settled that in Janus.

You keep the job. You keep the benefits. You keep the protections. You do not have to keep writing the check.

Unions still work overtime to hide that fact. They rely on tiny opt-out windows, silence, and workplace pressure, and sometimes they simply lie to people telling them they are not allowed to leave.

We have seen them refuse to open the mail, lock workers in a room until they sign a card, and lobby state legislatures to make telling the truth more expensive than paying the dues.

They do it because the alternative is making the argument to their own members, which they cannot do.

Make no mistake: Government unions are the single biggest obstacle to the American Dream. They take money from people who serve the public and spend it on candidates and causes those people never agreed to fund — and that most Americans reject.

Every opt-out cuts that pipeline and represents an American worker who now controls his or her own paycheck.

If you are a public employee, go to OptOutToday.com. If you already got out, send this to a co-worker.

We are 300,000 down, with millions still to go, and we are not stopping until every public employee in America knows they have the right to leave.