Since the Freedom Foundation extended its footprint into Illinois in May 2022, public employees have been inundated with a constant stream of information about their right to opt out of their union without penalty.
And apparently the message is resonating because more than 2,200 of them have turned their back on union tyranny and kept their hard-earned dues dollars in their own wallets.
The decline in union membership in Illinois is costing unions more than $1.7 million dollars a year, and that number only grows bigger by the day.
One of Illinois’ largest unions, AFSMCE Council 31, has seen a drastic decrease in its membership since the U.S. Supreme Court issued its 2018 ruling in Janus v. AFSMCE recognizing that requiring public employees to join or pay dues to a labor union is a violation of their First Amendment rights.
In 2017, AFSCME Council 31 reported that more than 65,000 employees were paying dues. In its most recent report, however, the union conceded its membership had dropped by a whopping 18 percent and now only confiscates dues from 53,000 public employees, according to the Illinois Policy Institute.
Was it because the Freedom Foundation bullied them to leave? Nope. That’s how unions operate. All we have to do is penetrate the veil of lies and tell workers the truth about their constitutional rights.
Once union members know they can leave, their pent-up resentment at how they’ve been treated and used does the rest.
Rather than fight for better working conditions or better paychecks for their employees, unions have pivoted away from their traditional role and now have put all their focus on politics and pushing a radical agenda.
Nothing illustrates this reality better than last month’s mayoral election in Chicago, where the Chicago Teachers Union dumped more than $2.3 million of its members’ dues into Brandon Johnson’s ultimately successful campaign.
CTU has made it crystal clear to its members that union leaders care only about capturing, wielding and keeping power.
That’s the business they’re in. As for the Freedom Foundation, we’re in the business of helping and protecting public employees from their power-hungry government unions.
And business is good.
