As expected, the U.S. Supreme Court’s ruling on Wednesday in Janus v. AFSCME sent shock waves through the offices of labor unions throughout the country, and fittingly, the Freedom Foundation was well-represented in both local and national coverage of the big event.
Barely an hour after the ruling was issued, for example, the Seattle Times posted a story headlined “Washington state Democrats, labor groups slam U.S. Supreme Court’s ruling on union fees,” that included a quote about how the Freedom Foundation would react lifted from a blog written the previous week by Managing Editor Jeff Rhodes:
“As we did four years ago in the wake of Harris v. Quinn, which gave right-to-work protections to Medicaid-compensated home caregivers, the Freedom Foundation is poised to launch an outreach campaign to inform the newly freed workers of rights the unions will still try to suppress. The difference is, the task is much, much bigger this time because vastly more workers are affected by Janus.”
Labor Policy Director Max Nelsen was seemingly everywhere at once on decision day. Locally, he told the Everett Herald, “We intend to do a full amount of education of public employees. It starts now,” and the News Tribune, “If (workers) want to join and financially support a union, they could today just as easily as they could yesterday. It just means the unions can no-longer co-opt the voices of those that don’t wish to support them.”
Nelsen also appeared on Q-13 Fox and, nationally, he was quoted in a variety of publications, including the Wall Street Journal and even Esquire.
In other states, Freedom Foundation Oregon Director Aaron Withe was quoted in a Daily Astorian story:
“(Unions) will have to provide services that make members want to pay these union dues. No longer will people with disagreements with what they are doing have to pay the union dues. It is just like any other private entity now. You could compare it to a gym membership. If you feel you are getting what you are paying for, you continue to pay the gym fees; if you don’t, then you don’t.”
Likewise, California Director Samuel Han was featured in a number of stories in that state, including one from the Sacramento Bee in which he enthused, “This is a game-changer for politics in California,” meaning unions will have fewer resources to support Democratic-leaning campaigns and policies.
The day after the decision, Freedom Foundation CEO Tom McCabe was interviewed on Hugh Hewitt’s nationally syndicated radio show. “I’d rate this (decision) as an ‘8,’” he said. “A lot of people see it as a ‘10,’ but there’s still a lot of work left to do.”
The same day, a guest opinion written by Executive VP Brian Minnich and headlined “After Janus, the Fight Begins to Make Unions Comply,” appeared in The Hill. In it, Minnich predicted:
“Government employee unions won’t just do the right thing because the law, the court or the Constitution tell them to. They’re still going to need as many watchdogs as ever, and this landmark legal victory won’t make us any less vigilant.”
Minnich also did a lengthy interview with Breitbart News on the Sirius radio network, in which he explained, “We actually started going out today in front of government office buildings to educate public-sector employees about their rights. We’ll also be sending out mailings and emails, because the union isn’t going to do it, and the states aren’t going to tell people what their rights are, so it’s incumbent on organizations like the Freedom Foundation to step up and do that.”
Again, the above links are just a representative sampling of the Freedom Foundation’s presence in the aftermath of Janus and, from the tone of the reporting, how much credit (or blame) we deserve for the ruling.
As we’ve noted for more than a year now, the Freedom Foundation has become the go-to agency not just regionally but nationally for insight into the right-to-work movement.
