On June 28 — or, as we like to call it, Janiversary — canvassers from the Freedom Foundation’s California office marked the third anniversary of the U.S. Supreme Court’s ruling in Janus v. AFSCME by spreading its message of worker liberation all over the UCLA campus.
Equipped with Opt Out Today handouts and a passion for freeing public employees of union bondage, all of our LA area team members came together to reach every corner of the school’s southern California home.
With predictable results.
Within the first hour, one woman came running out of a building flailing her arms and yelling incoherently at the canvassers. Anticipating a pro-union tirade, the canvassers were shocked to discover she welcomed their visit.
After introducing herself as Judy, she explained that she works in one of the medical buildings on campus and is a shift lead in her department. She said her entire team vents its frustrations about their union to her regularly, but she did not know how to help them.
After learning the Freedom Foundation was on campus, she ran out to collect literature and opt-out forms she could take back to her department break room to spread the word to all her coworkers.
It’s encounters like this that fuel the fire for all of Freedom Fighters across the nation.
As one of the largest universities in California, UCLA has more than a dozen different public-sector unions representing campus employees from the education departments to the janitorial and maintenance staff, to the researchers working on numerous studies.
Then, too, there is the Ronald Reagan Medical Center right in the center of the campus where thousands of unionized public employees and healthcare workers are employed.
All of this together creates a target-rich environment for Freedom Foundation in California to do what we do best — educate public employees about their constitutional rights and help workers opt out of government unions.
In just a few short weeks of canvassing, we’ve already seen a significant number of UCLA employees cease their union dues, and we’ve met many employees like Judy who are grateful to learn they do not have to be stuck with a union that does not support them.
We will continue to be present on campus to ensure every UCLA staff member knows their rights and where their hard-earned money is really going.
