Last week our canvassers were outside of state and local government all over the state informing public employees of their right to opt out of paying union dues.
With the holidays on the horizon, more than a few were interested in hearing about how they can get a raise on their paycheck.
Opting out of union dues can be a nice little windfall for public employees.
While canvassing, we heard from workers paying anywhere from $40 to $160 a month in union dues. You can imagine how excited they were to learn they had options their own union hadn’t bothered to inform them about.
Hundreds of public employees took the time to learn more about opting out of their union dues, with many more already having opted out.
And a good number of them were disgruntled with the unions’ antics. One employee said, “I’ve worked here for nearly 22 years and haven’t appreciated the corruption and malpractice that occurs within this union. I’m tired of them playing politics with my paycheck footing the bill.”
His concerns were consistent with what we’ve heard from others about the tactics these unions will employ in vain attempts to keep the status quo.
These range anywhere from shady language on membership cards that makes membership “irrevocable” or only allows for small opt-out windows, to phone calls and emails harassing public employees about union membership.
It seems they’ll stop at nothing to maintain their chokehold on the public workforce.
These disreputable practices were made more apparent than ever. While canvassing, our teams were harassed by Koolaid-drinking union members and labor operatives terrified their “members” might hear anything that didn’t jibe with the company line doled out by union leaders.
It seems they didn’t want their coworkers to hear the truth about union dues.
They even went as far as calling the sheriff to try and prevent us from speaking on public property. Unfortunately for them, our canvassers knew their rights and stood their ground.
In fact, some of the public employers approached the sheriff deputy and informed him that he was in the wrong.
The day continued without incident.
Feeling threatened by our message, Oregon AFSCME even attempted to smear our canvassers online in a Facebook post including images and nasty comments wishing our team members ill.
One commenter said, “I hope these two disgusting F***ers never have a pension and die early…”
Regardless of their attempts to slow us down and usage of foul language, we continued delivering the truth and we will continue to inform every public employee about their rights.
