Unfortunately, the U.S. Supreme Court’s 2018 ruling in Janus vs. AFSCME, which recognized the God-given right of government employees not to have their personal finances plundered to fund a union whose values they don’t support, didn’t end the practice altogether.
It simply made the unions desperate to preserve their dues-collection arrangement by means that could alternatively be described as creative, far-reaching and just plain baffling.
And always either illegal, unconstitutional or both.
This is hardly surprising. Unions are obsessed with confiscating money that rightfully belongs to others for a long list of corrupt and greedy reasons.
Ohio provides a chilling case in point. When public servants in the Buckeye State have leveraged the First Amendment rights clearly affirmed in Janus to cease funding unions with their hard-earned money, union bosses have resorted to whatever means necessary to avoid compliance.
Most often, they either ignore the worker’s opt-out request entirely, forcing him or her to battle their own union in court, or they cite the fine print in membership cards signed as far back as 20 years ago that allow workers to end their union membership — but not their dues payments.
These tactics can be overcome, but unions understand the process takes time and money, and they gamble most workers would rather continue the status quo than go to all that trouble.
That’s where the Freedom Foundation comes in.
Since opening for business in Ohio two years ago, the organization has been just as committed to the employees’ rights as the unions are to their dues money.
And we don’t think “outside the box” because, for us, there is no box.
A recent phone call from a former dues-paying member of AFSCME 8 demonstrates the point perfectly.
A relieved employee of Newark, a small community just east of Columbus, contacted the Freedom Foundation with good news.
From these disconnected, elitist union officials, the employee had received the typical aggravating insensitive response. But his upstanding, freedom-respecting payroll administrator refused to continue the collection of union dues from his paycheck.
Employers are starting to take bold action to fulfill their duty and role in seeing to it the Janus decision is upheld in their local municipality.
This represents a major victory for worker freedom, and it speaks to the critical importance of our call to action at the Freedom Foundation to stop at nothing to advocate and protect the First Amendment rights of public employees – even if it means diligently reaching employers with the truth about their own obligations in this battle.
Empowering government employees is a must and a priority. Now we know the equal importance of empowering employers to justly facilitate the fair treatment of their loyal workers.
For a member of the road crew in the city of Newark it made all the difference.
