How many times have you vowed to yourself never to spend money again at a business that didn’t live up to its hype?
Maybe it was a restaurant whose food or service didn’t meet your expectations. Maybe it was a preening, self-righteous sneaker company whose product, you discovered, was being manufactured in a Third World sweat shop by impoverished children.
Whatever the reason, you exercised your right as a consumer to never make that mistake again.
This past summer more than 1,200 Ohio school employees and educators made a similar statement when they walked away from a union that wasn’t adequately representing their needs.
The former members got fed up with having large chunks of their paycheck diverted into the pockets of union fat cats and the liberal politicians they seduce into doing their bidding.
The Freedom Foundation has been at the heart of this movement since 2018, when the U.S. Supreme Court affirmed in Janus v. AFSCME that public employees — cannot be forced to join or pay dues to a labor union.
In the ensuing years, Ohio Education Association (OEA), the Ohio Federation of Teachers (OFT) and the Ohio Association of Public School Employees (OAPSE) have seen thousands of members walk away — and with them millions of dollars in dues revenue that can no longer be funneled into radical politics.
Twelve-hundred brave school bus drivers, cafeteria workers, school janitors and teachers decided they were going to use the $700 a year dedicated to dues payments, to make a point.
The left, for whom protests, boycotts and cancel culture have become staples of their plan to undermine the values that have made this country great, are watching in horror as courageous former union members are turning the tables on them every day.
Ohio’s union bosses may not have changed their ways after these acts of protest, but we at the Freedom Foundation hear these good, hard-working people loud and clear.
They want the ability to act on their First Amendment rights to hold big labor in Ohio accountable. And we’re determined to see they get it.
