When the Freedom Foundation started to turn up the volume in New York, unions took notice.

The Freedom Foundation started reaching out to public employees in New York in 2021. In 2022, the Freedom Foundation upped its game, sending Halloween-themed postcards to New York workers in October posing the question, “Have you been tricked?” in spooky, green font. The postcard highlighted employees’ option to “opt-out” of and cancel their membership in the Civil Service Employees Association (CSEA), a large New York union affiliated with the American Federation of State, County and Municipal Employees (AFSCME).

The postcard included a graph showing how inflation had increased by 9 percent while New York public employees’ pay only increased by 3 percent. Meanwhile, CSEA president Mary Sullivan saw her pay increase by more than 32 percent.

The postcard conveyed the message that the average New York government worker represented by the CSEA has been tricked into thinking their union cares about them.

If a labor union no longer works for the good of the employees it represents but instead prioritizes the interests of union leaders, then it makes sense for workers to rethink their membership. However, many public employees find it unnecessarily difficult to leave their union because of all the paperwork and hassle that can be involved in the union membership cancellation process, which is why the Freedom Foundation spends so much energy assisting workers who wish to leave their union.

The Freedom Foundation sent many informational postcards to New York public employees following the Halloween postcard. One simply explained the Janus v. AFSCME U.S. Supreme Court decision and outlined the pros and cons of cancelling union membership.

The Freedom Foundation believes that public employees have the right to know where their union dues money is going. Accordingly, the Freedom Foundation sent a postcard explaining how AFSCME president Lee Saunders and more than 200 staff in AFSCME’s Washington, D.C., headquarters were paid six-figures and how the union spent more than $65 million on divisive political candidates, causes and lobbying.

Defunding the police is just one of the many divisive political causes the CSEA funds. The Freedom Foundation sent a postcard to New York public employees showing that, although Saunders and AFSCME claim to support law enforcement, they sent more than $440,000 in members’ dues to 14 groups which directly call for defunding or divesting from the police. 

The Freedom Foundation sent Thanksgiving and Christmas-themed postcards to New York public employees in November and December of 2022. These postcards included the total amount of money workers would save if they chose to “opt-out” of their union. Three hundred CSEA-represented public employees canceled their membership as a result, costing the union tens of thousands of dollars in lost dues.

The CSEA took notice when so many workers started to forego membership and placed a “scam alert” on its website’s main page in January.

The alert is highlighted in yellow and advises CSEA members to “not share your personal information with outside groups.”

It goes on to read, “Please inform your members that they may be targets of a scam asking them to quit our union – if they receive emails, direct mail, phone calls or home visits from unknown parties seeking their personal and work information they should not respond.”

This message appeared on the CSEA’s website only a few months after the Freedom Foundation began operating earnestly in New York. Unions like the CSEA seem genuinely scared of the prospect of losing members and dues revenue.

The CSEA did not think that a single scam alert notification on its website was enough. Another page claims, among other things, “These scammers allude to raises and savings and promote divisive issues to get you to click a link in an email, fill out a postcard or scan a QR Code.” However, it seems that the only one promoting divisive issues is the CSEA.

Unions like CSEA know what is at stake if the Freedom Foundation continues to succeed in helping public employees leave their unions, and that’s why they take all kinds of measures to prevent their members from exercising their First Amendment rights.

This article is the first  in a series highlighting CSEA’s increasingly hysterical attempts to scare public employees out of quitting their membership.