Another union finds itself in the Freedom Foundation’s opt-out radar thanks to an email sent last month to University of Washington workers represented by United Auto Workers Local 4121.
The list of recipients includes tutors, researchers, graders, teaching and research assistants and other classified employees on campus.
The messaging was simple: “Add 1.44 percent back to your pay.” That’s the amount UAW 4121 automatically deducts from its members’ paychecks.
For many, this is the first time they’ve learned about their rights under the First Amendment to decline union membership and dues without losing their job.
And it couldn’t have come at a better time.
Workers are canceling their union dues in droves, saving on average $900 a year.
On the very day the email hit their inboxes nearly 60 workers opted out and the opt outs have been flooding in every day since!
The surge was so strong that within a single day, the number of opt outs processed by the Freedom Foundation surpassed last year’s total.
UAW 4121 is an affiliate of the endlessly corrupt and controversial UAW International, a union that historically represented blue collar auto workers on the factory floors of Ford, GM, and Chrysler. What began in the 1930s as a movement to protect assembly line workers has now drifted far from its roots.
Instead of fighting for the men and women who built America’s cars, UAW and unions like the Teamsters now chase dues from public employees whose work bears no resemblance to the industries that gave these unions their names. Graduate students, researchers, clerical staff, and government workers have become their new target not because of shared interests but because unions need the revenue.
It is a reminder that today’s UAW is less about protecting workers and more about preserving power and money.
By opting out, college workers are cutting off funds that fuel the irresponsible shenanigans of their national affiliate overlords.
More importantly, they gain the freedom to spend their hard-earned money on what matters most to them.
