Following a U.S. Supreme Court decision that millions of public sector workers can stop paying union fees, a group tied to Republican billionaires long opposed to organized labor and its support of the Democratic Party has pledged to build on the landmark ruling to further marginalize employee representation.
The conservative non-profit Freedom Foundation said that starting Wednesday it will deploy 80 people to a trio of West Coast union bastions: California, Oregon, and its home state of Washington. The canvassers were hired in March and trained this month, according to internal documents reviewed by Bloomberg News. The goal of the multi-pronged campaign is to shrink union ranks in the three states by 127,000 members—and to offer an example for similar efforts targeting unions around the country.
“Their employer isn’t going to tell them, and the union isn’t going to tell them,” said the anti-union group’s labor policy director, Maxford Nelsen. “So it falls to organizations like the Freedom Foundation to take up that mantle and make sure that public employees are informed of their constitutional rights.”
The 5-4 Supreme Court ruling, with a majority of all-Republican appointees, threatens one of the last strongholds of America’s vanishing labor movement, and a reliable source of support for the Democratic Party. Before today, public sector unions could require non-members to pay “agency” fees to fund collective bargaining efforts on behalf of all employees, since they benefit equally from representation. Writing for the majority, Justice Samuel Alito— appointed by President George W. Bush—said such a requirement violated employees’ rights under the First Amendment. The majority held that workers must affirmatively opt-in to pay any fees, making it more likely unions will lose funding and thus the ability to negotiate wages and benefits on behalf of workers.
The Freedom Foundation has been waiting for this moment. In February, it began acquiring lists of workers and identifying public employees to feature in anti-union videos. This month, it has been assembling materials to provide to sympathetic local government human resources departments and readying a toll-free call center.
“It just so happens that unions are the ones that stick up for the working class—whether we represent them or not.”
Now that the ruling has come to pass, the group plans a flood of social media, mail, email, cable television ads, op-eds and phone-calls to spread the news about employees’ opportunity to cease paying union fees. Along with going door-to-door, the anti-union activists plan to visit the government buildings where public employees work.
Labor leaders said their members are ready to withstand the barrage. “They’re really not advocating for the employees at all—they’re advocating for unions to lose their power,” said Bob Schoonover, a heavy equipment mechanic for the city of Los Angeles who serves as president of a Service Employees International Union local there. “They want to silence the working class. It just so happens that unions are the ones that stick up for the working class—whether we represent them or not.” Schoonover said his union has been planning for the possibility of the anti-union ruling for years. “We feel that we’re as prepared as we can be.”
Led by a former executive of the lobbying group Building Industry Association of Washington, the Freedom Foundation reported a 2016 budget of $4 million. Its current assault on unions is modeled on past efforts which targeted home health aides who in 2014 were given the option of not paying fees, and other government workers who had a choice of paying full dues or smaller representation fees.
Nelsen declined to identify any of its donors, who he said include businesses, foundations and individuals “from all different walks of life.” All donations are “made by those who believe in our mission,” he said.