March 23, 2006

Gag Rule
Right-wing groups target union speech

By CYDNEY GILLIS
Staff Reporter

Judging by last week’s headlines, state employees and teachers have revolted against their unions in two lawsuits that, at first glance, appear unrelated.

On Wednesday, a group of workers sued the Washington Federation of State Employees over the firing of six workers who had refused to let the union deduct fees from their paychecks. That was followed on Thursday by a state Supreme Court ruling against teachers who had sued their union for using their dues for political purposes.

Both lawsuits involve non-union members covered by labor contracts with “security clauses” that require their unions be paid fees for the cost of collective bargaining. But it wasn’t teachers who first filed a complaint against the Washington Education Association; it was the Olympia-based Evergreen Freedom Foundation.

It was later joined in a separate teachers’ lawsuit filed by the National Right to Work Legal Defense and Education Foundation, a Virginia-based group that charged the WEA with fraudulent concealment. Last week, a day after filing the lawsuit against the state employees union, National Right to Work said it will appeal the teachers’ case to the U.S Supreme Court.

EFF has been funded, in part, by the family foundation of the Waltons, the billionaire anti-union owners of Wal-Mart stores. Though not affiliated, EFF and National Right to Work often sue unions over free speech, arguing that using union dues for politics violates the First Amendment rights of non-members.

Union officials call the cases a well-orchestrated campaign of harassment meant to suck up resources and weaken unions for other battles, such as the national conservative drive to get school vouchers and privatize education.

“ What’s horrifying about it is that [Right to Work is] in the state at all,” says David Groves, a spokesman for the Washington State Labor Council. “This is an anonymously funded think tank staffed by nothing but attorneys who go from state to state and try to discourage unionization.”

Since 1996, the Evergreen Freedom Foundation has filed three complaints or lawsuits against the teachers’ union. EFF has lost all three, including the state Supreme Court case ruled on last week.

In that case, the foundation got the state to sue the teachers’ union over its failure to comply with Initiative 134, a campaign finance reform passed in 1992 and written, in part, by EFF founder Bob Williams.

The initiative was titled the Fair Campaign Practices Act, which Groves says was a “slam dunk” for voters who wanted to police campaign contributions. But EFF and National Right to Work call the measure a “paycheck protection law” because it included a less-known clause requiring unions to get an “affirmative authorization” before using non-member dues for political purposes.

On Thursday, in a 6-3 vote, the state Supreme Court struck down Initiative 134 as unconstitutional. In its ruling, the court cites numerous U.S. Supreme Court precedents. Chief among them is a 1986 ruling, Chicago Teachers Union v. Hudson, which created a procedure to let non-union members “opt out” of paying dues related to political activity.

Twice a year, WEA President Charles Hasse says, the teachers’ union mails “Hudson packets” to non-union members advising them they can opt out by checking a box on a form and mailing it back in. The court agreed with the WEA that was sufficient, as having to contact all of its 3,500 non-members to get their approval would be an enormous burden and interfere with the union’s right to a collective political voice.

EFF spokesman Booker Stallworth calls the ruling “ridiculous on its face.”

“ If you don’t like Evergreen Freedom Foundation and we send you something saying join us or donate and you toss it, that’s your right,” Stallworth says. “We shouldn’t be able to say that, unless you send it back, you automatically are a member.”

Groves says it’s EFF’s wording in Initiative 134 that failed the constitutional test — something that National Right to Work plans to take up with today’s more conservative U.S. Supreme Court.

“ We think it will be overturned, probably 9-0, at the Supreme Court,” Stallworth says.

In the meantime, Right to Work is pursuing the Washington Federation of State Employees and various state agencies for firing the non-members who refused to allow union payroll deductions. Of the 38,000 workers the WFSE represents, 5,000 are non-members. Of those, about 50 continue to object.

The case is similar to the WEA’s in that it involves the Hudson ruling and its requirement that unions disclose their political expenditures. But the primary focus is on the union security clause that makes the union deductions mandatory.

“ The basis for the lawsuit is we didn’t comply [with Hudson]. That allegation is a lie,” says WFSE spokesman Tim Welch.

Stallworth says the EFF focuses on unions in the public sector because their growth is directly related to union political activity.

Union-backed candidates “get into office, put in union security clauses, then union dues are taken from those people,” Stallworth says. “It’s a big machine that keeps feeding on itself.” n