Supporting each other by staying aware
Excerpts from WEA.org:
Extremist Political Groups are Attacking Our Public Schools
Did an anti-union group email you or send you a mailing lately? Here are the facts behind these groups and their attacks on public education and our freedom to negotiate fair pay.
Extremist political groups like the Washington Policy Center and Freedom Foundation (aka, Opt Out Today) are attacking our right to be represented by our union and our ability to advocate for our students.
The Freedom Foundation and other anti-union groups don't support us or our students — and are actually fighting against what our students need to be successful. Read this expose about their anti-worker strategy.
Here's what the Freedom Foundation's CEO Tom McCabe said in a 2017 fundraising letter: “(Unions like WEA) won’t go away until we drive the proverbial stake through their hearts and finish them off for good.”
· What are they doing?
The Freedom Foundation is going after educators and other public workers, including home health care workers, state employees and childcare providers – the people who provide the social and health services our students and their families rely on.
As public school employees, WEA members may be targeted by anti-worker political groups like Opt Out Today (which is a front group for the Foundation.)
Here are some of their controversial tactics:
- Sending spam emails & letters to WEA members’ homes and schools urging them to quit WEA and their local association.
- Misusing workers’ personal information. The FF has requested employee names, birthdates and work emails for thousands of public employees, including educators. With names and birthdates, the FF can find home addresses and other personal information. “State workers are raising deep concern after learning a prominent anti-union group is seeking their personal information, including their birth dates, worrying it could lead to widespread privacy violations and identity theft,” KIRO radio reported.
- Confronting workers at home by knocking on their doors and pressuring them to quit the union. “A conservative group, the Freedom Foundation, has dispatched activists to visit the homes of more than 10,000 childcare and home-care workers in Washington and Oregon…’The Guardian newspaper reported recently.
- Contacting local presidents and urging them to disband their local associations.
- Purchasing newspaper ads attacking local union presidents by name.
- Posting the salaries of individual educators online.
- Showing up at worksites and arguing with public employees about their union membership.
These anti-worker groups also push court cases designed to weaken our ability to stand up for students and public education, including the Janus case before the US Supreme Court. FF's frivolous legal attacks on WEA date back to the 1990s.
What is their agenda?
The Freedom Foundation promotes policies that benefit its rich benefactors, while it actively opposes our efforts to provide the resources students and educators need to be successful.
The Freedom Foundation:
- Opposes higher pay for educators
- Opposes smaller class sizes
- Opposes local collective bargaining and other worker rights
- Opposes fair evaluations
- Opposes educators having a voice in education policy decisions
- Opposes increased funding for public schools
- Represents extremist out-of-state political groups and corporate foundations
This video explains the foundation's radicial politics and motives. The FF even opposes the minimum wage for education support professionals and other workers.
FF CEO Tom McCabe, in a campaign to raise funds for their attacks, said, "We have to defeat and dismantle the union political machine once and for all..."