UNION public sector

new belated dis-ambig

SEE TFA 9 25 ryan walters teacher unions attack

see doge coup

see teachers unions randi weingarten

afscme

randi aft/

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gmail 9 24 ~ coup

Eight months into President Donald Trump’s second term, it’s clear that public education and our democracy are in peril. Trump and his allies are abolishing the US Department of Education and gutting funding for programs that public schools rely on—and the big ugly budget bill (which Trump signed into law in July) creates a nationwide voucher program, even though we know vouchers harm students. This administration has abandoned the nearly 90 percent of American students who attend public schools, and it has continued the far-right campaign to demonize teachers, from claiming they indoctrinate kids in woke ideology to calling them groomers.

Why? That’s the question I aim to answer in my new book, Why Fascists Fear Teachers. I wrote this book to expose the coherent, well-funded strategy behind the vilification of teachers and the war on knowledge. And I wrote it to lift up teachers. My book is a love letter to teachers and to all that teachers do to help kids thrive.

This issue of American Educator opens with an excerpt in which I explain that authoritarian leaders smear teachers because they don’t want children to learn to think critically. They want to erase truth, knowledge and history and to fracture society. They fear critical thinking. And they fear the other thing teachers do so well: creating a safe and welcoming environment for all kids. As Vladimir Putin has said, “Wars are won by teachers.”

The peril we face is even more evident when we look at this moment from historical and global perspectives. This issue of American Educator has articles by the historian Ruth Ben-Ghiat, who explains that Trump’s attacks on knowledge, science, medicine and children are in keeping with authoritarians from the past 100 years, and by the political scientists Eli G. Rau and Susan Stokes, who show that around the world, as income inequality rises, so does the probability of democratic decline.

One of the most troubling symptoms of that decline is the recent increase in political violence. Let’s be clear: Violence is never the answer. Never. Not on January 6, and not the assassination of Charlie Kirk. It is antithetical to democracy and to our values as a union of professionals that fights for a better life for all.

Weaponizing this moment is also antithetical to democracy. Of course, no one should celebrate another person’s murder. But using this tragedy to encourage the doxxing, censorship and firing of people for their opinions—including educators’ private opinions shared during their personal time—is wrong.

In our communities and our national rhetoric, it’s time to come together, to de-escalate and to condemn all forms of violence. But it’s not time to stay silent. We can end the hate and the smears while recommiting to the right to civil discourse, to critical thinking, to open inquiry, to some of the founding principles of our nation.

Thomas Jefferson, John Adams and George Washington championed public education as a public good. Our public schools are where we create opportunity and community for all, not just for some. We must not let the likes of the current president abandon public education, and with it the underpinnings of our democracy.

In unity,

Randi Weingarten

AFT President

Fall 2025American Educator

Strengthen, Don’t Abandon, Public Schools

By Randi Weingarten

Union Highlights: Resolved to Fight for a Better Life

Why Do Fascists Fear Teachers? Because We Teach Critical Thinking

By Randi Weingarten

The Trump Administration Is Trying to Wreck Our Democracy: We Can Fight Back

By Ruth Ben-Ghiat

Economic Inequality Threatens Democracy

By Eli G. Rau and Susan Stokes

Standing Up and Standing Out: AFT Members Are Fighting Back to Protect Their Students...

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Florida Attorney GeneralJames Uthmeier (R) has announced the launch of a new tool for members of the public to report “acts or threats of political violence" as well as social media posts of public school teachers, according to the Tampa Bay Times.

Uthmeier, chairman of the ironically named far-right "Florida Freedom Fund" political action committee associated with Governor Ron DeSantis (R-FL), has the backing of Florida Education Commissioner Anastasios Kamoutsas, who, recently sent a letter to public school superintendents threatening teachers who publicly express negative opinions about deceased far-right activist Charlie Kirk.

In a statement attached to Uthmeier's announcement, Kamoutsas said that “any educator who makes vile, despicable comments celebrating and encouraging violence in schools will be investigated and held accountable.”

According to The Tallahassee Democrat, Uthmeier said that "while the First Amendment will be upheld, threats of violence won’t be tolerated."

In the wake of Kirk's death, several Florida public school teachers have lost their jobs and status or been put on leave, including Karen Leader, an associate art history professor at Florida Atlantic University, placed on leave for posting about the right-wing podcaster's history of hate speech.

IFrame Content

A retired University of Florida professor lost his honorary title after posting about Kirk, “I did not want him to die. I reserve that wish for Trump," and other professors' posts are under investigation by the state along with teachers at several K-12 schools throughout the state.

“I didn’t say anything or do anything that encouraged violence at all,” Leader told Hyperallergic.“I did not say or do anything that celebrated his death, that said he deserved it, that in any way, shape or form, condoned violence.”

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an 3 25

Defenders of the Social Security Administration on Friday blasted acting Commissioner Leland Dudeks' threat to shut down the agency in response to a federal judge cutting off the Department of Government Efficiency's access to SSA data.

U.S. District Judge Ellen Hollander wrote Thursday that "the DOGE team is essentially engaged in a fishing expedition at SSA." She issued a temporary restraining order targeting affiliates of the government-gutting entity created by Republican President Donald Trump and led by Big Tech CEO Elon Musk, the richest person on the planet.

While the advocacy and labor groups behind the lawsuit celebrated the order from Hollander—who was appointed to the District of Maryland by former President Barack Obama—Dudek responded to the ruling with a threat to shut down the agency entirely.

"My anti-fraud team would be DOGE affiliates. My IT staff would be DOGE affiliates," Dudek told Bloomberg. "As it stands, I will follow it exactly and terminate access by all SSA employees to our IT systems."

"Now, like a child who didn't get his way, he is threatening to shut down Social Security."

Dudek—who is leading the SSA until the U.S. Senate decides whether to confirm Trump's nominee, former Fiserv CEO Frank Bisignano—said he would ask the judge to immediately clarify her order, adding: "Really, I want to turn it off and let the courts figure out how they want to run a federal agency."

Lee Saunders, president of the American Federation of State, County, and Municipal Employees (AFSCME)—which filed the suit with the Alliance for Retired Americans and the American Federation of Teachers—said in a Friday statement that "for almost 90 years, Social Security has never missed a paycheck—but 60 days into this administration, Social Security is now on the brink."

"Acting Commissioner Leland Dudek has proven again that he is in way over his head, compromising the privacy of millions of Americans, shutting down services that senior citizens rely on, and planning debilitating layoffs, all in service to Elon Musk's lies," he continued. "Now, like a child who didn't get his way, he is threatening to shut down Social Security. Rather than comply with a lawful court order, he wants to see millions of families, retirees, and disabled individuals go hungry, suffer, and potentially lose their homes all to curry favor with anti-worker billionaires. It's despicable."

"Even for this administration, this is a new low. Project 2025 didn't dare mention Social Security, but we always knew they would put it on the table," he added, citing a Heritage Foundation-led blueprint for remaking the government. "We've fought back efforts by anti-union extremists and billionaires to privatize and gut Social Security before, and we'll do it again. Workers paid into this program; it belongs to us."

Groups that are not part of the case also took aim at Dudek on Friday. Max Richtman, president and CEO of the National Committee to Preserve Social Security and Medicare, called the threat "to hold hostage" the earned benefits of over 70 million people "inexcusable" and "yet another example of the Trump administration's hostility to American seniors."

"Dudek is throwing a temper tantrum—claiming that if DOGE can't access American's data, neither can anyone else," he said. "No one in the federal government has the breadth of access to data that Elon Musk has demanded. Social Security employees' access is compartmentalized and only made available on a 'need-to-know' basis, and those with access to the data go through rigorous screening, training, and are subject to fines and/or jail time for violating this policy."

Richtman asserted that "Musk's continued effort to justify his actions by doubling down on thoroughly debunked claims of 'massive fraud' at SSA are being laid bare as a mere pretext for acquiring every American's personal information—which could then be used as weapons against anyone who disagrees with the Trump administration's actions."

Nancy Altman, president of Social Security Works, declared that "Dudek's leadership has been the darkest in Social Security's nearly 90-year history. He has sown chaos and destruction... His highest loyalty is to Elon Musk and Donald Trump, not to the beneficiaries that the agency is meant to serve. Singlehandedly, he has taken the security out of Social Security."

"Members of Congress who remain silent are complicit. The Trump-nominated commissioner, who will have his confirmation hearing next week, is no better. In fact, he proudly calls himself 'a DOGE person,'" she warned of Bisignano.

"Every member of Congress, Republicans and Democrats alike, must condemn the destruction of our Social Security system and demand that the Trump administration follow Judge Hollander's order," Altman added. "They must make it clear that no president—even one who thinks he is a king—can shut down our Social Security system."

mma

Fox News' Dana Perino calls public sector unions a “new nemesis”

02/11/25

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Trump is facing fierce backlash from a California firefighters union three days after the ex-president threatened to withhold fire rescue aid from the state as the number of wildfires are expected to increase in the coming years, East Bay Times reports.

"As of today, thousands of firefighters are on the front lines responding to wildfires throughout the state, and countless Californians are in harm's way as they heed evacuation orders," California Professional Firefighters President Brian K. Rice wrote in a statement posted to X on Friday, September 13. The union, according to the report, "represents around 35,000 career firefighters and emergency medical service" professionals.

"Nevertheless, former President Trump expressed that he would play with their lives and their homes if he doesn't get what he wants," Rice continued. "He would rather watch our state burn in the name of his political games, than to send help if he were to become president again."

Axios reports that Trump threatened during a Friday press conference to "withhold fire rescue aid from California" if the state’s Democratic Governor Gavin Newsom refused to back the MAGA leader’s policies.

East Bay Times notes the former president "repeatedly referred to Newsom as 'Newscum'" during the presser.

"If he doesn’t sign those papers, we won’t give him money to put out all his fires," the MAGA leader said, referring to the governor. “And if we don’t give him all the money to put out the fires, he’s got problems."

In response to Trump's comment, Axios reports that Newsom warned via X that the 2024 GOP nominee "admitted he will block emergency disaster funds to settle political vendettas."

It wasn't long before Rice shot back at Trump, writing, "It is shocking that we have a presidential candidate who is threatening our public safety and doesn’t even care what the consequences are to firefighters and the public. This has now become a serious public safety issue for our members and the public we serve."

*The East Bay TImes' full report is available at this link. Axios' report is here. an 9 24

https://inthesetimes.com/features/janus_supreme_court_unions_investigation.html

no lnx grafs

Behind Janus: Documents Reveal Decade-Long Plot to Kill Public-Sector Unions

The Supreme Court case Janus v. AFSCME is poised to decimate public-sector unions—and it’s been made possible by a network of right-wing billionaires, think tanks and corporations.

MARY BOTTARI

FEBRUARY 22 | MARCH ISSUE

THE ROMAN GOD JANUS WAS KNOWN FOR HAVING TWO FACES. It is a fitting name for the U.S. Supreme Court case scheduled for oral arguments February 26, Janus v. American Federation of State, County and Municipal Employees, Council 31, that could deal a devastating blow to public-sector unions and workers nationwide.

In the past decade, a small group of people working for deep-pocketed corporate interests, conservative think tanks and right-wing foundations have bankrolled a series of lawsuits to end what they call “forced unionization.” They say they fight in the name of “free speech,” “worker rights” and “workplace freedom.” In briefs before the court, they present their public face: carefully selected and appealing plaintiffs like Illinois child-support worker Mark Janus and California schoolteacher Rebecca Friedrichs. The language they use is relentlessly pro-worker.

From the March 2018 issue

Behind closed doors, a different face is revealed. Those same people cheer “defunding” and “bankrupting” unions to deal a “mortal blow” to progressive politics in America.

A key director of this charade is the State Policy Network (SPN), whose game plan is revealed in a union-busting toolkit uncovered by the Center for Media and Democracy. The first rule of the national network of right-wing think tanks that are pushing to dismantle unions? “Rule #1: Be pro-worker, not anti-union. … Don’t rant against unions. … Using phrases like ‘union fat cats’ and ‘corrupt union bosses’ and other negative language reduces support for reform.”

And yet, SPN groups have systematically spearheaded attacks on unions and workers in statehouses and courtrooms nationwide. The Janus case, and its precursor, Friedrichs v. the California Teachers Association, represent SPN’s most audacious move yet, an effort to kneecap the unions of public-sector workers—including teachers, nurses, sanitation workers, park rangers, prison guards, police and firefighters—in a single blow.

“TRUST TEACHERS!”

On Jan. 11, 2016, about 100 people bundled in coats and mittens mill around the Supreme Court steps. They hold signs with little red apples that read, “Trust Teachers!” and “Respect Teachers? Then respect their First Amendment rights!”

From a distance, it looks like a teachers’ rally. A closer look reveals an odd array of participants. Grover Norquist, the man who wanted to drown government in a bathtub, cheerfully declines an interview as he breezes by.Daniel Turner, who worked for the education reform task force of the far-right American Legislative Exchange Council (ALEC), waves a “Trust Teachers!” sign from behind the podium. Near him stands Chantal Lovell from SPN’s Mackinac Center for Public Policy, a group credited with jamming a union-busting bill through Michigan’s lame duck legislature in 2012. A representative from SPN’s Arizona-based Goldwater Institute is present, as is a fellow from the Koch brothers’ Americans for Prosperity (who also declines an interview).

The night before, SPN organized a dinner for representatives of its member groups who had flown in for the oral arguments. Among its members were the lawyers representing the plaintiffs in Friedrichs and 12 groups that had filed supporting amicus curiae (“friend of the court”) briefs. The suit was filed on behalf of Rebecca Friedrichs and nine other California teachers who wanted to stop paying their “fair share fees”—money paid by non-union members to cover the costs of collective bargaining.

On the courthouse steps, a woman with a bullhorn tries to rev up the audience. “Who do we trust?” she asks. “Teachers,” murmurs the crowd. “Who?” she yells. “Teachers!” Now they have the hang of it. The podium is emblazoned with the hashtag #IStandWithRebecca.

Friedrichs deadlocked the Court 4-4 after the death of Justice Antonin Scalia, leaving the status quo of union fees in place. Expect a repeat of this courthouse scene February 26. SPN is once again rallying the troops and a #StandWithMark hashtag is already circulating.

Janus has its origins in a lawsuit filed by billionaire Illinois Gov. Bruce Rauner. Rauner issued an executive order in 2015 instructing Illinois to stop collecting fair share fees. At the same time, he filed a federal lawsuit to speed the issue to the U.S. Supreme Court. Two SPN member groups—the Illinois Policy Institute and the National Right to Work Legal Defense Foundation—joined the suit with plaintiff Mark Janus, who makes a much more sympathetic poster child than a billionaire venture capitalist. When Rauner was found not to have standing, Janus was allowed to pursue the suit.

Janus is a child-support worker employed by the Illinois Department of Healthcare and Family Services. “The union voice is not my voice,” Janus wrote in a Chicago Tribune op-ed. “The union’s fight is not my fight. But a piece of my paycheck every week still goes to the union.”His lawyers will argue before the Court that if “money is speech” in a post-Citizens United world, then fair share fees are unconstitutional “forced” or “coerced” speech.

The Court decided 40 years ago in Abood v. Detroit Board of Education that fair share fees are constitutional.The decision tried to balance the right of a union to exist against the rights of any workers who don’t want to be members. Since unions must represent all employees in contract negotiations, the Court held that nonmembers could be assessed a fee to cover the costs associated with this representation. But, the Court said, nonmembers could not be charged for costs associated with political activities. Today, fair share fees and political fees are separated. The Abood decision is not a good enough compromise for the Janus lawyers, who argue everything a public-sector union does is political.

Overturning Abood would be “a right to a free ride, nothing more, nothing less,” says Joel Rogers, a University of Wisconsin law professor. “There’s no question that it’ll have a devastating financial effect on public-sector unions, at least in the short tem.”

THE TROIKA

Media coverage has focused almost uniformly on the personal stories of Mark Janus and Rebecca Friedrichs, and the complex legalities of their cases. That coverage obscures the bigger picture.

“It’s a mistake to focus on the individual plaintiffs,” says Alexander Hertel-Fernandez, an assistant professor of international and public affairs at Columbia University. “Instead, the focus should be on the conservative advocacy groups. … ALEC, SPN and the Kochs’ Americans for Prosperityhave all worked hand in glove over the past several years to cut back the strength of public-sector unions. The effects of this case will be felt far beyond the plaintiffs.”

Infographic ]

ALEC was founded in 1973 as a venue for politicians and corporate lobbyists to meet behind closed doors and draft cookie-cutter legislation, known as “model bills,” that promote corporate interests. The Center for Media and Democracy published ALEC’s library of secret bills in 2011. One stack of model bills aims to privatize public services and public schools; another stack aims to break unions.

Americans for Prosperity (AFP) is a right-wing political advocacy group founded by billionaire brothers David and Charles Koch, owners of Koch Industries. AFP, fueled by a large network of millionaire and billionaire funders, spends millions on TV ads in election cycles and serves as the Kochs’ “grassroots” lobbying arm. AFP representatives participate in both ALEC and SPN.

SPNis the least well-known of the three groups, in part because it is made up of dozens of innocuous-sounding “institutes” and “centers” like the Illinois Policy Institute and the Mackinac Center. Yet SPN’s 66 think tanks and 87 associated groups take in more than $80 million annually, eight times the budget of ALEC.

SPN’s predecessor, the Madison Group, was launched by ALEC in the 1980s to be a Heritage Foundation in each of the states, at the suggestion of President Ronald Reagan to millionaire Thomas Roe. Today, SPN members provide the local presence needed to make ALEC proposals appear homegrown.

In red states, SPN groups provide the cookie-cutter studies, the “expert” legislative testimony and the media commentary to back ALEC’s union-busting bills, school voucher programs and other Koch political priorities. In blue states, these think tanks use door-knocking campaigns to solicit workers to quit their unions, “recertification” efforts to force unions to vote annually on whether to exist, and lawsuits aimed at demobilizing organized labor.

“This form of ultra-conservatism is geared toward making sure that there is no organized power outside of big business and wealthy, organized donors,” says Theda Skocpol, a Harvard professor of government and sociology. For that reason, pulling back the curtain on how this machine operates and is funded is vital to workers’ interests.

The work of this “troika,” as Skocpol and Hertel-Fernandez call it, is underwritten by corporations, right-wing foundations and a handful of billionaires. Most corporate donors have managed to keep their identities secret, but ALEC’s industry advisory board, which helps fund the organization, has included representatives of Koch Industries, Exxon Mobil, Pfizer, State Farm and other giant firms. Known past funders of AFP include the American Petroleum Institute and Reynolds American. SPN’s past donors include Altria/Phillip Morris, AT&T and Time Warner.

Another big chunk of the funding for the troika—tens of millions over the past decade—flows from Donors Trust and Donors Capital, two donor-advised funds connected to the Koch brothers’ network. These funds help donors cloak their identities.

The Lynde and Harry Bradley Foundation in Milwaukee, with more than $900 million in assets, is another major operational funder. Harry Bradley started the foundation in 1942, shortly after the death of his brother, Lynde, with profits from their electronics parts manufacturing company. Like the Koch brothers’ father, Fred Koch, Harry was a big supporter of the far-right, anti-civil rights John Birch Society. He frequently hosted its founder, Robert Welch, for public presentations at the company’s Milwaukee headquarters. Today, Bradley is one of the SPN network’s biggest benefactors, funneling $133 million to network groups since the 1980s. Bradley has also funded ALEC and AFP.

Across the country, in statehouses and in court, the troika has transmuted this flood of money into a two-pronged attack on unions. But, Skocpol says, “This is not what the public wants. It is entirely a political effort to destroy the most significant, organized political counterweight to the extreme Right.” In fact, the popularity of unions is on the rise. A 2017 Gallup poll found that the percentage of Americans who approve of unions had risen 5 points in a single year, to 61 percent, the highest since 2003.

IN THE STATEHOUSE

A trove of Bradley Foundation documents were leaked in 2016 by a sophisticated group of international hackers. The documents reveal the inner workings of a 15-year effort to build infrastructure in battleground states to support the Republican Party and tear down unions.

In 2003, Bradley launched its disingenuously named Working Group on Employee Rights at a private meeting in Washington, D.C. The group includedGrover Norquistof Americans for Tax Reform (an SPN member) and Paul Kersey, who has worked for the National Right to Work Committee, the Illinois Policy Institute and the Mackinac Center, three of the nation’s premier union-busting operations. A later meeting would bring in ALEC, SPN and the anti-union front group Center for Union Facts. What emerged is a stream of underwriting for think tanks, anti-union litigation efforts, anti-union media groups, opposition research shops and even an anti-union alternative to teachers unions (the Association of American Educators).

[pix Bradley Foundation board chair and multimillionare James Arthur “Art” Pope (L) and Bradley board member and billionaire Diane M. Hendricks

In 2009, Bradley CEO Michael Grebe, once an attorney for the Republican National Committee, backed a little-known county executive, Scott Walker. Grebe took a highly unusual step for a “philanthropist,” becoming the chair of the Walker campaign for governor.

As a result of the financial crisis, Democrats were swept out of office in 2010 and a wave of Republicans took control of 26 state legislatures (up from 14) and six new governors’ mansions. This was the opportunity the groups had been waiting for.

Bradley suddenly ramped up its annual giving to AFP from $20,000 to $520,000. The head of AFP, Tim Phillips, visited Walker before he was sworn in, urging him to provoke a showdown with public-employee unions. The group was working on a similar strategy in Indiana, Ohio and Pennsylvania.

Weeks after taking office, Walker declared that Wisconsin was facing a dire financial crisis and introduced his Act 10 “budget repair bill,” which would slash $900 million in school spending and gut the state’s collective bargaining law. Walker justified the bill by declaring repeatedly that the state was “broke.”[2 SANTAS] But in a Congressional grilling a month later, when pressed by Ohio Rep. Dennis Kucinich on how much money the measure would save, Walker admitted, “It doesn’t save any.” (Similarly, when Rauner issued his executive order to block fair share fees, he claimed budget deficits forced his hand, but in front of a friendly audience at the Hoover Institute in California, he admitted that the executive order had “nothing to do with any of the budget.”)

The Wisconsin gambit has been repeated in red state after red state. All told, 15 states have passed bills restricting collective bargaining by public workers, and six states—Indiana, Ohio, Michigan, Missouri, Kentucky and West Virginia—passed ALEC union-busting right-to-work bills despite mass protests. In some states, the public has taken to the ballot to turn back the attack: Voters in Ohio reversed the measure with a veto referendum in 2011; Missouri has a referendum on the ballot for 2018.

IN THE COURTS

States under Democratic control required different strategies. A blitzkrieg of lawsuits against unions were unleashed, including the 2012 Knox v. SEIU in California, the 2014 Parrish v. Dayton in Minnesota, the 2014 Harris v. Quinn in Illinois, the 2015 D’Agostino v. Patrick in Massachusetts, the 2015 Bain v. California Teachers Association and the 2016 Friedrichs. These cases did not originate with public workers, critics claim, but were instead initiated by right-wing lawyers who sought out clients to advance a union-busting agenda.

The National Right to Work Legal Defense Foundation (NRTWLDF) [DARK MONEY DOC? ATI?] supplied attorneys for most of these cases and is the lead attorney in Janus. Founded in 1968 with a mission to “eliminate coercive union power,” the foundation (along with its advocacy arm) is an SPN member with $14 million in annual revenue. NRTWLDF is funded by the usual suspects: Donors Trust and Donors Capital, the Bradley Foundation, and the anti-public-school Walton Foundation, run by Walmart’s founding family.

A long list of amicus curiae briefs from a variety of think tanks may make it seem as if the Janus side has broad national support. In fact, 13 of 19 briefs filed by organizations (rather than governments or individuals) for the plaintiff come from current or former members of SPN. Seventeen were filed by groups that have received funding from Bradley, Donors Capital and Donors Trust.

Infographic]

Another funder of this work is the National Federation of Independent Business (NFIB), a trade association affiliated with ALEC and SPN that filed anti-union briefs in Friedrichs and Janus. Why should private-sector NFIB care about public-sector unions at all? In his book The One Percent Solution: How Corporations Are Remaking America, One State at a Time, political economist Gordon Laferquotes a 2015 NFIB blog post: “Because ... if unions are dealt a blow in the public sector, private sector businesses might see decreased pressure from pro-labor forces on issues ranging from the minimum wage to paid sick leave and other employee benefits.”

Lafer, a professor at the University of Oregon’s Labor Education and Research Center, insists the corporate money behind these institutions should not be overlooked.“Who are the most serious opponents to the corporate agenda on the minimum wage, paid sick leave, health insurance and NAFTA free trade?” Lafer asks. “[Corporations] think they will get rid of their best-funded opponents on a whole range of issues.”

DEFUNDING THE DEMOCRATS

Grover Norquist is excited about a potential Janus victory for another reason. “Seven million public-sector employees who pay between $4 billion and $8 billion a year in dues—a third of them will quit [paying],” he told The Atlantic. “Now try funding the modern Democratic Party without union dues—good luck.”

While fair share fees do not directly fund union political activity, any loss of funding could weaken a union’s organizational capacity, ultimately undercutting electoral clout. According to FollowTheMoney.org,unions contributed an estimated $602 million to state and federal races and ballot initiatives in 2016. Slightly more thanhalf of that ($319 million) came from public-sector unions. In 2016, labor was the largest contributor to state-level Democratic candidates, accounting for at least 18 percent ($128.7 million) of their total fundraising. Unions also mobilize their workers as persuasive door knockers at election time who can explain who they are and what they fight for.

Research by academics like Columbia’s Hertel-Fernandez suggests that the erosion of public-sector union membership by ALEC bills has also dampened political participation. His most recent study, based on data from 1980 to 2016, shows thatright-to-work laws decrease Democratic presidential vote share by 3.5 percent and depress overall turnout.

BEHIND CLOSED DOORS

It would be imprudent for Bradley or SPN to be as blunt as Norquist in public (given their tax-exempt status as charitable organizations), but internal Bradley and SPN documents are clear about their goal of bleeding the Democratic Party of funding.

Norquist has long described unions, public-sector workers and trial lawyers as the funding “pillars” of the Democratic Party. In internal documents prepared for its board of directors, Bradley staff channels Norquist and recommends continued funding for the NRTDLF because “big Labor and trial attorneys … are the two principal funding pillars of the Left.” Bradley has gifted the anti-affirmative action Center for Individual Rights, which represented the Friedrichs plaintiffs, with more than $1.5 million.

Materials prepared for the Bradley board track Friedrichs and the cases leading up to it. A map from the pro-worker Economic Policy Institute is included to show states that allow fair share fees, annotated to show the potential monetary losses for unions at $500 million to $1 billion per year. Bradley staff quote “the leftist In These Times,” which characterizedFriedrichs as a case “that could decimate public-sector unions.”

Another case leading up to Janus was Bain v. California Teachers Association, which attacked the way the union processed political fees. Bradley staff called Bain and Friedrichs combined a “powerful ‘one-two’ punch” against unions, predicting that “all that would remain to fund the unions’ political apparatus would be the hardcore teacher members.”

For Bradley, the anti-union work was a twofer. Bradley has long been a proponent of the privatization of America’s schools; America’s public school teachers and powerful teachers unions stand in the way. Internal documents show Bradley staff bluntly advocating projects to “defund teachers unions and achieve real education reform” at the same time.

“Teachers unions are at the heart of all this,” says Harvard’s Theda Skocpol. “Teachers exist in every community across the country. They are educated, they speak up, and they care about public schools. Break the teachers unions and you break the organizational power that exists in and around the Democratic Party at the state and local level.”

In an April 2016 fundraising letter obtained by the Center for Media and Democracy and published in the Guardian, SPN CEO Tracie Sharpe asks her readers to help strike “a major blow to the Left’s ability to control government.”

I am writing you today to share with you our bold plans to permanently break the power of unions this year. ... I am talking about the kind of dramatic reforms we’ve seen in recent years in Indiana, Wisconsin, Michigan and now West Virginia—freeing teachers and other government workers from coercive unionism—and spreading them across the nation. … I’m talking about permanently depriving the Left from access to millions of dollars in dues extracted from unwilling union members every election cycle.

SPN’s secret union-busting toolkit even celebrates this February 2016 quote from a Wisconsin AFSCME leader talking about the devastating impact of Walker’s Act 10 bill: “Do we have less boots on the ground? Yeah. Do we give the same amount of money to candidates? No.”

The Freedom Foundation in Olympia, Wash.—a featured and feted SPN member—has been equally explicit in its fundraising letters. One 2014 letter obtained by the Guardian reads, “The Freedom Foundation has a proven plan for bankrupting and defeating government unions through education, litigation, legislation and community activation.”

A Freedom Foundation-produced brochure, titled “Undue Influence: Public Unions’ Cycle of Power, Electioneering,” shows multiple charts and graphs on union spending in campaigns and elections. The graph “Democrats’ Dependence on Union Funds” lists 31 Washington state Democratic legislators and their union campaign contributions. The accompanying text argues that “the problem associated with union electioneering” could be solved by weakening unions and eliminating fair share fees.

SPN member groups have also cited their union-busting efforts as key to electing Trump. The Wall Street Journal profiled Tracie Sharpe in a post-election puff piece on its editorial page, titled “The Spoils of the Republican State Conquest.” She tells the paper that Wisconsin and Michigan were only “thinly blue” and that the destruction of the states’ unions has put the GOP on better footing.“When you chip away at one of the power sources, that also does a lot of get-out-the-vote,” Sharpe chirped. “I think that helps—for sure.”

Unions lost 136,000 members in Wisconsin; Trump won by 23,000 votes. “Did the labor reforms enacted in Wisconsin and neighboring Michigan help Donald Trump win those states?” asks Norquist associate Matt Patterson in the Daily Signal. “No question in my mind. Hard to fight when your bazooka’s been replaced by a squirt gun.”

Most of the groups pursuing this agenda, including Bradley and SPN, are tax-exempt charitable groups. After Citizens United ushered in a surge of dark money groups, the Obama administration’s IRS attempted to distinguish real charitable organizations from false ones, only to have the effort shut down by tremendous blowback from the Right. Ever since, the IRS has been reluctant to take action on these kinds of issues.

“There is simply no basis in law to find that defunding or attacking unions is a tax-exempt charitable activity,” says attorney Marcus Owen, former director of the IRS’s exempt organizations division. “On the contrary, such actions are deeply infused with private benefit to employer interests and political party interests—but not with community or public benefit, which is required under the law.”

DEGRADATION OF CRITICAL SERVICES

The Democratic Party is not the only loser in this scenario; real harm will be done to U.S. workers and their families. Following World War II, unions expanded dramatically, representing 35 percent of the workforce at their peak in the mid-1950s and helping to usher in an era of shared prosperity. According to the Economic Policy Institute, unionized workers make 20 percent more, on average, than other workers, but their ranks have shrunk to 6.5 percent of private-sector workers and 34.4 percent of public-sector workers in 2017.This decline has exactly tracked the decline of the American middle class.

The attack on public-sector workers is also an attack on women and African Americans, groups disproportionally represented in public-sector unions. According to a National Women’s Law Center analysis, women make up 55 percent of union-represented public-sector workers, and a 2010 analysis from the Center for Economic and Policy Research shows that African Americans are 30 percent more likely than the overall workforce to hold public-sector jobs.

One silver-lining argument contends that an adverse Janus ruling presents an opportunity for unions to simply do their job better: Talk to every member, innovate on services and benefits, and do the kind of “deep organizing” needed to outmaneuver wealthier opponents. The data from Wisconsin, however, is not encouraging. Five years after Walker’s draconian Act 10 bill, Wisconsin’s union membership rate had dropped from 14.2 percent to 8.3 percent of the workforce. The impact of Janus would be less immediate but would snowball over time: Weaker, less effective unions have a harder time attracting members.

“If fair share fees are struck down, it simply won’t be possible to provide the expertise to bargain with employers to increase wages and benefits,” says John Matthews, the retired executive director of Madison Teachers Inc., a National Education Association affiliate in Wisconsin.

The erosion of public-sector unions means that public-sector jobs will pay less and become less attractive, degrading not just a source of good jobs but the critical public functions these workers serve. [THE COMMONS] The average annual salary and benefits for teachers in Wisconsin dropped by $10,843 after Act 10 was passed, a 12.6 percent reduction. The result has been a staggering shortage of teachers, including an “extreme” shortage in math and science,forcing the state’s independent Department of Education to reluctantly issue “emergency” teacher’s licenses.

For the most part, the right-wing machine’s deeply financed, organized and focused attack on workers has rolled its agenda through without meaningful resistance from Democrats. To be sure, in Wisconsin, the union-busting plan was met with one of the largest sustained mass protests in labor history and a 16-day occupation of the Capitol. Fourteen Democratic state senators even fled to Illinois to block a vote on Act 10. But too often, the Democratic Party has been asleep at the switch. First Jimmy Carter, then Bill Clinton, then Barack Obama failed to pass a national “card check” program—a measure that would have made forming a union as easy as signing a postcard—while their party controlled both houses of Congress.

If the Janus verdict goes against public-sector unions, the great challenge for Democrats will not merely be one of funding, but one of leadership. Who will step up to push for the renewal of trade unions, not just for the party’s political future, but for a country that cannot progress toward economic and social justice without a prosperous and muscular labor movement?

MARY BOTTARI is the deputy director of the Center for Media and Democracy (CMD). She helped launch CMD’s award-winning ALEC Exposed investigation in 2011 and is a recipient of the Hillman Prize for investigative journalism.

aha-let: any number of smart ppl say we need to resotre unions are ctr-balance to corp power, but teachers are often women and not terribly well paid, so trad workers w/o power/leverage but Red for Ed; teacher union longtime target; workers MOST in danger of covid are undoc immigrant meatpackers

https://www.mediamatters.org/fox-news/mark-levin-likens-teachers-unions-want-covid-19-protections-schools-segregationists-orval

trump threatened pull fed $ from schools if not reopen

Teachers’ Union Prepared to Strike If Schools Aren’t Made Safe from Coronavirus

dn 720

never waste a crisis? // dis cap'lism?

https://www.alternet.org/2020/03/donald-trump-is-exploiting-the-coronavirus-pandemic-to-advance-truly-disgraceful-union-busting-effort/

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Donald Trump is exploiting the coronavirus pandemic to advance ‘truly disgraceful’ union-busting effort

Union workers and supporters cheer at a "Build it Here" rally Monday, Nov. 18, 2013, in downtown Seattle. The Washington State Labor Council called for the rally, saying it wanted to show Boeing and state leaders it supports Machinists union members who voted last week to reject contract concessions Boeing said it needed to build the new 777X in Washington. (AP Photo/Elaine Thompson)

Written by Jake Johnson / Common Dreams March 20, 2020

President Donald Trump is not letting the global coronavirus pandemic stand in the way of his administration’s assault on what’s left of organized labor in the United States.

In fact, as the New York Times reported Friday, the Trump administration is actively using the outbreak as a pretext to ram through union-busting policies and other right-wing agenda items that would likely draw closer scrutiny and public outrage under normal circumstances.

“The White House, under the guise of its coronavirus response, is quietly advancing policies that President Trump has long advocated, from tougher border controls to an assault on organized labor to the stonewalling of congressional oversight,” the Times reported. “Administration officials insist that such long-sought policies are necessary to stem the outbreak. But opportunism is clearly in play.”

On Wednesday, the Federal Labor Relations Authority (FLRA)—a small federal agency governed by three Trump appointees—quietly issued a rule proposal public-sector unions condemned as “an ideological attack” on organized labor.

Under current law, federal employees are permitted to cancel their union dues and membership during an annual 15-day window after they have been a member for at least one year.

The FLRA’s proposed rule would allow federal employees to cancel their dues at any time after one year of union membership.

“That they would push forward with this kind of union-busting in the midst of a pandemic, while front-line federal employees like [Veterans Affairs] caregivers, airport screeners, food inspectors, and other personnel are being forced to fight the administration for basic safety protocols and personal protective equipment, is truly disgraceful,” Everett Kelley, president of the American Federation of Government Employees (AFGE), said in a statement Thursday.

Colleen Duffy Kiko, the Trump-appointed FLRA chair, claimed last month that the rule change is necessary to comply with the “spirit” of the Supreme Court’s 2018 Janus vs. AFSCME ruling, which said that public-sector unions cannot collect so-called “fair share” fees that help unions represent all workers, including non-union members.

Tony Reardon, president of the National Treasury Employees Union (NTEU), said in a statement that the FLRA’s proposed change flies in the face of decades of established federal labor law. NTEU is challenging the proposed rule in court.

“There is only one reason to change one-year dues collection agreements and that is to try and harm unions,” said Reardon. “This action reveals in stark terms just how determined the administration is to roll back the rights and benefits of federal employees.”

AFGE

@AFGENational

This FLRA proposed rule is just the latest move to bust unions and silence workers. #1u https://www.afge.org/publication/afge-statement-on-flra-union-busting-proposed-rule/ …

The union-busting rule is one of several right-wing policies the Trump adminstration is pursuing under the cover of the coronavirus outbreak, which has infected nearly 13,000 people in the U.S. as of Friday morning.

“Across the government,” the Times reported Friday, “departments have been citing the ‘whole of government’ response to the pandemic as they push through the same policies they sought before the crisis.” Such a list could include xenophobic border restrictions, further attacks on science, bailouts for the oil and gas industry, and limitations on congressional oversight powers.

“Under normal conditions there would be extended debate and back and forth, but under this emergency some of those things will get through with less scrutiny,” David Lapan, Trump’s former spokesman for the Department of Homeland Security, told the Times. “It is a way to use this national emergency or pandemic to push through some of these quickly that might not get through in the normal course of business.”

Naomi Klein, author of The Shock Doctrine—a 2007 book that documents how governments have exploited natural disasters and other crises to advance neoliberal policies—warned Monday that the Trump administration could draw from that same playbook amid the COVID-19 outbreak and urged progressives to be ready to fight back.

“We know what Trump’s plan is: a pandemic shock doctrine featuring all the most dangerous ideas lying around, from privatizing Social Security to locking down borders to caging even more migrants,” Klein said. “Hell, he might even try canceling elections.”

“If there is one thing history teaches us, it’s that moments of shock are profoundly volatile,” Klein added. “We either lose a whole lot of ground, get fleeced by elites, and pay the price for decades, or we win progressive victories that seemed impossible just a few weeks earlier. This is no time to lose our nerve.”

https://www.alternet.org/2020/03/erik-prince-recruited-ex-spies-to-help-infiltrate-activist-groups-hostile-to-trump-agenda-report/

OMFG

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Erik Prince recruited ex-spies to help infiltrate activist groups ‘hostile’ to Trump agenda: report

Written by Common Dreams March 8, 2020

An explosive New York Times report revealed Saturday thatnotorious war profiteer Erik Prince recruited former American and British spies to work with the right-wing group Project Veritas to infiltrate at least one Democratic congressional campaign and organizations “considered hostile” to President Donald Trump’s agenda.

“Secretary DeVos’ brother was directly involved in a spying scheme in her home state against a teachers’ union she’s been hostile with for years. If this doesn’t clear the bar for an immediate Congressional investigation, nothing does.”

—Derek Martin, Allied Progress

Prince is the brother of Education Secretary Betsy DeVos and founder of the mercenary firm Blackwater. Through a spokesperson, he declined the Times‘ request for comment on the piece, which is based on interviews and documents obtained by the newspaper, including internal Project Veritas emails.

“Both Project Veritas and Mr. Prince have ties to President Trump’s aides and family,” the Times noted. “Whether any Trump administration officials or advisers to the president were involved in the operations, even tacitly, is unclear. But the effort is a glimpse of a vigorous private campaign to try to undermine political groups or individuals perceived to be in opposition to Mr. Trump’s agenda.”

The results of the Times‘ investigation were described by readers on social media as “chilling,” “stunning,” and “insane.” Jacobin magazine assistant editor Alex Press declared, “My paranoid fantasies are all true!” In response to a tweet about the reporting, author and activist Naomi Klein simply wrote, “Read.”

The consumer watchdog group Allied Progressresponded with a statement Saturday night, calling on the House Oversight Committee to conduct an immediate investigation into what DeVos knew about Prince’s activities.

“There’s not a lot of dots to connect here,” said Allied Progress director Derek Martin. “Secretary DeVos’ brother was directly involved in a spying scheme in her home state against a teachers’ union she’s been hostile with for years. If this doesn’t clear the bar for an immediate Congressional investigation, nothing does.”

“We already know Secretary DeVos is no friend of public education, but if she gave the go-ahead to enlist former intelligence officers to steal documents from public education advocates that she disagrees with, it steps well beyond policy disagreement and into criminal territory,” Martin added. “If Secretary DeVos was in any way involved, it will confirm that she stops at nothing to undermine public schools.”

According to the Times:

One of the former spies, an ex-MI6 officer named Richard Seddon, helped run a 2017 operation to copy files and record conversations in a Michigan office of the American Federation of Teachers, one of the largest teachers’ unions in the nation. Mr. Seddon directed an undercover operative to secretly tape the union’s local leaders and try to gather information that could be made public to damage the organization, documents show.

Using a different alias the next year, the same undercover operative infiltrated the congressional campaign of Abigail Spanberger, then a former CIA officer who went on to win an important House seat in Virginia as a Democrat. The campaign discovered the operative and fired her.

Both operations were run by Project Veritas, a conservative group that has gained attention using hidden cameras and microphones for sting operations on news organizations, Democratic politicians, and liberal advocacy groups. Mr. Seddon’s role in the teachers’ union operation—detailed in internal Project Veritas emails that have emerged from the discovery process of a court battle between the group and the union—has not previously been reported, nor has Mr. Prince’s role in recruiting Mr. Seddon for the group’s activities.

The Times reported that it is unclear whether Seddon was involved in the Spanberger operation and the former British intelligence officer—who is married to American diplomat Alice Seddon—did not respond to the newspaper’s request for comment.

James O’Keefe of Project Veritas told the Times that his group is a “proud independent news organization” and “no one tells Project Veritas who or what to investigate.” Although he declined to discuss the details of the report, he also claimed that various sources are “providing confidential documents, insights into internal processes, and wearing hidden cameras to expose corruption and misconduct.”

Past targets of Project Veritas have included the nonprofit healthcare organization Planned Parenthood, the political group Disrupt J20, and recently, David Wright, a 20-year veteran political correspondent at ABC News. Project Veritas has also recorded undercover video of a Times editor and approached the Washington Post with a false story about Roy Moore, a Republican Senate candidate in Alabama.

The Project Veritas operative inside AFT Michigan was Liberty University graduate Marisa Jorge, according to the Times. O’Keefe and Seddon used the code name “LibertyU” for Jorge when discussing the operation over email. Jorge, who also reportedly infiltrated the Spanberger campaign by posing as a volunteer, did not respond to the newspaper’s request for comment. The federal lawsuit that AFT Michigan brought against Project Veritas is scheduled to go to trial later this year.

In a statement to the Times, AFT president Randi Weingartensaid: “Let’s be clear who the wrongdoer is here: Project Veritas used a fake intern to lie her way into our Michigan office, to steal documents and to spy—and they got caught. We’re just trying to hold them accountable for this industrial espionage.”

Weingarten added on Twitter Saturday, “They didn’t succeed in their attempt to hurt our union but note what the right wing will do to try to eliminate workers’ voice.”

The Intercept co-founder Jeremy Scahill—who released the book Blackwater: The Rise of the World’s Most Powerful Mercenary Army in 2007—wrote on Twitter Saturday that with this piece, the Times “pushes the 2017 story from [The Intercept‘s Matthew Cole]? forward about Erik Prince attempts to infiltrate liberal groups via Project Veritas.”

Last year, Cole published an article for The Intercept titled “The Complete Mercenary: How Erik Prince Used the Rise of Trump to Make an Improbable Comeback.”

Noting that Trump gave Project Veritas thousands of dollars through his foundation and met with O’Keefe shortly after announcing his run for president, Cole reported:

It is unclear if Trump’s support of Project Veritas spurred Prince’s interest in the group, but in late 2015 or early 2016, Prince arranged for O’Keefe and Project Veritas to receive training in intelligence and elicitation techniques from a retired military intelligence operative named Euripides Rubio Jr. According to a former Trump White House official who discussed the Veritas training with Rubio, the former special operative quit after several weeks of training, complaining that the Veritas group wasn’t capable of learning. Rubio did not respond to requests for comment.

In the winter of 2017, Prince arranged for a former British MI6 officer to provide more surveillance and elicitation training for Veritas at his family’s Wyoming ranch, according to a person with direct knowledge of the effort. Prince was trying to turn O’Keefe and his group into domestic spies. For his part, O’Keefe posted photos on Instagram and Twitter from the Prince family ranch of himself holding a handgun with a silencer attached and wearing pseudo-military clothing. He described the ranch as a “classified location” where he was learning “spying and self-defense,” in an effort to make Project Veritas “the next great intelligence agency.”

“Erik was weaponizing a group that had close ties to the Trump White House,” said the former White House official familiar with Prince’s relationship with O’Keefe and Project Veritas.

Cole acknowledged the Times reporting on Twitter Saturday and highlighted a summary of it tweeted by The Atlantic‘s Adam Serwer:

Currently, the Times noted, “Prince is under investigation by the Justice Department over whether he lied to a congressional committee examining Russian interference in the 2016 election, and for possible violations of American export laws.”

Former FBI assistant director and current NBC News national security contributor Frank Figliuzzi shared the Times report on Twitter Saturday and commented that “there are likely numerous criminal violations here.”

https://www.alternet.org/2020/02/a-travesty-and-a-disgrace-trump-quietly-issues-memo-that-could-abolish-union-rights-for-750000-federal-workers

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‘A travesty and a disgrace’: Trump quietly issues memo that could abolish union rights for 750,000 federal workers

Written by Common Dreams February 22, 2020

“This administration will not stop until it takes away all workers’ rights to form and join a union.”

President Donald Trump on Thursday quietly issued a memo granting Defense Secretary Mark Esper the power to abolish collective bargaining rights for the Defense Department’s 750,000 civilian workers, a move unions decried as part of the administration’s far-reaching assault on organized labor.

The American Federation of Government Employees (AFGE) condemned the memo, which was published in the Federal Register (pdf) Thursday, as “a travesty and a disgrace.”

“The administration’s divide-and-conquer strategy with respect to organized labor is as disgusting as it is shameful.”

—American Federation of Government Employees

The memo argues that a unionized Defense Department workforce could pose a threat to “national security” and that, if necessary, collective bargaining rights at the department should be scrapped in the interest of “protecting the American people.”...

"When new missions emerge or existing ones evolve, the Department of Defense requires maximum flexibility to respond to threats,” the memo states. “This flexibility requires that military and civilian leadership manage their organizations to cultivate a lethal, agile force adaptive to new technologies and posture changes.”

“Where collective bargaining is incompatible with these organizations’ missions,” the memo continues, “the Department of Defense should not be forced to sacrifice its national security mission and, instead, seek relief through third parties and administrative fora.”

It is unclear whether or how Esper intends to act on his legal authority.

Larry Mishel, distinguished fellow at the Economic Policy Institute, called the White House’s justification for ending collective bargaining rights at the Defense Department “atrocious.”

Larry Mishel

@LarryMishel

Denying collective bargaining to those working for Pentagon, on pretense that 'flexibility' is needed and not possible, is atrocious. Any examples of how unions hampered defense? I doubt it. https://twitter.com/josheidelson/status/1230593847593291776 …

Josh Eidelson

@josheidelson

"The White House on Thursday formally published a controversial document that gives Defense Secretary Mark Esper the authority to end collective bargaining for the Pentagon’s nearly 750,000-person civilian workforce" https://www.govexec.com/management/2020/02/trump-administration-publishes-memo-could-end-defense-unions/163237/

The existence of the memo, which Trump signed on Jan. 29, was first reported by Government Executive earlier this month.

The outlet noted that “the Civil Service Reform Act of 1978 includes a provision allowing the president to issue an order excluding agencies and agency subcomponents from collective bargaining rules if the rules ‘cannot be applied to that agency or subdivision in a manner consistent with national security requirements.'”

Walter Shaub

@waltshaub

Donald the Union Buster has invoked a statute that requires him to find that (a) the agency's primary function is national security and (b) it can't carry out its national security mission if it allows unions. He has declared DoD's unions a national security threat. https://twitter.com/SheWhoRises/status/1230934363338166275 …

????? ??????

@SheWhoRises

Trump granted the Defense Dept legal authority to abolish collective bargaining rights of its civilian labor unions representing 750,000 workers.

Trump invoked “national security” to justify granting DoD an exemption from the law giving all federal workers the right to unionize.

Everett Kelley, AFGE’s national secretary-treasurer, said in a statement that denying Defense Department employees “the collective bargaining rights guaranteed to them by law since 1962 would be a travesty—and doing it under the guise of ‘national security’ would be a disgrace to the sacred oath and obligation that all federal workers make to their country.”

“This administration will not stop until it takes away all workers’ rights to form and join a union, and we will not stop doing everything we can to prevent that from happening.”

—Everett Kelley, AFGE

“This administration will not stop until it takes away all workers’ rights to form and join a union,” said Kelley, “and we will not stop doing everything we can to prevent that from happening.”

Government Executive noted that “unionized workforces within the Defense Department vary widely.”

“Civilian workers at the U.S. Coast Guard are represented by the [AFGE], as are the Defense Logistics Agency and the Defense Contract Management Agency,” the outlet reported. “Blue-collar workers at military bases and depots across the country are represented by a variety of unions, and teachers at on-base schools for children of service members bargain collectively as well.”

Trump and corporate-friendly officials in his administration have been attacking public- and private-sector unions since the president took office in 2017.

Last October, Politico obtained an internal memo penned in 2017 by White House domestic policy adviser James Sherk, who urged Trump “to eliminate all job protections for federal workers and a requirement that federal contractors provide paid sick leave for employees.”

“The Trump administration has already acted on key recommendations in the memo,” Politico reported. “For example, it has changed overtime pay calculations and put forth rules making it harder for companies to be held liable for labor violations committed by franchisees and contractors.”

The memo, Politico noted, also recommended that Trump “issue an executive order eliminating employee unions at the Defense Department on the basis of national security.”

In an October statement responding to Sherk’s recommendations, AFGE said “the administration’s divide-and-conquer strategy with respect to organized labor is as disgusting as it is shameful.”

“But it won’t work,” the union said. “Across this country, our members and the members of every other labor union are getting educated, organized, and mobilized. As the largest union representing federal employees, AFGE will continue to resist the president’s mob mentality and disrespect for the federal workforce and the work they do.”

919 cmd

Oregon Strengthens Public Workers’ Right to Organize

AN 819

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Federal workers union sues for right to openly criticize political candidates

Written by Alex Henderson August 14, 2019

In November 2018, the Office of the Special Counsel (OSC) issued a memo warning federal workers to refrain from calling for a politician’s impeachment or openly lobbying for a particular candidate. And the American Federation of Government Employees (AFGE), this week, announced that it is filing a lawsuit asking the federal government to end its rules restricting employees from criticizing political candidates.

AFGE is the largest union of federal workers in the U.S. and has around 700,000 members. In the lawsuit, the union is challenging the restriction as a free speech violation.

David Cox, Sr., nationalist president of the AFGE, officially stated, “OSC’s vague, overbroad guidance creates an opening for managers and political appointees to go after career civil servants for politically-motivated reasons.”

The OSC memo issued last year specifically mentioned the Hatch Act of 1939, a federal law that forbids employees of the executive branch of the federal government — apart from the president or vice president — from engaging in some forms of political activity.

In the memo, the OSC advised, “There are no ‘magic words’ of express advocacy necessary in order for statements to be considered political activity under the Hatch Act. Therefore, when a federal employee is prohibited by the Hatch Act from engaging in political activity — e.g., when on duty, in the federal workplace, or invoking official authority — the employee must be careful to avoid making statements directed toward the success or failure of, among others, a candidate for partisan political office.”

https://thinkprogress.org/agriculture-usda-blm-move-dc-climate-trump-protests-science-e8e534ec12fc/

719

Employees and Democratic lawmakers are pushing back on the Trump administration’s plans to relocate hundreds of positions within two agencies outside of Washington, D.C. — a move some see as an effort to clamp down on science.

While the planned moves of both the Interior Department’s Bureau of Land Management (BLM)and parts of the Department of Agriculture (USDA) differ in their scope and rationale, resistance to both plans has shaped up similarly.

Critics are expressing concern over the motivations behind the efforts, which would lead to a mass-exodus of agency experts unwilling to relocate. This would spur a science brain drain in line with President Donald Trump’s crackdown on reports and research from within his own government.

“These decisions… are meant to displace seasoned scientists and regulators who have honorably served Republican and Democratic Administrations alike,” said Sen. Chris Van Hollen (D-MD)in a statement to ThinkProgress responding to both the BLM and USDA relocation plans. Van Hollen sits on the Interior and Environment Appropriations subcommittee.

Responsible for administering public lands, BLM has become a battleground under the Trump administration as the White House has rolled back the boundaries of national monuments and advocated for fossil fuel drilling on U.S. acreage.

Now, the bureau is sparking controversy again. Administration officials confirmed this week that the overwhelming majority of BLM positions in D.C. are set for relocation. Around 84% of BLM staffers will be asked to relocate by the end of next year to areas outside of the nation’s capital, mostly to western states.

That announcement comes a month after Secretary Sonny Perdue mandated that over 500 USDA employees move en masse to Kansas City — located in both Missouri and Kansas — by Sept. 30, and gave them a deadline of July 15 to respond.

[Lack of demand hasn’t stopped Trump from opening tons of land

to oil and gas drilling

In the case of BLM, the Interior Department (DOI) plans to concentrate many of the positions in Grand Junction, Colorado, in addition to a range of western states stretching from Arizona to Alaska.Joe Balash, DOI assistant secretary for land and minerals, called the decision “demonstrably cost-effective” in a July 16 letter to Sen. Tom Udall (D-NM), ranking member of the Senate Appropriations subcommittee on Interior and Environment.

The Trump administration argues that the move would both cut expenses and shift workers closer to the public lands they focus on, an argument supported by many Republicans including Rep. Rob Bishop (R-UT), who sits on the Natural Resources Committee.

But Democrats immediately raised objections. Udall said he had “serious reservations” about the move, as did his subcommittee counterpart in the House, Rep. Betty McCollum (D-MN). Democrats in both chambers of Congress indicated this week that they feel the plan is largely an effort to push out the D.C.-based senior staff who do not want to relocate.

Many of those employees are experts in their field, including scientists. “It’s a way for them to get rid of a lot of professional staff here in Washington,” said Rep. Jared Huffman (D-CA) in a statement.

Former Interior scientist calls out ‘culture of fear, censorship, and suppression’ under Trump

Many BLM employees are already located in other parts of the country and support for moving the bureau has been somewhat bipartisan over the years. But the latest push for relocation by the Trump administration coincides with a heated clash between USDA and its employees.

Given until this past Monday to make their decision, scores of USDA workers have opted out of moving. Of the employees with the USDA’s Economic Research Service (ERS) and the National Institute of Food and Agriculture (NIFA), more than half declined to relocate, according to Politico.

ERS workers in particular argued that the move would disrupt their work and efforts to publish important scientific reports. NIFA, meanwhile, is responsible for grant funding that touches climate, economic, and agricultural work that uses D.C. as a home base.

Many USDA employees have also argued that the move is politically motivated. ERS has recently released reports critical of Trump’s escalating trade war with China and its impact on farmers.

Experts also worry the move is a warning shot with implications for climate science. An investigation by Politico last month found that USDA has repeatedly sought to burystudies showing the danger of climate change. That report noted that some scientists see the ERS move as a foreshadowing of wider repercussions for research that doesn’t align with the administration’s broader “energy dominance” agenda.

USDA workers have fought through their union, the American Federation of Government Employees (AFGE), to dispute the move, but the department has rejected those efforts. Moreover, there is concern that other departments could face similar moves, like the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service and the U.S. Geological Survey, both of which are under DOI’s jurisdiction.

But Democrats asserted that they are looking into measures to combat the relocations, emphasizing that the move could be costly to taxpayers in addition to dramatically shifting the wealth of knowledge offered by current government staffers.

Lawmakers indicated they might seek to halt the relocation by blocking its funding in the upcoming appropriations bill that covers both the DOI and the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA). A group of senators, including Van Hollen, have meanwhile introduced legislation to keep ERS and NIFA in the D.C. metro area, a move that was made before the BLM move was announced.

“This Administration is acting to undermine the subject-matter experts at many of our federal agencies,” said Van Hollen, who added that his office would “continue to use every tool available to push back against these actions.”

This article has been updated to note that only USDA would be impacted by the Senate legislation due to timing.

https://www.exposedbycmd.org/2019/05/28/corporate-funded-groups-continue-campaign-cripple-public-sector-unions

don weiner

519

The same corporate-funded groups that bankrolled a successful ten-year campaign to cripple public employee unions by having the U.S. Supreme Court strike down “fair share” fees for nonmembers in Janus v. AFSCME last year are now suing to retroactively recover fees paid before the Court’s ruling.

This is the latest move in the right-wing’s quest to “defund and defang” public sector unions with a goal of delivering a “mortal blow” to progressive politics, and mirrors similar “clawback” suits filed across the country over the past year.

Two groups that spearheaded the Janus case, the Liberty Justice Center (LJC) and National Right to Work Legal Defense Foundation (NRTWLDF), have now filed a federal lawsuit in Illinois seeking repayment of $2 million in fair share fees paid by 2,700 Illinois public employees to the American Federation of State, County and Municipal Employees (AFSCME) between May 1, 2017 and June 27, 2018.

Public employee unions are required to represent all workers, whether they join the union or not, so unions have collected “fair share” fees, also known as agency fees, for many decades to cover the basic costs of bargaining for higher wages and benefits. That practice was upheld by the Supreme Court unanimously in Abood v. Detroit Board of Education in 1977, but the Court turned its back on that precedent in the *Janus* case and struck them down on First Amendment grounds.

A similar lawsuit by the two groups filed in a different federal district court was thrown out earlier this year when the judge ruled that AFSCME had collected the dues “in good faith.”

“That ruling echoes what more than a dozen other federal and state courts have decided in similar cases,” AFSCME spokesman Anders Lindall told the Chicago Tribune. “The anti-worker, corporate-funded front groups prolonging this failed litigation want to use the courts to further their political attack on working people and our union. Their repeated lawsuits are nothing but a greedy grab for more.”

In its Janus decision, the Court’s majority acknowledged that public sector unions would now have to represent nonunion members even without their agency fees, creating an entire class of free-riders.

With respect to both lawsuits and the earlier Janus case, public sector unions note that the plaintiffs never complained about receiving the wage increases, health insurance coverage, vacation time, and other benefits that the union negotiated for on their behalf.

In addition to the new lawsuit, LJC and NRTWLDF have appealed the original case to the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Seventh Circuit.

Lawsuits Bankrolled by Corporate Foundations and a Megadonor

Richard Uihlein, an Illinois businessman and GOP megadonor, the Koch brothers’ donor network, and the Milwaukee-based Bradley Foundation have bankrolled much of the groups’ legal war on public sector unions.

The LJC, part of the right-wing Illinois Policy Institute at the time of the Janus ruling, has received $1.7 million since 2010 from the Koch donor network’s funding vehicles, Donors Trust and Donors Capital Fund, and $320,000 since 2009 from the Bradley Foundation, which the Center for Media and Democracy (CMD) exposed in a series of articles in 2017.

Uihlein has given over $8.6 million to Illinois Policy Institute since 2009 and at least another $800,000 since 2014 to LJC. Uihlein is notoriously anti-union and spent millions to support the gubernatorial campaigns of the anti-worker governors Scott Walker and Bruce Rauner.

Uihlein has also given $300,000 since 2014 to NRTWLDF, which has received $1.3 million since 2003 from Bradley and $833,000 since 2010 from DonorsTrust and Donors Capital Fund, according to IRS filings.

LJC’s most recent IRS 990 filing shows that its revenue jumped from $494,000 in its fiscal year 2016 to $692,000 in 2017, a 40 percent increase, while it was working on the Janus case. LJC’s chair, John Tillman, was paid over $400,000 in 2017 from affiliated nonprofits, principally the Illinois Policy Institute.

LJC is a member of the State Policy Network (SPN). In the states, SPN groups peddle cookie-cutter “studies” to back the American Legislative Exchange Council’s (ALEC) agenda.

Bradley Foundation grants to SPN “affiliate” and “associate” members stretch back decades and amount to approximately $133 million, according to Bradley grant summary documents tallied by CMD.

A 2016 Bradley internal file on SPN notes that SPN’s focus in recent years has been on “catalyzing further efforts to curb public-sector unions’ excesses” and “mobilizing nonprofits, donors and citizens to uphold the principles of donor privacy and freedom of speech.” The right-wing effort is part of a concerted campaign to bankrupt unions in order to cripple the Democratic Party and, more broadly, the progressive movement.

The new wave of legal assaults on public employee unions as we head into the 2020 elections appears to be the latest stage of that campaign.

David Armiak contributed research to this report.

https://www.alternet.org/2019/01/the-single-most-important-pro-labor-speech-of-the-shutdown-was-not-given-by-aoc/

ref

https://YYYtheguardian.com/us-news/2017/aug/30/rightwing-alliance-unions-defund-defang

no linx MANY docs

Rightwing alliance plots assault to 'defund and defang' America's unions

Conservative campaign aims to strike ‘mortal blow’ on government unions

‘A once-in-a-lifetime chance to reverse the failed policies of the American left’

Ed Pilkington in New York

@edpilkington

Wed 30 Aug 201705.00 EDT Last modified on Wed 30 Aug 2017 12.11 EDT

Teachers in California protest against a Wisconsin law affecting public-sector collective bargaining. Union membership among public-sector workers is about 35%.

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Rightwing activists across the US have launched a nationwide campaign to undermine progressive politicians by depriving them of a major source of support and funding – public sector unions.

A network of conservative thinktanks with outposts in all 50 states has embarked on a “breakthrough” campaign designed to strike a “mortal blow” against the American left. The aim is to “defund and defang” unions representing government employees as the first step towards ensuring the permanent collapse of progressive politics.

The campaign carries a powerful echo of the populist creed espoused by Donald Trump. The president was propelled into the White House last November after unexpected victories in several previously Democratic rust belt states including Michigan and Wisconsin, both of which have endured withering attacks on trade unions in recent years.

The new assault is being spearheaded by the State Policy Network (SPN), an alliance of 66 state-based thinktanks, or “ideas factories” as it calls them, with a combined annual budget of $80m. As suggested by its slogan – “State solutions. National impact” – the group outlines an aim to construct a rightwing hegemony throughout the US, working from the bottom up.

To do that, it first has to sweep aside the public sector unions and their historic ties to Democratic and progressive politicians. In a 10-page fundraising letter, part of a set of documents obtained by the Center for Media and Democracy and published by the Guardian today for the first time, SPN sets out its mission in frank language that does not disguise its partisan ambitions.

The author of the letter, SPN’s president and CEO Tracie Sharp,describes the $8m “breakthrough” campaign as a “once-in-a-lifetime chance to reverse the failed policies of the American left … We are primed, right now, to deliver the mortal blow to permanently break its stranglehold on our society.”

Sharp pitches the battle against unions as the start of a war on progressive politics, with the ultimate goal of winning elections for rightwing candidates. “Big government unions are the biggest sources of funding and political muscle for the left – and a major obstacle to the ability of voters to reclaim control of American government. To win the battle for freedom, we must take the fight to the unions, state by state.”

The target of such union-bashing, she openly admits, is to “defund and defang one of our freedom movement’s most powerful opponents, the government unions”. The long-term objective is to “deal a major blow to the left’s ability to control government at the state and national levels. I’m talking about permanently depriving the left from access to millions of dollars in dues extracted from unwilling union members every election cycle” (emphasis in original).

SPN will be discussing its anti-union and anti-left agenda on Wednesday at its annual meeting in San Antonio, Texas. Its morning session will look at how “labor reform” can be pursued with renewed vigor under the Trump administration.

The discussion will feature some of the key architects of SPN’s political strategy, including Vincent Vernuccio who pioneered anti-union legislation in Michigan, and Tom McCabe of the Freedom Foundation, who has sent his foot soldiers on an aggressive offensive against collective bargaining in the US north-west.

Mary Bottari, deputy director of the Center for Media and Democracy (CMD) which tracks the rise of rightwing groups in America, said the fundraising letter and other SPN documents published by the Guardian cast light on the conservative game plan. “It’s very rare to catch conservative thinktanks talking so openly and blatantly about their long-term political aims. These documents reveal to us that SPN’s goals are entirely political – they have no concern for workers or union members, their only goal is winning elections to advance rightwing causes.”

Bottari added: “An $80m campaign to ‘defund and defang’ public sector unions is remarkable, both in its size and in its ambition.”

Public sector unions have come under growing fire from conservatives in recent years. While unions operating in private companies have been diminished since the 1980s – their membership from about 17% of the workforce in 1983 to just 6% today – their equivalents in the public sector such as teacher, local government, police and fire officer unions have remained relatively stable, at around 35%.

But in 2010, Scott Walker, the newly elected governor of Wisconsin, opened a new front in America’s partisan war when he passed Act 10, stripping public sector unions of the power to bargain collectively and forcing them to re-certify themselves every year with electoral backing from more than 50% of all workers, not just those voting. The move has spawned a rash of imitations across Republican-controlled states, with Iowa and Indiana passing similar laws, and a further 15 states introducing legislation – encouraged by SPN, which has framed a model bill to make it easier for Republican legislators to adopt the changes.

A total of 28 states have also passed “right to work” laws that allow workers in private companies to refuse to join unions despite enjoying the fruits of collective bargaining.

Though the long-term consequences of such union restrictions have yet to be fully understood, there are early indications that the impact could be profound even at presidential level. Since Act 10 came into effect in Wisconsin, public sector union membership has slumped by 40%, or about 136,000 people.

Trump won Wisconsin last November by just 23,000 votes.

A similar pattern can be seen in Michigan where unions have shrunk steadily since a right-to-work law came into effect in 2013, with a loss of at least 30,000 members. Trump took Michigan, to the shock of Hillary Clinton and her supporters, by just 11,000 votes.

When asked whether anti-union laws in Michigan and Wisconsin had affected the outcome of the presidential race, Matt Patterson of the conservative group Americans for Tax Reform said: “No question in my mind. Hard to fight when your bazooka’s been replaced by a squirt gun.”

Carrie Conko, SPN’s vice president of communications, said that the network does not involve itself in political campaigns. “Labor reform is an issue where SPN has been clearly on the side of workers who are against forced unionization and the use of their hard-earned wages to support causes they don’t believe in. If workers choose to support their unions agenda that is fine – but, right now, in many states they don’t have a choice or a voice.”

Conko’s statement echoed the language used in an SPN “toolkit”, also published here for the first time,that advises Republican policymakers on how to campaign for anti-union legislation. “Be pro-worker, not anti-union,” the pamphlet says. “Frame union reform from the point of view of the members and how the reform helps them have a greater voice in their union. Don’t rant against unions. We’ve all been frustrated by the actions of public sector unions to block pro-freedom reforms, but publicly venting these feelings is counterproductive.”

SPN’s disclosure of its political and partisan objectives in the new documents could arouse the interest of investigators from the Internal Revenue Service. The group is constituted as a 501(c)(3) organisation, which renders it exempt as a charity from taxation.

Marc Owens, a partner with Loeb & Loeb who worked as an IRS lawyer specializing in charitable tax exemptions, said that the provision was designed for charitable purposes, not for lobbying against public sector unions or for activities to influence the outcome of elections. “A charity that does those things is not engaging in charitable activities and that puts its tax exempt status in jeopardy,” he said.

Conko told the Guardian that SPN takes “great care to be fully in compliance with all applicable laws and regulations”.

https://www.motherjones.com/politics/2018/08/unions-just-scored-a-win-against-the-trump-administration/

yay, appeal expected

Unions just scored a victory against the Trump administration, which has steadily been working to weaken the power of organized labor. A federal judge in Washington on Friday struck down most provisions of three executive orders that made it easier for government agencies to fire workers and restricted the ability of their unions to negotiate with managers.

US District Court Judge Ketanji Brown Jackson ruled that the executive orders, signed by President Donald Trump in May,conflicted with Congress’ opinion that good-faith union negotiations are vital to the public interest.While “the president has the authority to issue executive orders that carry the force of law with respect to federal labor relations, it is undisputed that no such orders can operate to eviscerate the right to bargain collectively as envisioned in the [statute],” Jackson wrote.

The executive orders told federal agencies to give underperforming employees less time to improve their work before firing them—just three months, as opposed to 120 days previously. The orders also made it more difficult for federal workers to appeal their performance evaluations; greatly reduced the amount of time federal employees could devote to union business during regular work hours; and told agencies not to negotiate over important workplace issues, including the number of employees assigned to particular projects.

More than a dozen federal employee unions sued to block the orders. “Employees are really frightened,” Loni Schultz, a union official representing employees in the Social Security Administration, told the *New York Times*. “They’re frightened about losing jobs. They have house payments, car payments, child care.”

Judge Jackson’s decision does leave a few provisions of the executive orders in place, including one that allows federal agencies to unilaterally implement changes to a union agreement if members are found to be bargaining in bad faith.

The Federal Workers Alliance, a coalition of 13 federal employee unions, applauded the judge’s ruling. “We are very pleased that the court agreed that the president far exceeded his authority, and that the apolitical career federal work force shall be protected from these illegal, politically motivated executive orders,” Sarah Suszczyk, co-chair of the group, said in a statement. “It is a wonderful day to be a federal employee and a union member!” the :{American Federation of Government Employees,the country’s largest federal employee union, tweeted.

Friday’s ruling comes just weeks after a Supreme Court decision weakenedpublic-sector unions by barring them from requiring fees for representation from both union and non-union members, overturning years of precedent. (Federal employees were already exempt from paying dues or fees unless they wanted to.)

“[T]he entire labor movement will not be pushed around,” tweeted Richard Trumka, president of the AFL-CIO. “Together, we’re fighting back and winning.”

...As Trump rejects trade unions and would marginalize their members, it is time for Americans to speak out. On May 25, 2018, he issued three executive orders savagely attacking the largest sector of trade unionism—the federal sector. Trump is dangerous. He is also as serious as a heart attack on public employees and their unions’ official time, space arrangements and federal civil service protections. The Labor and Employee Relations Division of the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) is already chomping at the bit to implement Trump’s three anti-union executive orders, two of which target labor organization and one that makes it easier to fire federal civil servants.Part of that effort is to deny union members the opportunity—and their privilege—to visit with lawmakers on official time.

Should you be worried that these executive orders attacking federal unions—which are comprised of scientists and engineers—might negatively impact the environment and public health?Yes, if you’re concerned that a surge in allowable levels of particle and ozone pollution in Pennsylvania can harm children’s lungs. Yes, if you’re concerned that this White House will permit further contamination of drinking water resources in our Great Lakes. Yes, if you’re concerned that EPA chief Scott Pruitt’s arbitrary choices for Superfund remediation will give, according to an EPA press release, “immediate and intense action” to some sites, while ignoring more acutely in-need and neglected toxic lands in Houston and across the nation. Yes, if you’re concerned that continued inaction is exacerbating the climate crisis along America’s Atlantic and Gulf coasts.

Without AFGE Council 238—the union for more than 8,000 EPA workers—there will be no one to let Congress know exactly what is going on at the EPA under Pruitt’s unethical leadership. There will be more pressure put on EPA staff to certify state and local laboratories that don’t meet minimal standards, to approve air, water and land permits absent adequate protection of human health and the environment. And approvals of dangerous pesticides would be rushed through without adequate scientific review. In a nutshell, without the union protecting whistleblowers, they will not blow the whistle because they need their jobs to pay their mortgage, utilities and children’s education.

To Trump’s discontent, labor is organized—and protesting. It will, however, require action by the judicial branch to rectify the president’s trampling on the legislative branch and existing statutes. So, perhaps America is moving backwards in time.

Take, for example, the Pendleton Civil Service Reform Act of 1883. Following the assassination of President James Garfield in 1881 by Charles Guiteau, a disgruntled job seeker, Congress passed the act, which was introduced by Sen. George Pendleton (D-Ohio). It provided that federal government jobs be awarded based on merit and through competitive exams. It stopped the appointment of people to governmental offices merely because of their political affiliation or their connection to the president. The law offended politicians who belong to a small clique that controls a political party. These “machine politicians” realized that with the Pendleton Act in place, they would have to find new means of income, as they could no longer count on donations from the wealthy hoping to receive jobs.

Ultimately, Trump would end civil service protections and destroy labor’s federal sector unions.In February 2017, Trump quietly hired James Sherk of the Heritage Foundation to handle labor and employment policy. Sherk believes that federal workers are overpaid; he opposes increasing the minimum wage and expanding workers’ rights. He was indoctrinated at the Koch-funded Hillsdale College that has helped to advance the corporate agenda of ALEC, the American Legislative Exchange Council, to undermine the rights of workers using their so-called model legislation, which benefits special interests in more than a third of our 50 states. Fast forward to 2018, and Trump has made cronyism the order of the day, filling the executive branch with many who are simply unqualified to hold their positions. Trump would deny working families benefits protected by the Constitution. Those rights include collective bargaining on pay and working conditions, legal services, personal representation, health and safety and fairness. Trump’s executive orders would prevent our federal workforce from organizing.

The right-wing Heritage Foundation was Sherk’s proving ground for Trump’s White House. It’s where he honed his craft of limiting the influence that unions have and undermining workers’ rights. Sherk is also a proponent of local governments pushing “right-to-work laws,” statutes in 28 states that prohibit agreements between employers and labor unions. Notably, three major aspects in right-to-work states are: 1) The right to work for significantly less money; 2) the right to work with less training; and 3) the right to work with fewer safety conditions.

Considering the fact that most Republicans disdain unelected federal employees and labor unions comprising working women and men, it’s difficult to feel optimistic. It’s hard to hold out much hope for the federal sector and labor unions under the Trump regime. If federal sector unions go, then the “Save the U.S. EPA Campaign”—a national campaign being conducted by AFGE Council 238 and the American Federation of Government Employees (AFGE) to stop the destruction of the EPA—goes away as well. The interests of the coal and fossil fuel industries will continue to be placed above those of the American public. The abuse of taxpayer dollars will also go on, while jobs and programs that are critical to the health and safety of America’s air, water, land and endangered species will be drastically cut or even eliminated. Science will be undermined. Public health will suffer.

Trump and Pruitt are reducing protections of federal employees to enshrine an era of cronyism. Simultaneously, they threaten the environmental protections for all Americans by refusing to staff open positions at EPA. By design, that will result in fewer civil servants keeping our land, water and air clean. Trump and his chief sycophant at the EPA will call that ‘Victory!’

But the blame does not fall entirely on the Republicans. It is shared by the Democrats who consistently fail to vigorously support labor unions. For years, the pendulum has remained to the far right. As a result, one agency and department after another fail to meet objectives because they are not only understaffed and under-budgeted, but are filled with toadies. Meanwhile the people’s work doesn’t get done. The American taxpayers and voters are not served, while the Koch Brothers and their Republican cohorts get richer and more powerful. Worse yet, the best and the brightest younger generation is no longer attracted to government positions because they are treated with hostility, like second-class citizens. Morale at the EPA is down, because the moralities of America’s elected leaders are in the gutter.

“…Then they came for the Trade Unionists, and I did not speak out—Because I was not a Trade Unionist.” Who’s next? Maybe the Democrats?

This article was produced by Earth | Food | Life, a project of the Independent Media Institute.

gorsuch screws us on janus; janus sez agency fee violates 1st AMEND

Supreme Court Rules Against Unions: Janus V. AFSCME

https://kpfa.org/episode/letters-and-politics-june-27-2018/