janus v AFSCME
<p><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"></font></p><p><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">precursor fail?</font></p><p><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">
</font></p><p><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><span style="font-family: " times="Times" new="New" roman="Roman" font-size="font-size" large="large" background-color="background-color" rgb="rgb">As the U.S. Supreme Court's 2014 session comes to a close, one of the major cases left for a decision is </span><span style="font-family: " times="Times" new="New" roman="Roman" font-size="font-size" large="large" box-sizing="box-sizing" border-box="border-box" order="order"><b style=""><u>Harris vs. Quinn</u></b></span></font></p><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">=</font></div><div><div><font face="Times New Roman" size="4">=</font></div><div><font face="Times New Roman" size="4">
</font></div><div><font face="Times New Roman" size="4"><a href="https://www.alternet.org/2021/09/supreme-court-2655063879/">https://www.alternet.org/2021/09/supreme-court-2655063879/</a></font></div><div><font face="Times New Roman" size="4">
</font></div><div><p style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">It is a central principle of law: Courts are supposed to follow earlier decisions – precedent – to resolve current disputes. But it's inevitable that sometimes, the precedent has to go, and a court has to overrule another court, or even its own decision from an earlier case.</font></p><p style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">In its upcoming term, the U.S. Supreme Court faces the question of whether to overrule itself on abortion rights. Recent laws in <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/nation/2021/05/19/texas-abortion-law-abbott/" style="text-decoration-line: none; opacity: 1; transition: color 0.25s ease 0s, background 0.25s ease 0s, opacity 0.25s ease 0s;">Texas</a> and <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/courts_law/supreme-court-abortion-roe-v-wade/2021/05/17/cdaf1dd6-b708-11eb-a6b1-81296da0339b_story.html" style="text-decoration-line: none; opacity: 1; transition: color 0.25s ease 0s, background 0.25s ease 0s, opacity 0.25s ease 0s;">Mississippi</a> restrict the right of women to terminate pregnancies in ways that appear to challenge the long-standing precedent of the Supreme Court's 1973 decision in <a href="https://www.law.cornell.edu/supremecourt/text/410/113" style="text-decoration-line: none; opacity: 1; transition: color 0.25s ease 0s, background 0.25s ease 0s, opacity 0.25s ease 0s;">Roe v. Wade</a>, which allowed women to have abortions in most circumstances.</font></p><p style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Over the centuries, courts have stated many reasons they should adhere to precedent. First is the idea of equity or justice, under which “ <a href="https://cgc.law.stanford.edu/commentaries/15-john-walker/#:%7E:text=I.-,How%20Does%20a%20Case%20Become%20a%20Binding%20Precedent%3F,cases%20should%20be%20decided%20alike.&text=First%2C%20as%20compared%20with%20the,as%20applied%20to%20similar%20facts." style="text-decoration-line: none; opacity: 1; transition: color 0.25s ease 0s, background 0.25s ease 0s, opacity 0.25s ease 0s;">like cases should be decided alike</a>," as one senior federal judge put it. If a court in the past reviewed a particular set of facts and decided a case in a specific way, fairness dictates it should decide another similar case the same way. Precedent <a href="http://www.nonpublication.com/schauer.htm" style="text-decoration-line: none; opacity: 1; transition: color 0.25s ease 0s, background 0.25s ease 0s, opacity 0.25s ease 0s;">promotes uniformity and consistency</a> in the law.</font></p><p style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">In addition, precedent promotes judicial efficiency: Courts do not have to decide from scratch every time. Finally, following precedent promotes predictability in the law and <a href="https://scholarlycommons.law.wlu.edu/wlulr/vol47/iss2/2/" style="text-decoration-line: none; opacity: 1; transition: color 0.25s ease 0s, background 0.25s ease 0s, opacity 0.25s ease 0s;">protects people who have come to rely on past decisions as a guide for their behavior</a>.</font></p><p><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">But not all precedents are equal, and several current Supreme Court justices have signaled that they might be open to overturning even long-standing rulings that interpret the Constitution</span><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">.</span></font></p><h2 style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Reversing precedent is unusual</font></h2><p style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">The Supreme Court rarely overturns its past decisions or precedents.</font></p><p style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">In my forthcoming book, “Constitutional Precedent in Supreme Court Reasoning," I point out that from 1789 to 2020 there were 25,544 Supreme Court opinions and judgments after oral arguments. The court has reversed its own constitutional precedents only 145 times – barely one-half of one percent.</font></p><p style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">The court's historic periods are often characterized by who led it as chief justice. It was not until the 1930s under Chief Justice Charles Evans Hughes that it started to overturn precedents with any frequency. These were cases such as <a href="https://www.law.cornell.edu/supremecourt/text/312/657/USSC_PRO_312_100_82" style="text-decoration-line: none; opacity: 1; transition: color 0.25s ease 0s, background 0.25s ease 0s, opacity 0.25s ease 0s;">United States v. Darby</a>, in which the court began to affirm President Franklin Roosevelt's New Deal economic policies after previously rejecting them as unconstitutional.</font></p><p style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Before then, of course, many cases asked the court to interpret clauses of the Constitution for the first time, so there were often no precedents to confront or overturn.</font></p><p><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><b><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">Under Chief Justices Earl Warren, Warren Burger, William Rehnquist and now John Roberts, the court overturned constitutional precedent 32, 32, 30 and 15 times, respectively. </span><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 153, 0);">That is well under 1% of decisions handled during each period in the court's history.</span></b></font></p><h2 style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">When is precedent overturned?</font></h2><p><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" style="background-color: rgb(255, 204, 102);">For most of its history the court changed its mind only when it thought past precedent was unworkable or no longer viable, perhaps eroded by its subsequent opinions or by changing social conditions.</font></p><p><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" style="background-color: rgb(255, 204, 102);">This happened in <a href="https://www.law.cornell.edu/supremecourt/text/304/64" style="text-decoration-line: none; opacity: 1; transition: color 0.25s ease 0s, background 0.25s ease 0s, opacity 0.25s ease 0s;">Erie Railroad v. Tompkins</a>, a 1938 Supreme Court case overturning a <a href="https://www.law.cornell.edu/supremecourt/text/41/1" style="text-decoration-line: none; opacity: 1; transition: color 0.25s ease 0s, background 0.25s ease 0s, opacity 0.25s ease 0s;">96-year-old precedent</a> in which the court had constructed rules about how federal courts should handle cases involving parties from different states. The court in Erie said that the original decision proved to be unworkable and had been undermined by the court's own later decisions.</font></p><p><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" style="background-color: rgb(255, 204, 102);">The court has also said that its precedents based on <a href="https://www.law.cornell.edu/supct/html/90-5721.ZO.html" style="text-decoration-line: none; opacity: 1; transition: color 0.25s ease 0s, background 0.25s ease 0s, opacity 0.25s ease 0s;">constitutional grounds</a> deserve less respect than those in which the court interprets statutes or laws. The reason is that if Congress thinks the court has erred in a matter of interpreting a statute or law, it is relatively easy for them to overturn it by passing a new law. But it's quite hard to pass a constitutional amendment, so the only real way to update the judicial understanding of the Constitution is to overrule a precedent.</font></p><p><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" style="background-color: rgb(255, 204, 102);">Of course the most famous reversal of precedent is the 1954 <a href="https://www.law.cornell.edu/wex/brown_v_board_of_education(1954)" style="text-decoration-line: none; opacity: 1; transition: color 0.25s ease 0s, background 0.25s ease 0s, opacity 0.25s ease 0s;">Brown v. Board of Education</a> under the Warren Court, in which it reversed <a href="https://www.law.cornell.edu/supremecourt/text/163/537" style="text-decoration-line: none; opacity: 1; transition: color 0.25s ease 0s, background 0.25s ease 0s, opacity 0.25s ease 0s;">Plessy v. Ferguson</a> and struck down segregation under the “separate but equal" doctrine.</font></p><p style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Roe v. Wade is an important precedent. In 1973 the Supreme Court ruled that women have a right to terminate their pregnancies. That right was reaffirmed in 1991 in <a href="https://www.law.cornell.edu/supremecourt/text/505/833" style="text-decoration-line: none; opacity: 1; transition: color 0.25s ease 0s, background 0.25s ease 0s, opacity 0.25s ease 0s;">Planned Parenthood v. Casey</a>, with Justices Sandra Day O'Connor, Anthony Kennedy and David Souter noting that an entire generation of women came of age relying upon their right to control their bodies and terminate pregnancies in most circumstances. The justices said it would be wrong to upset that expectation.</font></p><p style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><a href="https://www.amazon.com/Rights-Turn-Conservative-Christian-Politics/dp/1108405606/ref=sr_1_4?dchild=1&keywords=abortion+politics&qid=1631829608&s=books&sr=1-4" style="text-decoration-line: none; opacity: 1; transition: color 0.25s ease 0s, background 0.25s ease 0s, opacity 0.25s ease 0s;">Roe has also spurred opposition</a>, with many wanting to overturn it. For years, presidents including Ronald Reagan, George H.W. Bush, George W. Bush and Donald Trump sought to appoint justices to the Supreme Court with <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/2017/live-updates/trump-white-house/neil-gorsuch-confirmation-hearings-updates-and-analysis-on-the-supreme-court-nominee/trump-promised-judges-who-would-overturn-roe-v-wade/" style="text-decoration-line: none; opacity: 1; transition: color 0.25s ease 0s, background 0.25s ease 0s, opacity 0.25s ease 0s;">the goal of overturning Roe</a> and, with it, abortion rights. Now with a <a href="https://theconversation.com/3-ways-a-6-3-supreme-court-would-be-different-146558" style="text-decoration-line: none; opacity: 1; transition: color 0.25s ease 0s, background 0.25s ease 0s, opacity 0.25s ease 0s;">6-3 conservative majority</a>, the court may be poised to do that.</font></p><h2 style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Justices get more comfortable reversing precedent</font></h2><p style=""><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" style=""><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">Beginning with the Rehnquist court, justices have become more willing to reject precedents they think were badly reasoned, simply wrong, or inconsistent with their own senses of the constitutional framers' intentions. </span><b style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">Justice <a href="https://www.law.cornell.edu/supremecourt/text/18-1323" style="text-decoration-line: none; opacity: 1; transition: color 0.25s ease 0s, background 0.25s ease 0s, opacity 0.25s ease 0s;">Clarence Thomas</a> </b><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">has taken this position on abortion. J</span><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">ustice Amy Coney Barrett during her <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/podcasts/daily-202-big-idea/supreme-court-nominee-does-not-consider-roe-v-wade-a-super-precedent/" style="text-decoration-line: none; opacity: 1; transition: color 0.25s ease 0s, background 0.25s ease 0s, opacity 0.25s ease 0s;">Senate confirmation hearing</a> argued that Roe is not a so-called superprecedent, a decision so important or foundational that it cannot be overturned.</span></font></p><p><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">Chief Justice Roberts has been willing to overturn settled law when he thinks the original opinion was not well argued. He did so in </span><b style="background-color: rgb(255, 153, 0);"><a href="https://www.law.cornell.edu/supct/html/08-205.ZC.html" style="text-decoration-line: none; opacity: 1; transition: color 0.25s ease 0s, background 0.25s ease 0s, opacity 0.25s ease 0s;">Citizens United</a>, a 2010 decision </b><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">overturning two major campaign finance decisions, </span><a href="https://www.law.cornell.edu/supremecourt/text/494/652" style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102); text-decoration-line: none; opacity: 1; transition: color 0.25s ease 0s, background 0.25s ease 0s, opacity 0.25s ease 0s;">Austin v. Michigan Chamber of Commerce</a><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);"> and part of </span><a href="https://www.law.cornell.edu/supct/html/02-1674.ZS.html" style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102); text-decoration-line: none; opacity: 1; transition: color 0.25s ease 0s, background 0.25s ease 0s, opacity 0.25s ease 0s;">McConnell v. FEC</a><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">.</span></font></p><p><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">In 2020, Justices Neil Gorsuch and Brett Kavanaugh in </span><a href="https://www.law.cornell.edu/supremecourt/text/18-5924" style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); text-decoration-line: none; opacity: 1; transition: color 0.25s ease 0s, background 0.25s ease 0s, opacity 0.25s ease 0s;">Ramos v. Louisiana</a><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"> went out of their way to explain and justify their views on when constitutional precedent may be overturned. They echoed Justice </span><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 153, 0);">Samuel Alito's discussion in 2018 in <b><a href="https://www.law.cornell.edu/supct/cert/16-1466" style="text-decoration-line: none; opacity: 1; transition: color 0.25s ease 0s, background 0.25s ease 0s, opacity 0.25s ease 0s;">Janus v. American Federation of State, County, and Municipal Employees Council Number 31</a>.</b> All three justices said constitutional precedent is merely a matter of court policy or discretion, more easily overturned than a precedent about a law. Sometimes, they said, constitutional precedents can be overruled if later judges view them as wrongly decided or reasoned.</span></font></p><p style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><b>Abortion foes have been preparing practically since Roe was decided to overturn it. They have set both the political conditions and legal justification to overturn Roe, and perhaps this year it will be the time when it finally happens. <img alt="The Conversation" height="1" src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/168052/count.gif?distributor=republish-lightbox-basic" width="1" style="border: 0px; vertical-align: middle; max-width: 100%;" /></b></font></p><p style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><a href="https://theconversation.com/profiles/david-schultz-541364" style="text-decoration-line: none; opacity: 1; transition: color 0.25s ease 0s, background 0.25s ease 0s, opacity 0.25s ease 0s;">David Schultz</a>, Professor of Law, University of Minnesota; Professor of Political Science, <a href="https://theconversation.com/institutions/hamline-university-2113" style="text-decoration-line: none; opacity: 1; transition: color 0.25s ease 0s, background 0.25s ease 0s, opacity 0.25s ease 0s;">Hamline University</a></font></p></div><div><font face="Times New Roman" size="4">
</font></div><div><font face="Times New Roman" size="4">=</font></div></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">=</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><a href="https://inthesetimes.com/features/janus_supreme_court_unions_investigation.html">https://inthesetimes.com/features/janus_supreme_court_unions_investigation.html</a></font></div><div>
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</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">no lnx grafs</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><b>Behind Janus: Documents Reveal Decade-Long Plot to Kill Public-Sector Unions</b></font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">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.</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">MARY BOTTARI</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">ILLUSTRATIONS BY ANNEE SCHWANK</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">FEBRUARY 22 | MARCH ISSUE</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">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.</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">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. </font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
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</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">From the <b>March 2018</b> issue</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">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.</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">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.”</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">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.</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">“TRUST TEACHERS!”</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><b>On Jan. 11, 2016, about 100 people bundled in coats and mittens mill around the Supreme Court steps</b>. They hold signs with little red apples that read, “Trust Teachers!” and “Respect Teachers? Then respect their First Amendment rights!”</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><b>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. </b>Daniel Turner, who worked for the education reform task force of the far-right American Legislative Exchange Council (<span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">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</span> is present, as is a fellow from the Koch brothers’<span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);"> Americans for Prosperity </span>(who also declines an interview).</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">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<span style="background-color: rgb(255, 204, 102);"> amicus curiae</span> (“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.</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">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.</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">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.</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><b>Janus has its origins in a lawsuit filed by billionaire Illinois Gov. Bruce Rauner</b>.<span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);"> 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.</span></font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" style="background-color: rgb(255, 204, 102);">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.”<b> 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.</b></font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);"><b>The Court decided 40 years ago in Abood v. Detroit Board of Education that fair share fees are constitutional. </b>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.</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><b>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.”</b></font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
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</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">THE TROIKA</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">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.</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">“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. … <b>ALEC, SPN and the Kochs’ Americans for Prosperity </b>have 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.” </font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
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</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Infographic ]</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">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.</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">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.</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><b>SPN </b>is 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.</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">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.</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">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.</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><b>“This form of ultra-conservatism is geared toward making sure that there is no organized power outside of big business and wealthy, organized donors,”</b> 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.</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 204, 102);">The work of this “troika,” as Skocpol and Hertel-Fernandez call it, is underwritten by corporations, right-wing foundations and a handful of billionaires</span>. Most corporate donors have<span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);"> 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.</span></font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><b>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.</b></font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">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<b>. Like the Koch brothers’ father, Fred Koch, Harry was a big supporter of the far-right, anti-civil rights John Birch Society.</b> 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. </font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">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.</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">IN THE STATEHOUSE</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><b>A trove of Bradley Foundation documents were leaked in 2016 by a sophisticated group of international hackers</b>. <span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">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.</span></font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">In 2003, Bradley launched its disingenuously named Working Group on Employee Rights at a private meeting in Washington, D.C. The group included<b> Grover Norquist</b> of 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</span>. 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).</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">[pix Bradley Foundation board chair and multimillionare James Arthur “Art” Pope (L) and Bradley board member and billionaire Diane M. Hendricks</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">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.</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" style=""><b style="background-color: rgb(255, 204, 102);">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</b><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">. This was the opportunity the groups had been waiting for.</span></font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">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.</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><b>
</b></font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><b>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</b>. Walker justified the bill by declaring repeatedly that the state was “broke.”[2 SANTAS] <span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">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.”)</span></font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);"><b>The Wisconsin gambit has been repeated in red state after red state. All told, 15 states</b> 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.</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><b>IN THE COURTS</b></font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><b>
</b></font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><b>States under Democratic control required different strategies. A blitzkrieg of lawsuits against unions were unleashed,</b> 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. <span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">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.</span></font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><b>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.</b> 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.</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">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.</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
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</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Infographic]</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><b>Another funder of this work is the National Federation of Independent Business (NFIB)</b>, 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 <b>book The One Percent Solution: How Corporations Are Remaking America, One State at a Time, political economist Gordon Lafer </b>quotes a 2015 NFIB blog post: “<span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">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.”</span></font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Lafer, a professor at the University of Oregon’s Labor Education and Research Center, insists the <span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">corporate money behind these institutions should not be overlooked.</span> “<span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">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.”</span></font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><b>DEFUNDING THE DEMOCRATS</b></font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" style="background-color: rgb(255, 204, 102);">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. “<b>Now try funding the modern Democratic Party without union dues—good luck.”</b></font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">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,<b> unions contributed an estimated $602 million to state and federal races and ballot initiatives in 2016.</b> Slightly more than <b>half of that ($319 million) came from public-sector unions</b>. <b>In 2016, labor was the largest contributor to state-level Democratic candidates</b>, 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.</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">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 that<b> right-to-work laws decrease Democratic presidential vote share by 3.5 percent and depress overall turnout.</b></font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><b>BEHIND CLOSED DOORS</b></font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><b>
</b></font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><b>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.</b></font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">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 channel<b>s 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.</b></font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">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 characterized<b> Friedrichs as a case “that could decimate public-sector unions.”</b></font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">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.”</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">For Bradley, the anti-union work was a <b>twofer. Bradley has long been a proponent of the privatization of America’s schools;</b> 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.</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">“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.”</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">In an April 2016 fundraising letter obtained by the Center for Media and Democracy and published in the Guardian<b>, SPN CEO Tracie Sharpe asks her readers to help strike “a major blow to the Left’s ability to control government.”</b></font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">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.</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">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.”</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">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, “<b>The Freedom Foundation has a proven plan for bankrupting and defeating government unions through education, litigation, legislation and community activation.”</b></font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">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.</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><b>SPN member groups have also cited their union-busting efforts as key to electing Trump.</b><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);"> The Wall Street Journal profiled Tracie Sharpe in a post-election puff piece on its editorial page, titled “<b>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. </b>“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.”</span></font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><b>Unions lost 136,000 members in Wisconsin; Trump won by 23,000 votes.</b> <span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">“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.”</span></font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><b>Most of the groups pursuing this agenda, including Bradley and SPN, are tax-exempt charitable groups.</b><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 204, 102);"> 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.</span></font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" style="background-color: rgb(255, 204, 102);">“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.”</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><b>DEGRADATION OF CRITICAL SERVICES</b></font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><b>
</b></font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><b>The Democratic Party is not the only loser in this scenario; real harm will be done to U.S. workers and their families.</b> 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 <b>era of shared prosperity.</b> According to the Economic Policy Institute, <span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">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.<b> This decline has exactly tracked the decline of the American middle class.</b></span></font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><b>The attack on public-sector workers is also an attack on women and African Americans,</b> 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.</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">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.</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">“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.</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><b>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</b>. [THE COMMONS] <span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">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 <b>staggering shortage of teachers, including an “extreme” shortage in math and science, </b>forcing the state’s independent Department of Education to reluctantly issue “emergency” teacher’s licenses.</span></font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><b>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.</b> <span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">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.</span></font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">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? </font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">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.</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">=</font></div></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
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</font></div><div><a href="https://www.exposedbycmd.org/2019/05/28/corporate-funded-groups-continue-campaign-cripple-public-sector-unions"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" color="#000000">https://www.exposedbycmd.org/2019/05/28/corporate-funded-groups-continue-campaign-cripple-public-sector-unions</font></a></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">don weiner</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">519</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><p class="p1" style="box-sizing: inherit; margin: 0px 0px 10px; padding: 0px; word-spacing: 3.6px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><b>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 <em style="box-sizing: inherit;">Janus v. AFSCME</em> last year are now suing to retroactively recover fees paid before the Court’s ruling.</b></font></p><p class="p1" style="box-sizing: inherit; margin: 0px 0px 10px; padding: 0px; word-spacing: 3.6px;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">This is the latest move in the right-wing’s quest to <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2017/aug/30/rightwing-alliance-unions-defund-defang" target="blank" rel="noopener noreferrer" style="background-image: initial; background-position: 0px 0px; background-size: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-attachment: initial; background-origin: initial; background-clip: initial; box-sizing: inherit; transition: all 500ms ease-in-out 0s; text-decoration-line: none;">“defund and defang”</a> 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.</font></p><p class="p1" style="box-sizing: inherit; margin: 0px 0px 10px; padding: 0px; word-spacing: 3.6px;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">Two groups that spearheaded the <em style="box-sizing: inherit;">Janus</em> case, the <a href="https://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php?title=Liberty_Justice_Center" target="blank" rel="noopener noreferrer" style="background-image: initial; background-position: 0px 0px; background-size: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-attachment: initial; background-origin: initial; background-clip: initial; box-sizing: inherit; transition: all 500ms ease-in-out 0s; text-decoration-line: none;">Liberty Justice Center</a> (LJC) and <a href="https://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php?title=National_Right_to_Work_Legal_Defense_Foundation" target="blank" rel="noopener noreferrer" style="background-image: initial; background-position: 0px 0px; background-size: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-attachment: initial; background-origin: initial; background-clip: initial; box-sizing: inherit; transition: all 500ms ease-in-out 0s; text-decoration-line: none;">National Right to Work Legal Defense Foundation</a> (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.</font></p><p class="p1" style="box-sizing: inherit; margin: 0px 0px 10px; padding: 0px; word-spacing: 3.6px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Public employee unions are required to represent all workers, whether they join the union or not, so unions have collected <a href="https://www.epi.org/publication/janus-and-fair-share-fees-the-organizations-financing-the-attack-on-unions-ability-to-represent-workers/" target="blank" rel="noopener noreferrer" style="box-sizing: inherit; background: 0px 0px; transition: all 500ms ease-in-out 0s; text-decoration-line: none;">“fair share” fees</a>, 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 <em style="box-sizing: inherit;">Abood v. Detroit Board of Education</em> in 1977, but the Court turned its back on that precedent in <a href="https://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php?title=Janus_vs.AFSCME,U.S.Supreme_Court_Case" target="blank" rel="noopener noreferrer" style="box-sizing: inherit; background: 0px 0px; transition: all 500ms ease-in-out 0s; text-decoration-line: none;">the <em style="box-sizing: inherit;">Janus</em> case</a> and struck them down on First Amendment grounds.</font></p><p class="p1" style="box-sizing: inherit; margin: 0px 0px 10px; padding: 0px; word-spacing: 3.6px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">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.”</font></p><p class="p1" style="box-sizing: inherit; margin: 0px 0px 10px; padding: 0px; word-spacing: 3.6px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">“That ruling echoes what more than a dozen other federal and state courts have decided in similar cases,” AFSCME spokesman Anders Lindall <a href="https://www.chicagotribune.com/news/local/breaking/ct-met-fair-share-lawsuit-20190501-story.html" target="blank" rel="noopener noreferrer" style="box-sizing: inherit; background: 0px 0px; transition: all 500ms ease-in-out 0s; text-decoration-line: none;">told</a> the <em style="box-sizing: inherit;">Chicago Tribune</em>. “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.”</font></p><p class="p1" style="box-sizing: inherit; margin: 0px 0px 10px; padding: 0px; word-spacing: 3.6px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">In its <em style="box-sizing: inherit;">Janus</em> 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.</font></p><p class="p1" style="box-sizing: inherit; margin: 0px 0px 10px; padding: 0px; word-spacing: 3.6px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">With respect to both lawsuits and the earlier <em style="box-sizing: inherit;">Janus</em> 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.</font></p><p class="p1" style="box-sizing: inherit; margin: 0px 0px 10px; padding: 0px; word-spacing: 3.6px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">In addition to the new lawsuit, LJC and NRTWLDF <a href="https://www.sj-r.com/news/20190327/former-state-worker-janus-asks-court-to-order-union-fee-repayment" target="blank" rel="noopener noreferrer" style="box-sizing: inherit; background: 0px 0px; transition: all 500ms ease-in-out 0s; text-decoration-line: none;">have appealed</a> the original case to the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Seventh Circuit.</font></p><p class="p1" style="box-sizing: inherit; margin: 0px 0px 10px; padding: 0px; word-spacing: 3.6px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></p><h2 style="box-sizing: inherit; line-height: 1.2; margin: 0px 0px 10px; word-spacing: 3.6px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Lawsuits Bankrolled by Corporate Foundations and a Megadonor</font></h2><p class="p1" style="box-sizing: inherit; margin: 0px 0px 10px; padding: 0px; word-spacing: 3.6px;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);"><a href="https://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php?title=Richard_Uihlein" target="blank" rel="noopener noreferrer" style="background-image: initial; background-position: 0px 0px; background-size: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-attachment: initial; background-origin: initial; background-clip: initial; box-sizing: inherit; transition: all 500ms ease-in-out 0s; text-decoration-line: none;">Richard Uihlein</a>, 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.</font></p><p class="p1" style="box-sizing: inherit; margin: 0px 0px 10px; padding: 0px; word-spacing: 3.6px;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">The LJC, part of the right-wing <a href="https://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php?title=Illinois_Policy_Institute" target="blank" rel="noopener noreferrer" style="box-sizing: inherit; background-image: initial; background-position: 0px 0px; background-size: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-attachment: initial; background-origin: initial; background-clip: initial; transition: all 500ms ease-in-out 0s; text-decoration-line: none;">Illinois Policy Institute</a> at the time of the <em style="box-sizing: inherit;">Janus</em> 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 <a href="https://www.exposedbycmd.org/bradley-files/" target="blank" rel="noopener noreferrer" style="box-sizing: inherit; background-image: initial; background-position: 0px 0px; background-size: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-attachment: initial; background-origin: initial; background-clip: initial; transition: all 500ms ease-in-out 0s; text-decoration-line: none;">series of articles</a> in 2017.</font></p><p class="p1" style="box-sizing: inherit; margin: 0px 0px 10px; padding: 0px; word-spacing: 3.6px;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">Uihlein has given over <a href="https://www.propublica.org/article/illinois-policy-institute-john-tillman-transactions" target="blank" rel="noopener noreferrer" style="background-image: initial; background-position: 0px 0px; background-size: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-attachment: initial; background-origin: initial; background-clip: initial; box-sizing: inherit; transition: all 500ms ease-in-out 0s; text-decoration-line: none;">$8.6 million</a> to Illinois Policy Institute since 2009 and at least another <a href="https://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php?title=Ed_Uihlein_Family_Foundation" target="blank" rel="noopener noreferrer" style="background-image: initial; background-position: 0px 0px; background-size: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-attachment: initial; background-origin: initial; background-clip: initial; box-sizing: inherit; transition: all 500ms ease-in-out 0s; text-decoration-line: none;">$800,000</a> 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.</font></p><p class="p1" style="box-sizing: inherit; margin: 0px 0px 10px; padding: 0px; word-spacing: 3.6px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Uihlein has also given <a href="https://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php?title=Ed_Uihlein_Family_Foundation" target="blank" rel="noopener noreferrer" style="box-sizing: inherit; background: 0px 0px; transition: all 500ms ease-in-out 0s; text-decoration-line: none;">$300,000</a> 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.</font></p><p class="p1" style="box-sizing: inherit; margin: 0px 0px 10px; padding: 0px; word-spacing: 3.6px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">LJC’s most recent <a href="https://www.documentcloud.org/documents/6022369-Liberty-Justice-Center-2017-990.html" target="blank" rel="noopener noreferrer" style="box-sizing: inherit; background: 0px 0px; transition: all 500ms ease-in-out 0s; text-decoration-line: none;">IRS 990 filing</a> 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 <em style="box-sizing: inherit;">Janus case</em>. LJC’s chair, John Tillman, was paid over $400,000 in 2017 from affiliated nonprofits, principally the Illinois Policy Institute.</font></p><p class="p1" style="box-sizing: inherit; margin: 0px 0px 10px; padding: 0px; word-spacing: 3.6px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">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.</font></p><p class="p1" style="box-sizing: inherit; margin: 0px 0px 10px; padding: 0px; word-spacing: 3.6px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Bradley Foundation grants to SPN “affiliate” and “associate” members stretch back decades and amount to approximately $133 million, according to Bradley grant summary documents <a href="https://www.exposedbycmd.org/2017/09/05/bradley-foundation-funnels-millions-state-policy-network-groups/" target="blank" rel="noopener noreferrer" style="box-sizing: inherit; background: 0px 0px; transition: all 500ms ease-in-out 0s; text-decoration-line: none;">tallied</a> by CMD.</font></p><p class="p1" style="box-sizing: inherit; margin: 0px 0px 10px; padding: 0px; word-spacing: 3.6px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">A 2016 Bradley internal file on SPN <a href="https://www.exposedbycmd.org/2017/09/05/bradley-foundation-funnels-millions-state-policy-network-groups/" target="blank" rel="noopener noreferrer" style="box-sizing: inherit; background: 0px 0px; transition: all 500ms ease-in-out 0s; text-decoration-line: none;">notes</a> 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.</font></p><p class="p1" style="box-sizing: inherit; margin: 0px 0px 10px; padding: 0px; word-spacing: 3.6px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">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.</font></p><p class="p1" style="box-sizing: inherit; margin: 0px 0px 10px; padding: 0px; word-spacing: 3.6px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><span style="box-sizing: inherit;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">David Armiak contributed research to this report.</font></span></p></div><div><p><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"></font></p><p><a href="https://www.iatse728.org/blog/meet-the-money-backing-mark-janus-and-his-case-v-afscme"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" color="#000000">https://www.iatse728.org/blog/meet-the-money-backing-mark-janus-and-his-case-v-afscme</font></a></p><header id="main-content-header" class="clearfix" style="-webkit-tap-highlight-color: rgba(0, 0, 0, 0); zoom: 1; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><h1 id="page-title" style="-webkit-tap-highlight-color: rgba(0, 0, 0, 0); margin: 0px;"><font size="4" style="" face="Times New Roman">Meet the Money Backing Mark Janus and his Case v AFSCME</font></h1><div id="tasks" style="-webkit-tap-highlight-color: rgba(0, 0, 0, 0); margin-bottom: 15px;" /></header><div id="content" style="-webkit-tap-highlight-color: rgba(0, 0, 0, 0);"><div id="block-system-main" class="block block-system no-title odd first last block-count-6 block-region-content block-main" style="-webkit-tap-highlight-color: rgba(0, 0, 0, 0); margin-bottom: 20px;"><article id="node-5757" class="node node-blog article odd node-full clearfix" about="/blog/meet-the-money-backing-mark-janus-and-his-case-v-afscme" typeof="schema:BlogPosting sioc:Post sioct:BlogPost" role="article" style="-webkit-tap-highlight-color: rgba(0, 0, 0, 0); zoom: 1; margin-bottom: 20px;"><div class="node-content" style="-webkit-tap-highlight-color: rgba(0, 0, 0, 0);"><div class="field field-name-body field-type-text-with-summary field-label-hidden view-mode-full" style="-webkit-tap-highlight-color: rgba(0, 0, 0, 0);"><div class="field-items" style="-webkit-tap-highlight-color: rgba(0, 0, 0, 0);"><div class="field-item even" property="content:encoded" style="-webkit-tap-highlight-color: rgba(0, 0, 0, 0);"><p style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); -webkit-tap-highlight-color: rgba(0, 0, 0, 0); margin: 0px 0px 1.5em;"><span style="-webkit-tap-highlight-color: rgba(0, 0, 0, 0);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" style="">Janus v. AFSCME is a crowning triumph of a loose network of right-wing think tanks and legal foundations which have spent decades chipping away at the government safety net, environmental and business restrictions, and the rights of unions.</font></span></p><p style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); -webkit-tap-highlight-color: rgba(0, 0, 0, 0); margin: 0px 0px 1.5em;"><span style="-webkit-tap-highlight-color: rgba(0, 0, 0, 0);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Janus challenges a 1977 ruling, Abood v. Detroit Board of Education. Except in right-to-work states (where none of these rules apply), each state decides whether state employees are obligated to pay agency fees. Because unions engage in political activity, Abood ruled that compulsory union membership violated state employees’ freedom of speech. However, the court also upheld employees’ obligation to reimburse unions for their advocacy, which worked on behalf of both those in the union and those who weren’t. (Otherwise they would be “free riders,” who gain material benefits from the unions but do not pay for these services.) Abood held that these employees could be obligated to pay agency fees, which covered all union costs except for political campaigns; these are usually <a href="http://www.labornotes.org/2017/10/bracing-right-work-public-sector-unions-ante" target="blank" rel="noopener noreferrer" style="-webkit-tap-highlight-color: rgba(0, 0, 0, 0); text-decoration-line: none;">90 percent</a> of union dues. Janus will revisit this question. According to the <a href="http://www.epi.org/publication/black-women-will-be-most-affected-by-janus/" target="blank" rel="noopener noreferrer" style="-webkit-tap-highlight-color: rgba(0, 0, 0, 0); text-decoration-line: none;">Economic Policy Institute</a>, “the case will affect about 17 million public-sector workers across the country.” It will also disproportionately affect black women, who “make up 17.7 percent of public-sector workers, or about 1.5 million workers.”</font></span></p><p style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); -webkit-tap-highlight-color: rgba(0, 0, 0, 0); margin: 0px 0px 1.5em;"><span style="-webkit-tap-highlight-color: rgba(0, 0, 0, 0);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">The case’s plaintiff is <a href="https://nwlaborpress.org/2018/02/right-to-work-nation-getting-ready-for-janus-v-afscme" target="blank" rel="noopener noreferrer" style="-webkit-tap-highlight-color: rgba(0, 0, 0, 0); text-decoration-line: none;">Mark Janus</a>, who works for the Illinois Department of Healthcare and Family Services, and is represented by AFSCME. Mr. Janus makes an annual salary of $71,000, and is suing over a $45 monthly agency fee to AFSCME.</font></span></p><p style="-webkit-tap-highlight-color: rgba(0, 0, 0, 0); margin: 0px 0px 1.5em;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" style=""><span style="-webkit-tap-highlight-color: rgba(0, 0, 0, 0); background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">But this isn’t an instance of one angry man driven by a litigious rage to make it easier for his employer to decrease his income. Mr. Janus is backed by a slew of think tanks and foundations who are funded by the Koch Brothers, among others. Behind Mark Janus are millionaires and billionaires whose life work is to destroy, not just unions, but all social guarantees for people in the US.</span></font></p><p style="-webkit-tap-highlight-color: rgba(0, 0, 0, 0); margin: 0px 0px 1.5em;"><span style="-webkit-tap-highlight-color: rgba(0, 0, 0, 0);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" style=""><b style=""><a href="https://nwlaborpress.org/2018/02/right-to-work-nation-getting-ready-for-janus-v-afscme" target="blank" rel="noopener noreferrer" style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); -webkit-tap-highlight-color: rgba(0, 0, 0, 0); text-decoration-line: none;">The case originated</a><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"> with</span><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);"> billionaire private equity fund manager Bruce Rauner’s run for Illinois governor in 2014. </span><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">He went to court to stop the collection of agency fees. The courts said that Rauner didn’t have standing in the case, but they allowed Janus to take his place.</span></b></font></span></p><p style="-webkit-tap-highlight-color: rgba(0, 0, 0, 0); margin: 0px 0px 1.5em;"><span style="-webkit-tap-highlight-color: rgba(0, 0, 0, 0);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" style=""><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">Janus is not alone in his "struggle"; he is represented by lawyers from the National Right To Work Legal Defense Fund (NRTWLDF) and the Liberty Justice Center. These are just two of the many well-funded right-wing groups working to destroy decent living standards for working people</span><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">.</span></font></span></p><p style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); -webkit-tap-highlight-color: rgba(0, 0, 0, 0); margin: 0px 0px 1.5em;"><span style="-webkit-tap-highlight-color: rgba(0, 0, 0, 0);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><b>The NRTWLDF is a non-profit which is associated with the 501(c)4 lobbying group, the National Right to Work Committee (NRTWC), as well as the National Institute for Labor Relations Research.</b> In 2012, the three groups, which are dedicated to destroying unions, <a href="http://progressive.org/dispatches/behind-national-right-work-committee-anti-union-crusade" target="blank" rel="noopener noreferrer" style="-webkit-tap-highlight-color: rgba(0, 0, 0, 0); text-decoration-line: none;">pulled in $25 million</a>. The founder of the NRTWC,<b> Reed Larson, was a leader in the far right John Birch Society</b>. They traffic in a variety of far right conspiracy theories, many of them derived from antisemitism, opposed to the Civil Rights movement, and have an extreme pro-market approach. The John Birch Society cleaned up these ideas by making them origins seem less obvious, and wrapped them up in an ultra-patriotic images and slogans. Larson was in the same John Birch Society chapter with Fred Koch (the father of the infamous Koch brothers Charles and David), and the NRTWC has received significantly amounts of money from the Koch family.</font></span></p><p style="-webkit-tap-highlight-color: rgba(0, 0, 0, 0); margin: 0px 0px 1.5em;"><span style="-webkit-tap-highlight-color: rgba(0, 0, 0, 0); background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" style="">The NRTWC is also connected to a variety of rightwing groups such as ALEC (American Legislative Exchange Council), which is notorious for <a href="https://www.thenation.com/article/alec-exposed/" target="blank" rel="noopener noreferrer" style="-webkit-tap-highlight-color: rgba(0, 0, 0, 0); text-decoration-line: none;">authoring a wide variety</a> of right-wing legislation. NRTWLDF is a member of the <a href="https://www.politicalresearch.org/2013/11/25/exposed-how-the-rights-state-based-think-tanks-are-transforming-u-s-politics/" target="blank" rel="noopener noreferrer" style="-webkit-tap-highlight-color: rgba(0, 0, 0, 0); text-decoration-line: none;">State Policy Network</a>, a Koch-backed network of state-based right-wing think tanks and foundations. NRTWC <a href="https://www.prwatch.org/news/2014/06/12498/who-behind-national-right-work-committee-and-its-anti-union-crusade" target="blank" rel="noopener noreferrer" style="-webkit-tap-highlight-color: rgba(0, 0, 0, 0); text-decoration-line: none;">spent $7 million</a> in the 2012 elections. In 1984, they were <a href="https://law.justia.com/cases/federal/district-courts/FSupp/916/10/1516315/" target="blank" rel="noopener noreferrer" style="-webkit-tap-highlight-color: rgba(0, 0, 0, 0); text-decoration-line: none;">accused of spending $100,000</a> on private detectives who infiltrated the AFL-CIO and other progressive groups.</font></span></p><p style="-webkit-tap-highlight-color: rgba(0, 0, 0, 0); margin: 0px 0px 1.5em;"><span style="-webkit-tap-highlight-color: rgba(0, 0, 0, 0);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" style=""><b style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">The Liberty Justice Center’s Director of Litigation, Jacob Huebert, is <a href="https://libertyjusticecenter.org/cases/janus-v-afscme" target="blank" rel="noopener noreferrer" style="-webkit-tap-highlight-color: rgba(0, 0, 0, 0); text-decoration-line: none;">one of Janus’s lawyers</a>.</b> <span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">The center is a public interest law firm, so its funding isn’t visible, but it is connected to the Illinois Policy Institute. This institute is part of the <b>State Policy Network, and receives money from Koch-linked groups such as Donors Trust. The Illinois Policy Institute <a href="http://conservativetransparency.org/basic-search/?q=illinois+policy+institute&sf%5B%5D=candidate&sf%5B%5D=donor&sf%5B%5D=recipient&sf%5B%5D=transaction&sf%5B%5D=finances" target="blank" rel="noopener noreferrer" style="-webkit-tap-highlight-color: rgba(0, 0, 0, 0); text-decoration-line: none;">also received money</a> from the Mercer Family Foundation</b>. The Mercers have funded <a href="https://www.buzzfeed.com/josephbernstein/heres-how-breitbart-and-milo-smuggled-white-nationalism" target="blank" rel="noopener noreferrer" style="-webkit-tap-highlight-color: rgba(0, 0, 0, 0); text-decoration-line: none;">Far Right propaganda outfits</a> with connections to White Nationalists such as Breitbart and alt-right troll Milo Yiannopoulos.</span></font></span></p><p style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); -webkit-tap-highlight-color: rgba(0, 0, 0, 0); margin: 0px 0px 1.5em;"><span style="-webkit-tap-highlight-color: rgba(0, 0, 0, 0);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">In addition to these two groups, dozens of organizations have submitted <a href="http://www.scotusblog.com/case-files/cases/janus-v-american-federation-state-county-municipal-employees-council-31/" target="blank" rel="noopener noreferrer" style="-webkit-tap-highlight-color: rgba(0, 0, 0, 0); text-decoration-line: none;">amici curiae briefs</a> in Janus, showing a cross-section of the right-wing groups who are supporting this attack. They include the <b>Mackinac Center for Public Policy in Michigan</b>. Mackinac <a href="https://www.publicintegrity.org/2012/05/17/8890/alec-anti-union-push-includes-key-players-michigan-arizona-think-tanks" target="blank" rel="noopener noreferrer" style="-webkit-tap-highlight-color: rgba(0, 0, 0, 0); text-decoration-line: none;">specifically targets public sector unions</a>; one email from a staffer said, “Our goal is to outlaw government collective bargaining in Michigan.” Mackinac supported <a href="https://www.politicalresearch.org/2013/11/25/exposed-how-the-rights-state-based-think-tanks-are-transforming-u-s-politics/" target="blank" rel="noopener noreferrer" style="-webkit-tap-highlight-color: rgba(0, 0, 0, 0); text-decoration-line: none;">a 2011 Michigan law</a> that gave the governor the power to abolish unions and local governments. It is also part of the State Policy Network and <a href="https://www.publicintegrity.org/2012/05/17/8890/alec-anti-union-push-includes-key-players-michigan-arizona-think-tanks" target="blank" rel="noopener noreferrer" style="-webkit-tap-highlight-color: rgba(0, 0, 0, 0); text-decoration-line: none;">receives Koch-linked funding</a>.</font></span></p><p style="-webkit-tap-highlight-color: rgba(0, 0, 0, 0); margin: 0px 0px 1.5em;"><span style="-webkit-tap-highlight-color: rgba(0, 0, 0, 0); background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" style=""><b>Wisconsin Governor Scott Walker,</b> whose 2011 assault on his state’s public sector unions inaugurated this recent wave of attacks, also receives support from similar networks of right-wing institutions. And Walker, in turn, is tied to Trump’s Education Secretary Betty DeVos, who is intent on destroying public schools as we know them—along with the teachers unions based at them.</font></span></p><p style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); -webkit-tap-highlight-color: rgba(0, 0, 0, 0); margin: 0px 0px 1.5em;"><span style="-webkit-tap-highlight-color: rgba(0, 0, 0, 0);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Walker received support from the Americans for Prosperity, a Koch-linked vehicle. Their president estimated that <a href="https://www.politifact.com/wisconsin/statements/2012/jun/20/debbie-wasserman-schultz/billionaire-koch-brothers-gave-8-million-wisconsin/" target="blank" rel="noopener noreferrer" style="-webkit-tap-highlight-color: rgba(0, 0, 0, 0); text-decoration-line: none;">the group spent $10 million</a> in Wisconsin in 2011 and 2012 to support changes made by both Walker and the legislature. Walker also received significant backing from the <a href="http://www.sandiegouniontribune.com/sdut-before-walker-run-a-conservative-foundation-set-2015jun12-story.html" target="blank" rel="noopener noreferrer" style="-webkit-tap-highlight-color: rgba(0, 0, 0, 0); text-decoration-line: none;">Bradley Foundation</a>. Its founder was <a href="http://inthesetimes.com/features/janus_supreme_court_unions_investigation.html" target="blank" rel="noopener noreferrer" style="-webkit-tap-highlight-color: rgba(0, 0, 0, 0); text-decoration-line: none;">also </a><a href="http://inthesetimes.com/features/janus_supreme_court_unions_investigation.html" target="blank" rel="noopener noreferrer" style="-webkit-tap-highlight-color: rgba(0, 0, 0, 0); text-decoration-line: none;">close</a>to the conspiratorial John Bitch Society. After 2010, <a href="http://inthesetimes.com/features/janus_supreme_court_unions_investigation.html" target="blank" rel="noopener noreferrer" style="-webkit-tap-highlight-color: rgba(0, 0, 0, 0); text-decoration-line: none;">Bradley gave a half million dollars</a> to Americans for Prosperity, which in turn supported Walker. Bradley also provides financial support to the State Policy Network and ALEC. This non-profit which funded several groups that ran interference for Walker as he battled a 2012 recall campaign. The foundation also gave <a href="https://www.prwatch.org/news/2014/06/12515/bradley-foundation-bankrolling-pushback-against-scott-walker-dark-money-criminal" target="blank" rel="noopener noreferrer" style="-webkit-tap-highlight-color: rgba(0, 0, 0, 0); text-decoration-line: none;">over $1 million</a> to media which have attacked an investigation into potential illegal funding which involves Walker. Bradley’s head, Michael Grebe, was also Walker’s campaign manager three times, and was later <a href="https://nonprofitquarterly.org/2015/07/14/bradley-foundations-michael-grebe-to-head-scott-walker-presidential-campaign/" target="blank" rel="noopener noreferrer" style="-webkit-tap-highlight-color: rgba(0, 0, 0, 0); text-decoration-line: none;">tapped to lead</a> Walker’s 2015 presidential effort.</font></span></p><p style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); -webkit-tap-highlight-color: rgba(0, 0, 0, 0); margin: 0px 0px 1.5em;"><span style="-webkit-tap-highlight-color: rgba(0, 0, 0, 0);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">While many of these think tanks and foundations that fixate on public sector unions tend towards an economic libertarianism and are separate from the network of organizations fighting abortion access and LGBTQI rights, there is some crossover. One particular area is the area of charter schools, whose explanation simultaneously allows public dollars to support religious schools, dismantles public education, puts pressure on school budgets, and undermine unions for both teachers and other educational sector workers. Walker <a href="http://archive.jsonline.com/blogs/news/207753841.html" target="blank" rel="noopener noreferrer" style="-webkit-tap-highlight-color: rgba(0, 0, 0, 0); text-decoration-line: none;">expanded his state’s school voucher program</a> starting in 2011. The Center for American Progress says that Devos’s family <a href="http://minnesota.cbslocal.com/2017/01/18/walker-supports-devos/" target="blank" rel="noopener noreferrer" style="-webkit-tap-highlight-color: rgba(0, 0, 0, 0); text-decoration-line: none;">gave Walker $342,000</a> between 2010 and 2017. The pro-voucher group she formerly lead, the American Federation for Children, spent over <a href="http://host.madison.com/wsj/news/local/govt-and-politics/betsy-devos-tied-to-millions-spent-in-wisconsin-politics/article_e05c99b0-4281-593a-b25e-229eb75c1107.html" target="blank" rel="noopener noreferrer" style="-webkit-tap-highlight-color: rgba(0, 0, 0, 0); text-decoration-line: none;">$5 million</a> in Wisconsin since 2010 to support Republican officials. And Walker in turn publicly <a href="https://www.jsonline.com/story/news/education/2017/01/17/scott-walker-endorses-political-benefactor-betsy-devos/96677934/" target="blank" rel="noopener noreferrer" style="-webkit-tap-highlight-color: rgba(0, 0, 0, 0); text-decoration-line: none;">supported Devos’s appointment</a> as Education Secretary. It’s a relatively small circle of wealthy Republicans give each other money and appoint each other to high-ranking positions.</font></span></p><p style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); -webkit-tap-highlight-color: rgba(0, 0, 0, 0); margin: 0px 0px 1.5em;"><span style="-webkit-tap-highlight-color: rgba(0, 0, 0, 0);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Progressive groups used to have a more robust group of think tanks and foundations, but these have been <a href="http://www.politicalresearch.org/2016/11/14/social-movements-need-an-infrastructure-to-survive/" target="blank" rel="noopener noreferrer" style="-webkit-tap-highlight-color: rgba(0, 0, 0, 0); text-decoration-line: none;">systemically defunded for decades</a>. The Republicans have been able to coalesce around four sets demands: religious fundamentalists seek limits gender and sexual freedom; market fundamentalists want to destroy the social safety net and unions; and xenophobes demonize Muslims and immigrants, as well as US-born people of color, including Indigenous and African American communities. The Janus case, with its disproportionate harm for Black women in particular and possible kneecapping of the union movement in general for its support of immigrants’ rights, anti-discrimination measures and the social safety net, manages to neatly combine nearly their whole agenda in one Supreme Court package.</font></span></p><p style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); -webkit-tap-highlight-color: rgba(0, 0, 0, 0); margin: 0px 0px 1.5em;"><span style="-webkit-tap-highlight-color: rgba(0, 0, 0, 0);"><font size="4" style="" face="Times New Roman">Spencer Sunshine is a Brooklyn-based freelance writer. His work has appeared in Truthout, Colorlines and The Forward. His Twitter handle is @transform6789</font></span></p></div></div></div></div></article></div></div></div><p><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"></font></p><p><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><a href="http://documentedinvestigations.org/2018/07/12/janus-decision-rooted-koch-wishlist/" style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">http://documentedinvestigations.org/2018/07/12/janus-decision-rooted-koch-wishlist/</a></font></p><p style="box-sizing: inherit; margin: 0px 0px 1.5em; padding: 0px;"><font size="4" style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);" face="Times New Roman">With last month’s monumental <em style="box-sizing: inherit;">Janus</em> decision by the Supreme Court, the Koch family won a major victory in their multi-generational attack on unions.</font></p><p style="box-sizing: inherit; margin: 0px 0px 1.5em; padding: 0px;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">The ruling spreads to the entire public sector one of the laws the Koch fortune first helped push through in Kansas 60 years ago: “right-to-work.” And in doing so it enshrines the union-busting agenda their fossil fuel money has helped advance for decades.</font></p><p style="box-sizing: inherit; margin: 0px 0px 1.5em; padding: 0px;"><span style="box-sizing: inherit; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" style="">(This story was first <a href="http://inthesetimes.com/working/entry/21294/koch_anti_union_janus_supreme_court" style="box-sizing: inherit; text-decoration-line: none; box-shadow: rgb(15, 15, 15) 0px -1px 0px inset; transition: color 80ms ease-in 0s, box-shadow 130ms ease-in-out 0s, -webkit-box-shadow 130ms ease-in-out 0s;">published</a> by In These Times.)</font></span></p><p style="box-sizing: inherit; margin: 0px 0px 1.5em; padding: 0px;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">Through a single vote, the Court’s 5-4 <em style="box-sizing: inherit;">Janus</em> decision reverses decades of legal precedent that had obstructed part of the Koch’s pro-corporate agenda. That vote was secured with the Kochs’ help in bankrolling efforts that include: helping to maintain a GOP Senate majority; helping the Senate block President Obama from filling the February 2016 Supreme Court vacancy; and helping to win the confirmation of right-wing corporate activist Neil Gorsuch.</font></p><p style="box-sizing: inherit; margin: 0px 0px 1.5em; padding: 0px;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><em style="box-sizing: inherit;">Janus</em> helps cement the nation’s highest court as the Koch Court, and Charles Koch wants to keep it that way.</font></p><p style="box-sizing: inherit; margin: 0px 0px 1.5em; padding: 0px;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><b style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">As Documented <a href="https://theintercept.com/2018/02/25/koch-brothers-trump-administration/" style="box-sizing: inherit; text-decoration-line: none; box-shadow: rgb(15, 15, 15) 0px -1px 0px inset; transition: color 80ms ease-in 0s, box-shadow 130ms ease-in-out 0s, -webkit-box-shadow 130ms ease-in-out 0s;">first detailed</a> in partnership with <em style="box-sizing: inherit;">the Intercept</em>, for months the Kochs had been investing heavily in anticipation of Justice Anthony Kennedy’s retirement from the Court, which was announced on June 27, the same day as <em style="box-sizing: inherit;">Janus</em>. Earlier this year, the Koch group “Americans for Prosperity” (AFP) hired Sarah Field from the Koch-funded Federalist Society to spearhead its campaign to extend the Koch hold on the Court for perhaps a generation or more.</b></font></p><p style="box-sizing: inherit; margin: 0px 0px 1.5em; padding: 0px;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">Despite claims by AFP that helping to seat Gorsuch was their “first” foray into Supreme Court nominations, the Koch effort to influence who becomes a judge and how they interpret the law goes back much further.</font></p><p style="box-sizing: inherit; margin: 0px 0px 1.5em; padding: 0px;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><b>In fact, the Kochs have been investing in reshaping the law to suit their personal agenda for decades. </b>For example, the Koch group Citizens for a Sound Economy, AFP’s predecessor, <a href="http://articles.chicagotribune.com/1991-09-15/news/9103100215_1_national-black-nurses-family-research-council-national-jewish-coalition" style="box-sizing: inherit; text-decoration-line: none; box-shadow: rgb(15, 15, 15) 0px -1px 0px inset; transition: color 80ms ease-in 0s, box-shadow 130ms ease-in-out 0s, -webkit-box-shadow 130ms ease-in-out 0s;">backed</a> Clarence Thomas’ controversial confirmation to the Court more than 25 years ago.</font></p><p style="box-sizing: inherit; margin: 0px 0px 1.5em; padding: 0px;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">The Kochs’ long-term agenda to remake the United States in their image is a multi-pronged effort that includes changing both the law and who makes or interprets the laws, including the anti-union <em style="box-sizing: inherit;">Janus</em> decision.</font></p><h3 style="box-sizing: inherit; clear: both; line-height: 1.4; margin: 0px 0px 0.75em; padding: 1.5em 0px 0px; font-weight: 300; text-transform: uppercase;"><span style="box-sizing: inherit; font-weight: 700; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">THE SEEDS OF JANUS</font></span></h3><p style="box-sizing: inherit; margin: 0px 0px 1.5em; padding: 0px;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">The effort to roll back union rights actually began almost a century ago, as wealthy industrialists objected to the National Labor Relations Act of 1935, known as the Wagner Act, which enshrined the right to collective bargaining in the United States.</font></p><p style="box-sizing: inherit; margin: 0px 0px 1.5em; padding: 0px;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">Many tycoons of the time, like <b>Alfred Sloan</b>, head of General Motors, opposed those rights along with other business reforms of FDR’s New Deal.</font></p><p style="box-sizing: inherit; margin: 0px 0px 1.5em; padding: 0px;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);"><b>Fred Koch,</b> co-founder of the corporation that later became Koch Industries, <a href="https://www.amazon.com/Sons-Wichita-Brothers-Americas-Powerful/dp/B01LTHXJT6" style="box-sizing: inherit; text-decoration-line: none; box-shadow: rgb(15, 15, 15) 0px -1px 0px inset; transition: color 80ms ease-in 0s, box-shadow 130ms ease-in-out 0s, -webkit-box-shadow 130ms ease-in-out 0s;">harshly criticized American workers</a> under New Deal policies in 1938. He extolled the economic policies of Emperor Hirohito and fascists Adolf Hitler and Benito Mussolini:</font></p><blockquote style="box-sizing: inherit; line-height: 1.7; margin: 0px; overflow: hidden; padding: 0px; quotes: "><p style="box-sizing: inherit; margin: 0px 0px 1.5em; padding: 0px;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">Although nobody agrees with me, I am of the opinion that the only sound countries in the world are Germany, Italy, and Japan, simply because they are all working and working hard… The laboring people in those countries are proportionately much better off than they are any place else in the world. When you contrast the state of mind of Germany today with what it was in 1925 you begin to think that perhaps this course of idleness, feeding at the public trough, dependence on government, etc., with which we are afflicted is not permanent and can be overcome.</font></p></blockquote><p style="box-sizing: inherit; margin: 0px 0px 1.5em; padding: 0px;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">Only recently, through the investigative work of Jane Mayer, has the public learned that <a href="https://www.amazon.com/Dark-Money-History-Billionaires-Radical/dp/0307947904/ref=pd_lpo_sbs_14_img_1?encoding=UTF8&psc=1&refRID=QFB6YX7BC9EZ3Y02VSEP" style="box-sizing: inherit; text-decoration-line: none; box-shadow: rgb(15, 15, 15) 0px -1px 0px inset; transition: color 80ms ease-in 0s, box-shadow 130ms ease-in-out 0s, -webkit-box-shadow 130ms ease-in-out 0s;">the Koch fortune was actually built in part on directly aiding Hitler</a> by building the oil-cracking factory that became “a key component in the Nazi war machine.” As Mayer noted in her 2016 book <em style="box-sizing: inherit;">Dark Money: </em><em style="box-sizing: inherit;">The Hidden History of the Billionaires Behind the Rise of the Radical Right</em>, that factory <a href="https://www.prwatch.org/news/2016/01/13014/koch-daddy-and-nazis-revealing-timeline" style="box-sizing: inherit; text-decoration-line: none; box-shadow: rgb(15, 15, 15) 0px -1px 0px inset; transition: color 80ms ease-in 0s, box-shadow 130ms ease-in-out 0s, -webkit-box-shadow 130ms ease-in-out 0s;">refined high-octane fuel needed for the Luftwaffe</a>, which targeted, terrorized, and killed many thousands of innocent civilians.</font><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);"> Fred Koch’s praise of Germany came <em style="box-sizing: inherit;">after </em><a href="https://elpais.com/elpais/2015/12/30/inenglish/1451462698_825891.html" style="box-sizing: inherit; text-decoration-line: none; box-shadow: rgb(15, 15, 15) 0px -1px 0px inset; transition: color 80ms ease-in 0s, box-shadow 130ms ease-in-out 0s, -webkit-box-shadow 130ms ease-in-out 0s;">Hitler’s air bombers helped murder 136 men, women, and children in Guernica</a> in the Basque region, a tragedy made famous by the mural painted by <a href="https://www.pablopicasso.org/guernica.jsp" style="box-sizing: inherit; text-decoration-line: none; box-shadow: rgb(15, 15, 15) 0px -1px 0px inset; transition: color 80ms ease-in 0s, box-shadow 130ms ease-in-out 0s, -webkit-box-shadow 130ms ease-in-out 0s;">Pablo Picasso</a>.</font></p><p style="box-sizing: inherit; margin: 0px 0px 1.5em; padding: 0px;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">Meanwhile, industrialists like Sloan pursued efforts to undo New Deal reforms. In 1947, Congress amended the Wagner Act with the Taft-Hartley Act. It gave states the power to pass “right-to-work” laws that undermined collective bargaining by not requiring workers who benefit from bargained rights to pay dues to the unions that secured and enforced them</font><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">.</font></p><h3 style="box-sizing: inherit; clear: both; line-height: 1.4; margin: 0px 0px 0.75em; padding: 1.5em 0px 0px; font-weight: 300; text-transform: uppercase;"><span style="box-sizing: inherit; font-weight: 700; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">HOW THE KOCHS FERTILIZED “RIGHT-TO-WORK”</font></span></h3><p style="box-sizing: inherit; margin: 0px 0px 1.5em; padding: 0px;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">As Mayer noted:</font></p><blockquote style="box-sizing: inherit; line-height: 1.7; margin: 0px; overflow: hidden; padding: 0px; quotes: "><p style="box-sizing: inherit; margin: 0px 0px 1.5em; padding: 0px;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">[Fred Koch] was an early and active member of the Wichita-based DeMille Foundation for Political Freedom, an anti-labor group [founded in 1945] that was a forerunner of the National Right to Work Defense Foundation. In a revealing private letter, one of its staff members explained the group’s ‘Astroturf’ strategy. In reality, he said, big-business industrialists would run the group, serving as its ‘anonymous quarterbacks,’ and ‘call the turns.’ But he said they needed to sell the ‘yarn’ that the group was ‘composed of housewives, farmers, small businessmen, professional people, wage earners-not big business industrialists.’ Otherwise, he admitted, the movement was ‘almost certainly doomed to failure.’</font></p></blockquote><p style="box-sizing: inherit; margin: 0px 0px 1.5em; padding: 0px;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">By 1954, an engineer from Wichita, Kan., <b>Reed Larson, </b>took a leave from his job at the Coleman Company, to launch <a href="https://books.google.com/books?id=mmZkf7dselMC&pg=PA18714&lpg=PA18714&dq=%22Reed+Larson%22+%22temporary+leave%22&source=bl&ots=lzSBcfR-pD&sig=8bOKm0KpqTMXOdD1BJnKMFtu2wk&hl=en&sa=X&ved=0ahUKEwjm6M7es-bAhVfHDQIHUnRB40Q6AEINjAC#v=onepage&q=%22Reed%20Larson%22%20%22temporary%20leave%22&f=false" style="box-sizing: inherit; text-decoration-line: none; box-shadow: rgb(15, 15, 15) 0px -1px 0px inset; transition: color 80ms ease-in 0s, box-shadow 130ms ease-in-out 0s, -webkit-box-shadow 130ms ease-in-out 0s;">Kansans-for-the-Right-to-Work</a>. The following year, former Rep. Fred Hartley, Jr., (R-N.J.) co-founded the <b>National Right to Work Committee (NRTWC)</b>. By 1958, the NRTWC was targeting six states to adopt right-to-work laws but it failed in every place, except Kansas.</font></p><p style="box-sizing: inherit; margin: 0px 0px 1.5em; padding: 0px;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">“Fred [Koch] co-led a referendum drive to alter the state constitution in order to make it harder for unions to take root in Kansas,” Duke University Professor <a href="https://books.google.com/books/about/Democracy_in_Chains.html?id=iW4ADAAAQBAJ&printsec=frontcover&source=kp_read_button#v=snippet&q=Right-to-Work&f=false" style="box-sizing: inherit; text-decoration-line: none; box-shadow: rgb(15, 15, 15) 0px -1px 0px inset; transition: color 80ms ease-in 0s, box-shadow 130ms ease-in-out 0s, -webkit-box-shadow 130ms ease-in-out 0s;">Nancy MacLean noted</a>.</font></p><p style="box-sizing: inherit; margin: 0px 0px 1.5em; padding: 0px;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">On Nov. 9, 1958, the <em style="box-sizing: inherit;">New York Times </em>reported that right-to-work won in Kansas <a href="https://timesmachine.nytimes.com/timesmachine/1958/11/09/92655331.pdf" style="box-sizing: inherit; text-decoration-line: none; box-shadow: rgb(15, 15, 15) 0px -1px 0px inset; transition: color 80ms ease-in 0s, box-shadow 130ms ease-in-out 0s, -webkit-box-shadow 130ms ease-in-out 0s;">because</a> anti-union views had taken hold, noting:</font></p><blockquote style="box-sizing: inherit; line-height: 1.7; margin: 0px; overflow: hidden; padding: 0px; quotes: "><p style="box-sizing: inherit; margin: 0px 0px 1.5em; padding: 0px;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">More campaign efforts and more money were expended on the emotion-provoking issue than on the campaigns of all Republican and Democratic state and Congressional candidates combined. … For the last 10 days or so before Election Day an organization called Kansans-for-the-Right-to-Work flooded newspapers, television channels and other advertising media with appeals to ‘vote yes.’ These by far outnumbered the ‘vote no’ advertisements of unions opposing the amending.</font></p></blockquote><p style="box-sizing: inherit; margin: 0px 0px 1.5em; padding: 0px;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">A month later, Fred Koch joined Robert Welch and ten other men in Indianapolis to found the extreme rightwing group dubbed the “John Birch Society” (JBS).</font></p><p style="box-sizing: inherit; margin: 0px 0px 1.5em; padding: 0px;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">As the <em style="box-sizing: inherit;">Washington Post</em> noted in its 1961 profile of JBS:</font></p><blockquote style="box-sizing: inherit; line-height: 1.7; margin: 0px; overflow: hidden; padding: 0px; quotes: "><p style="box-sizing: inherit; margin: 0px 0px 1.5em; padding: 0px;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><b>At the top of the Society’s structure in Wichita are several very wealthy industrialists. Oil engineer Fred Koch</b> is president of the Rock Island Oil and Refining Co. A millionaire several times over, he is on the Society’s national council. … Wichita is the John Birch Society’s center of strength in Kansas, and one of its greatest in the country. … The leadership of the Birch Society overlaps heavily with the leadership of the organizations that successfully campaigned in 1958 for a right to work amendment to the State’s Constitution.</font></p></blockquote><p style="box-sizing: inherit; margin: 0px 0px 1.5em; padding: 0px;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">As detailed by Group Research Inc. in its 1962 <a href="https://www.prwatch.org/files/rtw_group_research.pdf" style="box-sizing: inherit; text-decoration-line: none; box-shadow: rgb(15, 15, 15) 0px -1px 0px inset; transition: color 80ms ease-in 0s, box-shadow 130ms ease-in-out 0s, -webkit-box-shadow 130ms ease-in-out 0s;">history of JBS</a>, <b>Koch worked with both NRTWC and the Christian Crusade in arguing against union dues like those at issue in the <em style="box-sizing: inherit;">Janus </em>case.</b></font></p><p style="box-sizing: inherit; margin: 0px 0px 1.5em; padding: 0px;"><span style="box-sizing: inherit; font-weight: 700; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">A History of Hostility</font></span></p><p style="box-sizing: inherit; margin: 0px 0px 1.5em; padding: 0px;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">In 1959, Fred Koch joined the Executive Committee to plan the JBS strategy to push back against what it viewed as communism in nearly every American institution.</font></p><p style="box-sizing: inherit; margin: 0px 0px 1.5em; padding: 0px;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">In 1960, Koch published his <a href="http://justtheevidence.blogspot.com/2014/08/an-american-businessman-looks-at.html" style="box-sizing: inherit; text-decoration-line: none; box-shadow: rgb(15, 15, 15) 0px -1px 0px inset; transition: color 80ms ease-in 0s, box-shadow 130ms ease-in-out 0s, -webkit-box-shadow 130ms ease-in-out 0s;">polemic “A Business Man Looks at Communism”</a> and distributed it to JBS chapters across the country. That pamphlet makes a variety of hysterical claims against unions, including:</font></p><blockquote style="box-sizing: inherit; line-height: 1.7; margin: 0px; overflow: hidden; padding: 0px; quotes: "><p style="box-sizing: inherit; margin: 0px 0px 1.5em; padding: 0px;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">Labor Unions have long been a Communist goal. How far they have been penetrated by Communists I have no idea, but it must be very far indeed, judging the hatred and </font><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">venom poured out in some labor papers….</font></p></blockquote><p style="box-sizing: inherit; margin: 0px 0px 1.5em; padding: 0px;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">Koch also accused the U.S. Supreme Court under former Gov. Earl Warren (R-CA) of issuing pro-Communist decisions, the universities of having thousands of Communist professors, the United Nations of being subversive, and former GOP President Dwight Eisenhower of being soft on Communism.</font></p><p style="box-sizing: inherit; margin: 0px 0px 1.5em; padding: 0px;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">Similar sentiments were expressed in numerous other publications the JBS also pushed. The organization pitched a screed against the <a href="https://www.amazon.com/dp/B00685LGUY/ref=dp-kindle-redirect?encoding=UTF8&btkr=1" style="box-sizing: inherit; text-decoration-line: none; box-shadow: rgb(15, 15, 15) 0px -1px 0px inset; transition: color 80ms ease-in 0s, box-shadow 130ms ease-in-out 0s, -webkit-box-shadow 130ms ease-in-out 0s;">union workers who organized against Kohler</a> fixtures in <b>Wisconsin</b>. It pushed attacks on the UAW’s <a href="https://www.amazon.com/Walter-Reuther-autocrat-bargaining-Hardcover/dp/B003WBJIOI" style="box-sizing: inherit; text-decoration-line: none; box-shadow: rgb(15, 15, 15) 0px -1px 0px inset; transition: color 80ms ease-in 0s, box-shadow 130ms ease-in-out 0s, -webkit-box-shadow 130ms ease-in-out 0s;">Walter Reuther</a>, who was posthumously awarded a Presidential Medal of Freedom.</font></p><p style="box-sizing: inherit; margin: 0px 0px 1.5em; padding: 0px;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">It published and peddled right-wing writer Rosalie Gordon’s <a href="http://www.thechristianidentityforum.net/downloads/Nine-Liberties.pdf" style="box-sizing: inherit; text-decoration-line: none; box-shadow: rgb(15, 15, 15) 0px -1px 0px inset; transition: color 80ms ease-in 0s, box-shadow 130ms ease-in-out 0s, -webkit-box-shadow 130ms ease-in-out 0s;">attack on the U.S. Supreme Court</a> for decisions enforcing collective bargaining rights as protecting the “labor-union monopoly,” along with what she called the “plague” of desegregation caused by <em style="box-sizing: inherit;">Brown v. Board of Education</em>.</font></p><p style="box-sizing: inherit; margin: 0px 0px 1.5em; padding: 0px;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">The JBS also pushed reprints of tomes by Ludwig von <b>Mises</b> attacking unions as <a href="http://lf-oll.s3.amazonaws.com/titles/2200/Mies_1459_LFeBk.pdf" style="box-sizing: inherit; text-decoration-line: none; box-shadow: rgb(15, 15, 15) 0px -1px 0px inset; transition: color 80ms ease-in 0s, box-shadow 130ms ease-in-out 0s, -webkit-box-shadow 130ms ease-in-out 0s;">illegitimate intervenors</a> in the “free market,” <a href="https://mises.org/sites/default/files/Human%20Action_3.pdf" style="box-sizing: inherit; text-decoration-line: none; box-shadow: rgb(15, 15, 15) 0px -1px 0px inset; transition: color 80ms ease-in 0s, box-shadow 130ms ease-in-out 0s, -webkit-box-shadow 130ms ease-in-out 0s;">artificial inflators of wages</a> for workers, and <a href="https://mises-media.s3.amazonaws.com/The%20Anti-Capitalistic%20Mentality_3.pdf?file=1&type=document" style="box-sizing: inherit; text-decoration-line: none; box-shadow: rgb(15, 15, 15) 0px -1px 0px inset; transition: color 80ms ease-in 0s, box-shadow 130ms ease-in-out 0s, -webkit-box-shadow 130ms ease-in-out 0s;">thieves of the profits of tycoons</a>. It promoted F.A. <b>Hayek’</b>s vilification of government regulation of corporations as leading to fascism and Hilaire du Berrier’s <a href="https://www.thenewamerican.com/culture/biography/item/20110-passing-of-a-patriot" style="box-sizing: inherit; text-decoration-line: none; box-shadow: rgb(15, 15, 15) 0px -1px 0px inset; transition: color 80ms ease-in 0s, box-shadow 130ms ease-in-out 0s, -webkit-box-shadow 130ms ease-in-out 0s;">conspiracy theories</a> that American labor unions were supposedly using union dues to finance communist terrorist violence abroad.</font></p><p style="box-sizing: inherit; margin: 0px 0px 1.5em; padding: 0px;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">Fred Koch’s son Charles <a href="http://dizerega.com/gus-dizerega/" style="box-sizing: inherit; text-decoration-line: none; box-shadow: rgb(15, 15, 15) 0px -1px 0px inset; transition: color 80ms ease-in 0s, box-shadow 130ms ease-in-out 0s, -webkit-box-shadow 130ms ease-in-out 0s;">urged</a> visitors to the John Birch Society bookstore in Wichita to read copies of JBS pamphlets, including those by anti-labor writers from the Austrian School of Economics, <a href="http://dizerega.com/gus-dizerega/" style="box-sizing: inherit; text-decoration-line: none; box-shadow: rgb(15, 15, 15) 0px -1px 0px inset; transition: color 80ms ease-in 0s, box-shadow 130ms ease-in-out 0s, -webkit-box-shadow 130ms ease-in-out 0s;">like Mises</a>.</font></p><p style="box-sizing: inherit; margin: 0px 0px 1.5em; padding: 0px;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">Indeed, as the present author <a href="http://progressive.org/dispatches/like-dad-charles-koch-bircher-new-documents/" style="box-sizing: inherit; text-decoration-line: none; box-shadow: rgb(15, 15, 15) 0px -1px 0px inset; transition: color 80ms ease-in 0s, box-shadow 130ms ease-in-out 0s, -webkit-box-shadow 130ms ease-in-out 0s;">first documented</a> for the Center for Media and Democracy, Charles Koch became active in JBS after returning home to Wichita to help with the family business. Charles was a leader and fundraiser for JBS, including underwriting its publications and national radio network, while it attacked collective bargaining and leaders of the civil rights movement such as the Reverend Martin Luther King, Jr., and Rosa Parks.</font></p><h3 style="box-sizing: inherit; clear: both; line-height: 1.4; margin: 0px 0px 0.75em; padding: 1.5em 0px 0px; font-weight: 300; text-transform: uppercase;"><span style="box-sizing: inherit; font-weight: 700; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">CHARLES KOCH IN ACTION</font></span></h3><p style="box-sizing: inherit; margin: 0px 0px 1.5em; padding: 0px;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">Though he left JBS in 1968, Charles Koch never abandoned its core anti-union agenda and the lessons of his father’s commitment to right-to-work. He did try to shed some of the rhetoric around communist conspiracies, though of late he was </font><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">painted by Koch political strategist Richard Fink as a <a href="https://www.huffingtonpost.com/2014/09/03/koch-brothers-recording_n_5757592.html?1409750594" style="box-sizing: inherit; text-decoration-line: none; box-shadow: rgb(15, 15, 15) 0px -1px 0px inset; transition: color 80ms ease-in 0s, box-shadow 130ms ease-in-out 0s, -webkit-box-shadow 130ms ease-in-out 0s;">martyr against “collectivism</a>,” in audio obtained by the Undercurrent, which also included outlandish claims linking fascism and the minimum wage.</font></p><p style="box-sizing: inherit; margin: 0px 0px 1.5em; padding: 0px;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">It was Charles Koch’s investment in lifting up the work of Mises and Hayek, who made similar claims, that helped preserve and extend their legacy. As Stephen Moore noted in a 2006 <a href="https://www.wsj.com/articles/SB114687252956545543" style="box-sizing: inherit; text-decoration-line: none; box-shadow: rgb(15, 15, 15) 0px -1px 0px inset; transition: color 80ms ease-in 0s, box-shadow 130ms ease-in-out 0s, -webkit-box-shadow 130ms ease-in-out 0s;">profile on Charles</a> for the <em style="box-sizing: inherit;">Wall Street Journal</em>:</font></p><blockquote style="box-sizing: inherit; line-height: 1.7; margin: 0px; overflow: hidden; padding: 0px; quotes: "><p style="box-sizing: inherit; margin: 0px 0px 1.5em; padding: 0px;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">The authors who have had the most profound influence on his own political philosophy include <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4ZBXFeAj5lM" style="box-sizing: inherit; text-decoration-line: none; box-shadow: rgb(15, 15, 15) 0px -1px 0px inset; transition: color 80ms ease-in 0s, box-shadow 130ms ease-in-out 0s, -webkit-box-shadow 130ms ease-in-out 0s;">F.A. Hayek</a>, Ludwig von Mises, Joseph Schumpeter, Julian Simon, Paul Johnson and Charles Murray. Mr. Koch says that he experienced an intellectual epiphany in the early 1960s, when he attended a conference on free-market capitalism hosted by the late, great Leonard Reed.</font></p></blockquote><p style="box-sizing: inherit; margin: 0px 0px 1.5em; padding: 0px;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">Charles brought Mises to Wichita to speak and <a href="https://mises.org/library/ihs-and-rebirth-austrian-economics-some-reflections-1974%E2%80%931976" style="box-sizing: inherit; text-decoration-line: none; box-shadow: rgb(15, 15, 15) 0px -1px 0px inset; transition: color 80ms ease-in 0s, box-shadow 130ms ease-in-out 0s, -webkit-box-shadow 130ms ease-in-out 0s;">deployed F.A. “Baldy” Harper’s Institute for Humane Studies</a> (IHS) to promote Mises and his protégé Hayek. As lauded by Reed’s Foundation for Economic Education (FEE), Hayek <a href="https://fee.org/articles/hayek-on-the-rule-of-law-and-unions/" style="box-sizing: inherit; text-decoration-line: none; box-shadow: rgb(15, 15, 15) 0px -1px 0px inset; transition: color 80ms ease-in 0s, box-shadow 130ms ease-in-out 0s, -webkit-box-shadow 130ms ease-in-out 0s;">argued that unions violated the very idea of the “rule of law”</a> and that the Wagner Act was central to that violation, a sentiment he promoted in numerous writings.</font></p><p style="box-sizing: inherit; margin: 0px 0px 1.5em; padding: 0px;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><b>Charles Koch is deeply devoted to an alternative universe in which collective bargaining undermines the rule of law and is not a major cause of increased wages.</b> Moore <a href="https://www.wsj.com/articles/SB114687252956545543" style="box-sizing: inherit; text-decoration-line: none; box-shadow: rgb(15, 15, 15) 0px -1px 0px inset; transition: color 80ms ease-in 0s, box-shadow 130ms ease-in-out 0s, -webkit-box-shadow 130ms ease-in-out 0s;">noted</a> in his interview:</font></p><blockquote style="box-sizing: inherit; line-height: 1.7; margin: 0px; overflow: hidden; padding: 0px; quotes: "><p style="box-sizing: inherit; margin: 0px 0px 1.5em; padding: 0px;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">As we continue, Mr. Koch becomes increasingly animated. He discusses another seminal work in his collection, F.A. Harper’s 1957 <span style="box-sizing: inherit;">Why Wages Rise</span>. The book demonstrates ‘that wages rise not because of unions or government action, but because of marginal productivity gains — people get more money when they produce more value for other people.’ Then he confides, “I was so thrilled by this revelation that I had what Maslow called a ‘peak experience.’'”</font></p></blockquote><p style="box-sizing: inherit; margin: 0px 0px 1.5em; padding: 0px;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">Koch has also supported the NRTWC, which “<a href="https://books.google.com/books?id=pQ4DwAAQBAJ&pg=PA140&lpg=PA140&dq=sought+to+put+a+new+face+on+the+anti-union+campaign+by+building+its+rhetoric+on+the+arguments+of+Hayek&source=bl&ots=qETvylyYue&sig=7UMKva7cgTiU9T9ZQ9ToQiagSgw&hl=en&sa=X&ved=0ahUKEwicgJmty_DbAhXiIjQIHetuAD4Q6AEILDAA#v=onepage&q=sought%20to%20put%20a%20new%20face%20on%20the%20anti-union%20campaign%20by%20building%20its%20rhetoric%20on%20the%20arguments%20of%20Hayek&f=false" style="box-sizing: inherit; text-decoration-line: none; box-shadow: rgb(15, 15, 15) 0px -1px 0px inset; transition: color 80ms ease-in 0s, box-shadow 130ms ease-in-out 0s, -webkit-box-shadow 130ms ease-in-out 0s;">sought to put a new face on the anti-union campaign by building its rhetoric on the arguments of Hayek, Mises, and others</a> with a ‘respectable’ pedigree.” The NRTWC argues that:</font></p><blockquote style="box-sizing: inherit; line-height: 1.7; margin: 0px; overflow: hidden; padding: 0px; quotes: "><p style="box-sizing: inherit; margin: 0px 0px 1.5em; padding: 0px;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">Compulsory unionism itself violates the dignity of the individual worker, regardless of how the forced union tribute is spent. As the late Nobel Prize-winning economist <a href="https://cafehayek.com/2014/01/hayek-on-unions.html" style="box-sizing: inherit; text-decoration-line: none; box-shadow: rgb(15, 15, 15) 0px -1px 0px inset; transition: color 80ms ease-in 0s, box-shadow 130ms ease-in-out 0s, -webkit-box-shadow 130ms ease-in-out 0s;">Friedrich A. von Hayek</a> wrote: “[T]he coercion which unions have been permitted to exercise … is primarily the coercion of fellow workers.</font></p></blockquote><p style="box-sizing: inherit; margin: 0px 0px 1.5em; padding: 0px;"><span style="box-sizing: inherit; font-weight: 700; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Deep Devotion and Investment</font></span></p><p style="box-sizing: inherit; margin: 0px 0px 1.5em; padding: 0px;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">Hayek and Mises are not the only two virulently anti-union economists Charles Koch backed. As Nancy MacLean documented in <em style="box-sizing: inherit;">Democracy in Chains</em>, one of the key architects of the Koch agenda domestically and internationally,<b> <a href="https://www.penguinrandomhouse.com/books/533763/democracy-in-chains-by-nancy-maclean/9781101980972/" style="box-sizing: inherit; text-decoration-line: none; box-shadow: rgb(15, 15, 15) 0px -1px 0px inset; transition: color 80ms ease-in 0s, box-shadow 130ms ease-in-out 0s, -webkit-box-shadow 130ms ease-in-out 0s;">James Buchanan</a>, also railed against the so-called “union monopolies” for distorting “free market” wages.</b></font></p><p style="box-sizing: inherit; margin: 0px 0px 1.5em; padding: 0px;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">And, as <a href="http://www.unkochmycampus.org/" style="box-sizing: inherit; text-decoration-line: none; box-shadow: rgb(15, 15, 15) 0px -1px 0px inset; transition: color 80ms ease-in 0s, box-shadow 130ms ease-in-out 0s, -webkit-box-shadow 130ms ease-in-out 0s;">UnKoch My Campus</a> has detailed, Koch money has funded scores of academics to push their agenda at universities, buying control over content and personnel with restrictive dictates attached to their donations.</font></p><p style="box-sizing: inherit; margin: 0px 0px 1.5em; padding: 0px;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">Many of the rightwing groups Charles Koch is known to have made a major investment in since the 1970s have pushed right-to-work or attacked collective bargaining rights. These include <a href="http://reason.com/archives/1975/11/01/trends/print" style="box-sizing: inherit; text-decoration-line: none; box-shadow: rgb(15, 15, 15) 0px -1px 0px inset; transition: color 80ms ease-in 0s, box-shadow 130ms ease-in-out 0s, -webkit-box-shadow 130ms ease-in-out 0s;">Reason</a> magazine, the <a href="https://object.cato.org/sites/cato.org/files/serials/files/cato-journal/2010/1/cj30n1-9.pdf" style="box-sizing: inherit; text-decoration-line: none; box-shadow: rgb(15, 15, 15) 0px -1px 0px inset; transition: color 80ms ease-in 0s, box-shadow 130ms ease-in-out 0s, -webkit-box-shadow 130ms ease-in-out 0s;">Cato Institute</a>, <a href="https://americansforprosperity.org/setting-record-straight-right-work-janus-v-afscme/" style="box-sizing: inherit; text-decoration-line: none; box-shadow: rgb(15, 15, 15) 0px -1px 0px inset; transition: color 80ms ease-in 0s, box-shadow 130ms ease-in-out 0s, -webkit-box-shadow 130ms ease-in-out 0s;">Americans for Prosperity</a>, the <a href="https://www.alecexposed.org/wiki/Right_to_Work_Act_Exposed" style="box-sizing: inherit; text-decoration-line: none; box-shadow: rgb(15, 15, 15) 0px -1px 0px inset; transition: color 80ms ease-in 0s, box-shadow 130ms ease-in-out 0s, -webkit-box-shadow 130ms ease-in-out 0s;">American Legislative Exchange Council</a>, the <a href="http://inthesetimes.com/features/janus_supreme_court_unions_investigation.html" style="box-sizing: inherit; text-decoration-line: none; box-shadow: rgb(15, 15, 15) 0px -1px 0px inset; transition: color 80ms ease-in 0s, box-shadow 130ms ease-in-out 0s, -webkit-box-shadow 130ms ease-in-out 0s;">State Policy Network</a> and many more.</font></p><p style="box-sizing: inherit; margin: 0px 0px 1.5em; padding: 0px;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">During David Koch’s 1980 bid to become vice president, running on the ticket of Libertarian Ed Clark—which was pushed by Charles and fueled with Koch cash—the campaign platform included <a href="https://lpedia.org/1980_National_Platform" style="box-sizing: inherit; text-decoration-line: none; box-shadow: rgb(15, 15, 15) 0px -1px 0px inset; transition: color 80ms ease-in 0s, box-shadow 130ms ease-in-out 0s, -webkit-box-shadow 130ms ease-in-out 0s;">making right-to-work the law of the land</a>:</font></p><blockquote style="box-sizing: inherit; line-height: 1.7; margin: 0px; overflow: hidden; padding: 0px; quotes: "><p style="box-sizing: inherit; margin: 0px 0px 1.5em; padding: 0px;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">[W]e urge repeal of the National Labor Relations Act, and all state Right to Work Laws, which prohibit employers from making voluntary contracts with unions. We oppose all government back-to-work orders as imposing a form of forced labor.</font></p></blockquote><p style="box-sizing: inherit; margin: 0px 0px 1.5em; padding: 0px;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">That is, there would be no need for state right-to-work laws if there were no NLRA that protects collective bargaining rights. As a result, right-to-work would be effectively nationalized at the determination of the employer.</font></p><p style="box-sizing: inherit; margin: 0px 0px 1.5em; padding: 0px;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><b>After badly losing that election, the Kochs have invested heavily in changing the culture—and courts of America—to make their anti-union vision a reality.</b></font></p><p style="box-sizing: inherit; margin: 0px 0px 1.5em; padding: 0px;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">Right-to-work is part of that vision.</font></p><h3 style="box-sizing: inherit; clear: both; line-height: 1.4; margin: 0px 0px 0.75em; padding: 1.5em 0px 0px; font-weight: 300; text-transform: uppercase;"><span style="box-sizing: inherit; font-weight: 700; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">MILLIONS SPENT</font></span></h3><p style="box-sizing: inherit; margin: 0px 0px 1.5em; padding: 0px;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">A leak of the Kochs’ summer retreat in 2010 revealed that they <a href="https://thinkprogress.org/memo-health-insurance-banking-oil-industries-met-with-koch-chamber-glenn-beck-to-plot-2010-election-3c1a0908a245/" style="box-sizing: inherit; text-decoration-line: none; box-shadow: rgb(15, 15, 15) 0px -1px 0px inset; transition: color 80ms ease-in 0s, box-shadow 130ms ease-in-out 0s, -webkit-box-shadow 130ms ease-in-out 0s;">featured NRTWC leaders at their gathering of billionaires</a> to plot plans for that year’s midterm elections.</font></p><p style="box-sizing: inherit; margin: 0px 0px 1.5em; padding: 0px;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">In 2012, before most of America even knew that the Kochs had branded their billionaire conclave as “Freedom Partners,” that group <a href="http://conservativetransparency.org/recipient/national-right-to-work-committee/" style="box-sizing: inherit; text-decoration-line: none; box-shadow: rgb(15, 15, 15) 0px -1px 0px inset; transition: color 80ms ease-in 0s, box-shadow 130ms ease-in-out 0s, -webkit-box-shadow 130ms ease-in-out 0s;">injected $1 million directly into the NRTWC</a> among the more than $200 million of its known spending that cycle.</font></p><p style="box-sizing: inherit; margin: 0px 0px 1.5em; padding: 0px;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">In 2016, they <a href="http://fortune.com/2016/10/16/koch-brothers-gop-senate/" style="box-sizing: inherit; text-decoration-line: none; box-shadow: rgb(15, 15, 15) 0px -1px 0px inset; transition: color 80ms ease-in 0s, box-shadow 130ms ease-in-out 0s, -webkit-box-shadow 130ms ease-in-out 0s;">focused</a> much of their known political spending on keeping a GOP majority in the Senate, and they <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/powerpost/wp/2016/04/05/gop-senator-more-convinced-than-ever-that-garland-should-get-hearing/?utm_term=.4007c477ab73" style="box-sizing: inherit; text-decoration-line: none; box-shadow: rgb(15, 15, 15) 0px -1px 0px inset; transition: color 80ms ease-in 0s, box-shadow 130ms ease-in-out 0s, -webkit-box-shadow 130ms ease-in-out 0s;">influenced</a> the make-up of the U.S. Supreme Court by helping to block Judge Merrick Garland’s confirmation.</font></p><p style="box-sizing: inherit; margin: 0px 0px 1.5em; padding: 0px;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">For the 2018 election, they’ve pledged to spend more than $400 million through the <b>Seminar Network, the latest rebranding of their network of tycoons.</b></font></p><p style="box-sizing: inherit; margin: 0px 0px 1.5em; padding: 0px;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">To be clear, the Koch family fortune is not the only one that has been expended pushing right-to-work laws to try to weaken the power of ordinary people to negotiate through unions. A major funder of right-to-work effort has been the Lynde and Harry Bradley Foundation, along with Donors Trust and Donors Capital Fund, which <em style="box-sizing: inherit;">Mother Jones</em> has dubbed “the ATM” of the right wing.</font></p><p style="box-sizing: inherit; margin: 0px 0px 1.5em; padding: 0px;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">Collective bargaining has provided women with greater economic opportunities and job security. Right-to-work laws also have a <a href="https://www.vox.com/policy-and-politics/2018/2/26/17053328/janus-afscme-supreme-court-unions-minorities" style="box-sizing: inherit; text-decoration-line: none; box-shadow: rgb(15, 15, 15) 0px -1px 0px inset; transition: color 80ms ease-in 0s, box-shadow 130ms ease-in-out 0s, -webkit-box-shadow 130ms ease-in-out 0s;">disproportionate impact on people of color,</a> who are union members at a higher rate than whites. <a href="https://www.epi.org/publication/black-women-will-be-most-affected-by-janus/" style="box-sizing: inherit; text-decoration-line: none; box-shadow: rgb(15, 15, 15) 0px -1px 0px inset; transition: color 80ms ease-in 0s, box-shadow 130ms ease-in-out 0s, -webkit-box-shadow 130ms ease-in-out 0s;">Black women will likely be the group most adversely affected</a> by the <em style="box-sizing: inherit;">Janus</em> case. Notably, workers in <a href="https://www.epi.org/publication/right-to-work-states-have-lower-wages/" style="box-sizing: inherit; text-decoration-line: none; box-shadow: rgb(15, 15, 15) 0px -1px 0px inset; transition: color 80ms ease-in 0s, box-shadow 130ms ease-in-out 0s, -webkit-box-shadow 130ms ease-in-out 0s;">right-to-work states also have lower wages</a> than in states that have rejected this agenda.</font></p><h3 style="box-sizing: inherit; clear: both; line-height: 1.4; margin: 0px 0px 0.75em; padding: 1.5em 0px 0px; font-weight: 300; text-transform: uppercase;"><span style="box-sizing: inherit; font-weight: 700; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">UNDERMINING PROGRESSIVES TOO</font></span></h3><p style="box-sizing: inherit; margin: 0px 0px 1.5em; padding: 0px;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">The spread of right to work through <em style="box-sizing: inherit;">Janus </em>also will affect our elections.</font></p><p style="box-sizing: inherit; margin: 0px 0px 1.5em; padding: 0px;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">As <em style="box-sizing: inherit;">In These Times</em> has documented with the Center for Media and Democracy,<b> the national push for right-to-work is designed to <a href="http://inthesetimes.com/features/janus_supreme_court_unions_investigation.html" style="box-sizing: inherit; text-decoration-line: none; box-shadow: rgb(15, 15, 15) 0px -1px 0px inset; transition: color 80ms ease-in 0s, box-shadow 130ms ease-in-out 0s, -webkit-box-shadow 130ms ease-in-out 0s;">undermine</a> the power of unions and to “<a href="https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2017/aug/30/rightwing-alliance-unions-defund-defang" style="box-sizing: inherit; text-decoration-line: none; box-shadow: rgb(15, 15, 15) 0px -1px 0px inset; transition: color 80ms ease-in 0s, box-shadow 130ms ease-in-out 0s, -webkit-box-shadow 130ms ease-in-out 0s;">defang and defund</a>” them as a way to weaken the chances for progressives to win in politics and policy.</b></font></p><p style="box-sizing: inherit; margin: 0px 0px 1.5em; padding: 0px;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">The Koch investment in making right-to-work a national reality represents one of the longest and deepest commitments to this agenda, aside from NRTWC itself.</font></p><p style="box-sizing: inherit; margin: 0px 0px 1.5em; padding: 0px;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">And this year marks the 60th anniversary of Fred Koch’s victory of making right-to-work legally binding in Kansas.</font></p><p style="box-sizing: inherit; margin: 0px 0px 1.5em; padding: 0px;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">Now, six decades later, Charles Koch has helped make his father’s wish binding on the rest of America through helping to make the <em style="box-sizing: inherit;">Janus </em>ruling a reality.</font></p><hr style="box-sizing: content-box; height: 1px; overflow: visible; border: 0px; margin-bottom: 1.5em;" /><p style="box-sizing: inherit; margin: 0px 0px 1.5em; padding: 0px;"><span style="box-sizing: inherit; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Lisa Graves is the Co-Director of Documented. She previously served as the Chief Counsel for Nominations for the U.S. Senate Judiciary Committee. She was also Deputy Assistant Attorney General in the Office of Policy Development at the U.S. Department of Justice, where she vetted potential judicial nominees. She previously led the Center for Media and Democracy (CMD) where she spearheaded the launch of ALEC Exposed. She is an Advisor to UnKoch My Campus and on the Board of Directors of CMD.</font></span></p><p><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"></font></p><p><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">gorsuch screws us on janus; janus sez agency fee violates 1st AMEND</font></p><h1 class="entry-title h2" style="box-sizing: border-box; margin: 25px 0px 12.5px; font-weight: 500; line-height: 1.1;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">Supreme Court Rules Against Unions: Janus V. AFSCME</font></h1><p><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><a href="https://kpfa.org/episode/letters-and-politics-june-27-2018/" style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">https://kpfa.org/episode/letters-and-politics-june-27-2018/</a></font></p><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"></font></div><div><p><font face="Times New Roman" size="4" style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><a href="https://www.motherjones.com/politics/2017/03/scott-walker-trump-wisconsin-teacher-union/">https://www.motherjones.com/politics/2017/03/scott-walker-trump-wisconsin-teacher-union/</a></font></p><p><font face="Times New Roman" size="4" style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"></font></p><p><font face="Times New Roman" size="4" style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><a href="https://www.exposedbycmd.org/2018/06/27/trumps-supreme-court-strikes-blow-government-workers-good-paying-jobs/">https://www.exposedbycmd.org/2018/06/27/trumps-supreme-court-strikes-blow-government-workers-good-paying-jobs/</a></font></p><p style="box-sizing: inherit; margin: 0px 0px 10px; padding: 0px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><b>In a major blow to organized labor and good paying government jobs, the U.S. Supreme Court ruled today that government workers who choose not to join a union cannot be charged fees to reimburse the union for the cost of representing them in collective bargaining.</b></font></p><p style="box-sizing: inherit; margin: 0px 0px 10px; padding: 0px;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" style=""><b style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">The decision was 5-4 in the <em style="box-sizing: inherit;">Janus vs. AFSCME Council 31</em> case,</b><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);"> with Trump appointee Neil Gorsuch supplying the deciding vote. Justice Samuel Alito, who actively invited a challenge to union fees, wrote the decision for the Court’s right-wing majority</span><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">.</span></font></p><p style="box-sizing: inherit; margin: 0px 0px 10px; padding: 0px;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" style=""><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">In today’s decision,</span><b style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"> Alito wrote that the fees, called “agency fees,” violated the First Amendment</b><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">.</span><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);"> In doing so, Alito overruled a 41-year-old Supreme Court decision legalizing these fees in the <em style="box-sizing: inherit;">Abood vs. Detroit Board of Education</em> decision.</span></font></p><p style="box-sizing: inherit; margin: 0px 0px 10px; padding: 0px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">The decision ushers in “right to work” style conditions for public employees in states across the nation. These anti-union measures <a href="http://www.labornotes.org/blogs/2017/08/racist-who-pioneered-right-work-laws" target="blank" rel="noopener" style="box-sizing: inherit; background: 0px 0px; transition: all 500ms ease-in-out; text-decoration-line: none;">originated in the Jim Crow South</a> as a means of undermining unions who were organizing black and white workers together in the same shop. Predictably, Koch brothers groups–such as Americans for Prosperity, the American Legislative Exchange Council (ALEC), and the State Policy Network–cheered the ruling, while union leaders prepared to renegotiate thousands of contracts and deal with a new legal landscape for unions across the land.</font></p><h2 style="box-sizing: inherit; line-height: 1.2; margin: 0px 0px 10px; text-transform: uppercase; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">CROWN JEWEL IN ASSAULT ON UNIONS BY RIGHT-WING BILLIONAIRES AND CORPORATIONS</font></h2><p style="box-sizing: inherit; margin: 0px 0px 10px; padding: 0px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">The case should be seen in the context of a sustained assault by extremist billionaires, corporations, and foundation on unions, the organized voice of working families and a major player in campaigns and elections on the Democratic side.</font></p><p style="box-sizing: inherit; margin: 0px 0px 10px; padding: 0px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Over the past decade, as ALEC legislators aggressively advanced union-busting bills in red states like Wisconsin, Michigan, West Virginia and Kentucky, a slew of rapid fire cases were advanced by allied groups in blue states, as Center for Media and Democracy detailed in an <a href="http://inthesetimes.com/features/janus_supreme_court_unions_investigation.html" target="blank" rel="noopener" style="box-sizing: inherit; background: 0px 0px; transition: all 500ms ease-in-out; text-decoration-line: none;">award-winning article</a> on the <em style="box-sizing: inherit;">Janus</em> case. A number of these cases, including <em style="box-sizing: inherit;">Knox v. SEIU</em> (2012), <em style="box-sizing: inherit;">Harris v. Quinn</em> (2014), and <em style="box-sizing: inherit;">Friederichs v. California Teachers Association</em> (2016), made it to the U.S. Supreme Court and were used by Justice Alito to justify the <em style="box-sizing: inherit;">Janus</em> decision.</font></p><p style="box-sizing: inherit; margin: 0px 0px 10px; padding: 0px;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">The <em style="box-sizing: inherit;">Janus</em> case originated with <b>Republican Governor Bruce Rauner of Illinois</b>. The American Federation of State County and Municipal Workers (AFSCME) represents state workers in Illinois and campaigned hard against the venture-capitalist in his 2014 race for governor. When Rauner was found not to have standing, attorneys from the<b> <a href="https://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php/Illinois_Policy_Institute" target="blank" rel="noopener" style="background-image: initial; background-position: 0px 0px; background-size: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-attachment: initial; background-origin: initial; background-clip: initial; box-sizing: inherit; transition: all 500ms ease-in-out; text-decoration-line: none;">Illinois Policy Institute</a>–a State Policy Network think tank–substituted Illinois child care worker Mark Janus </b>as the lead plaintiff. <b>Rauner said that “taking this issue on was one of my primary reasons for running for governor in the first place,”</b> and flew to Washington, DC this week to await the ruling.</font></p><p style="box-sizing: inherit; margin: 0px 0px 10px; padding: 0px;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">The case involves the obscure technical issue of agency fees. In over 20 states, even if public sector workers do not want to be represented by a union, they must pay agency or “fair share fees” to cover the cost of their representation. These fees were ruled fair and constitutional in 1977 by the U.S. Supreme Court in the <em style="box-sizing: inherit;">Abood</em> decision, to prevent a “free rider” problem and because unions are legally required to represent all workers in a bargaining unit. The fees fund the unions’ collective bargaining process and other services they provide to state workers; they cannot be used for political action.</font></p><p style="box-sizing: inherit; margin: 0px 0px 10px; padding: 0px;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">Justice Alito wrote that the free rider problem was not a “compelling state interest.”</font></p><h2 style="box-sizing: inherit; line-height: 1.2; margin: 0px 0px 10px; text-transform: uppercase; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">“WEAPONIZING” THE FIRST AMENDMENT</font></h2><p style="box-sizing: inherit; margin: 0px 0px 10px; padding: 0px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Dissenting justices portrayed the case is a radical re-write of labor law, with dramatic consequences for dozens of states and thousands of binding contracts.</font></p><p style="box-sizing: inherit; margin: 0px 0px 10px; padding: 0px;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">“There is no sugarcoating today’s opinion. The majority overthrows a decision entrenched in this Nation’s law–and in its economic life–for over 40 years,” wrote<b> Kagan,</b> who read her dissent from the bench. In doing so the Court has “weaponized the First Amendment,” she said.</font></p><p style="box-sizing: inherit; margin: 0px 0px 10px; padding: 0px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><b>The radical nature of the case was explained by Justice Kagan during oral arguments:</b></font></p><blockquote style="box-sizing: inherit; margin: 40px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><p style="box-sizing: inherit; margin: 0px 0px 10px; padding: 0px;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" style="">Twenty-three states, the District of Columbia, Puerto Rico, all would have their statutes declared unconstitutional at once. Thousands of municipalities would have contracts invalidated. Those contracts probably cover millions, maybe up to over 10 million, workers. So property and contract rights, the statutes of many states and the livelihoods of millions of individuals affected all at once. When have we ever done something like that? What would be the justification for doing something like that?</font></p></blockquote><p style="box-sizing: inherit; margin: 0px 0px 10px; padding: 0px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Kagan also wrote that in overturning <em style="box-sizing: inherit;">Abood</em> the Court “disregards the defining characteristic of this free-rider argument–that unions, unlike those many other private groups, must serve members and non-members alike…. That special feature was what justified <em style="box-sizing: inherit;">Abood</em>.”</font></p><p style="box-sizing: inherit; margin: 0px 0px 10px; padding: 0px;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);"><b>“But the worse part of today’s opinion is where the majority subverts all known principles of <em style="box-sizing: inherit;">stare decisis</em>,</b>” the principle that rulings should be based on precedent, Kagan wrote. The majority can’t just “throw some gratuitous criticisms into a couple of opinions and a few years later point to them as ‘special justifications’ for their actions,” she said.</font></p><p style="box-sizing: inherit; margin: 0px 0px 10px; padding: 0px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Randi Weingarten of the American Federation of Teachers had previously stressed this point. “Rarely is there a situation where a next-generation Supreme Court overrules or changes precedent of a unanimously decided opinion. This is a completely ideological movement to end unions as we know it and to redefine the First Amendment as a weapon against people,” <a href="http://blogs.edweek.org/edweek/teacherbeat/2018/05/randi_weingarten_qa.html" target="blank" rel="noopener" style="box-sizing: inherit; background: 0px 0px; transition: all 500ms ease-in-out; text-decoration-line: none;">she said</a>.</font></p><h2 style="box-sizing: inherit; line-height: 1.2; margin: 0px 0px 10px; text-transform: uppercase; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">TRUMP COURT ATTACKS BOTH PRIVATE AND PUBLIC SECTOR WORKERS</font></h2><p style="box-sizing: inherit; margin: 0px 0px 10px; padding: 0px;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">The decision, along with the recent <a href="https://host.madison.com/ct/opinion/column/mary-bottari-epic-fail-supreme-court-turns-back-clock-to/article_2d61881f-950f-5281-8822-68bf06669a28.htm" target="blank" rel="noopener" style="background-image: initial; background-position: 0px 0px; background-size: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-attachment: initial; background-origin: initial; background-clip: initial; box-sizing: inherit; transition: all 500ms ease-in-out; text-decoration-line: none;"><em style="box-sizing: inherit;">EPIC Systems v. Lewis</em></a> case, will make the Trump-Gorsuch court one of the worst for working families in history. Gorsuch wrote the May 2018 <em style="box-sizing: inherit;">EPIC Systems </em>decision, which held that businesses can prohibit their workers from banding together to battle their employers in court in disputes over a wide array of issues such as wage theft, sexual harassment, civil rights, and gender discrimination.</font></p><p style="box-sizing: inherit; margin: 0px 0px 10px; padding: 0px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><b>“This is probably the most relentlessly anti-democratic and specifically anti-worker court since the ‘Lochner Era’ </b>of the late 19th and early 20th century,” University of Wisconsin Law Professor Joel Rogers told the Center for Media and Democracy.</font></p><p style="box-sizing: inherit; margin: 0px 0px 10px; padding: 0px;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);"><b>“But <em style="box-sizing: inherit;">Janus</em> shows it’s arguably worse, since it doesn’t even respect freedom of contract. This Court doesn’t stand for the ‘rule of law,’ which means putting constraints on the arbitrary and abusive use of power. It’s ‘let’s concoct a legal justification for giving abuse a free rein</b>,'” said Rogers. The 1905 <em style="box-sizing: inherit;">Lochner</em> case held that limits on the work day or work week violated the Constitution.</font></p><p style="box-sizing: inherit; margin: 0px 0px 10px; padding: 0px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><b>“These are two devastating 5-4 decisions–two decisions that could have easily gone the other way but for the sabotage of the appointment of Merrick Garland,</b>” said Courtlyn Roser-Jones, visiting Assistant Professor at the Ohio State Mortiz College of Law. Garland was appointed by President Obama in 2016, but the Republican Senate refused to confirm him leading to Trump’s appointment of Neil Gorsuch.</font></p><p style="box-sizing: inherit; margin: 0px 0px 10px; padding: 0px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">The <em style="box-sizing: inherit;">Janus</em> decision could lead to weaker unions, lower wages for government workers, and poorer public services.</font></p><p style="box-sizing: inherit; margin: 0px 0px 10px; padding: 0px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">“We are living in a system that is rigged to benefit special interests and billionaires, all at the expense of working people. Today’s radical decision by the Supreme Court is a blatant slap in the face for educators, nurses, firefighters, police officers and all public servants who make our communities strong and safe… [U]nions will continue to be the best vehicle on the path to the middle class,” said Lily Eskelsen García, President of the National Education Association.</font></p><p style="box-sizing: inherit; margin: 0px 0px 10px; padding: 0px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">And the agenda is broader that just unions, the court is going after the policies that unions advocate for, say experts.</font></p><p style="box-sizing: inherit; margin: 0px 0px 10px; padding: 0px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">“This is a concerted, corporate-funded effort to get rid of public employee unions–to stop them from advocating for higher minimum wages, affordable healthcare or a right to paid sick leave, to stop them winning wages and benefits that force private sector employers to raise their own wages, and to stop them from insisting on a level of public services–schools, libraries, transportation and more–that we all have a right to just by dint of being citizens,” said Gordon Lafer, a professor at the University of Oregon’s Labor Education and Research Center.</font></p><h2 style="box-sizing: inherit; line-height: 1.2; margin: 0px 0px 10px; text-transform: uppercase; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">TEAM TRUMP IS BUILDING A LASTING ANTI-WORKER LEGACY, BUT UNIONS ARE FIGHTING BACK</font></h2><p style="box-sizing: inherit; margin: 0px 0px 10px; padding: 0px;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">The Trump administration frequently claims to be on the side of the little guy, but it is building a strong track record of harming workers and working families in the courts, in Congress, and in administrative agencies.</font></p><p style="box-sizing: inherit; margin: 0px 0px 10px; padding: 0px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><b>The 2018 <em style="box-sizing: inherit;">EPIC Systems</em> ruling will harm millions of non-union workers who will be newly subject to arbitration. </b>The huge tax cuts for the wealthy and corporations in the Tax Cuts and Jobs Act signed into law by Trump the end of 2017 will exacerbate an already profound income inequality gap between the wealthy and working families. And the Trump administration has aggressively rolled back a 2016 rule strengthening overtime protections for low- and middle-income workers, and took steps to gut regulations that protect restaurant workers from having their tips taken by their employers. Michael Arria noted in <a href="https://www.salon.com/2017/09/17/in-attacking-overtime-pay-trump-is-hurting-his-biggest-fans_partner/" target="blank" rel="noopener" style="box-sizing: inherit; background: 0px 0px; transition: all 500ms ease-in-out; text-decoration-line: none;"><em style="box-sizing: inherit;">Salon</em></a> that by “attacking overtime pay, Trump is hurting his biggest fans.”</font></p><p style="box-sizing: inherit; margin: 0px 0px 10px; padding: 0px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">But unions are not sitting idly by. Massive teachers’ strikes have succeeded in winning major concessions for government workers in multiple states. “Don’t count us out,” said AFT’s Weingarten. “Workers are sticking with their unions, because they know that unions are the best vehicle for workers to get ahead.”</font></p><p style="box-sizing: inherit; margin: 0px 0px 10px; padding: 0px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><b>Richard Trumka, the head of the national AFL-CIO, also noted the recent revival of organized labor</b>. “All over the country, workers are organizing and taking collected action as we haven’t seen in years. More than 14,000 workers recently formed or joined unions in just a single week. This followed a year where 262,000 workers organized and the approval of unions reached a new high.”</font></p><p style="box-sizing: inherit; margin: 0px 0px 10px; padding: 0px;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">“The corporate narrative of the labor movement’s downfall is being dismantled by working people every single day,” said Trumka.</font></p><hr style="box-sizing: content-box; height: 0px; border-right: 0px; border-bottom: 0px; border-left: 0px; border-image: initial; border-collapse: collapse; border-top-style: solid; border-top-color: rgb(221, 221, 221); clear: both; margin: 1em 0px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);" /><p style="box-sizing: inherit; margin: 0px 0px 10px; padding: 0px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><span style="box-sizing: inherit;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Mary Bottari</font></span></p></div><p><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"></font></p><p><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><a href="https://www.exposedbycmd.org/2018/07/17/book-review-fall-wisconsin-uplifting-read">https://www.exposedbycmd.org/2018/07/17/book-review-fall-wisconsin-uplifting-read</a></font></p><p style="box-sizing: inherit; margin: 0px 0px 10px; padding: 0px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><b>A must-read on the summer book list is <u><span style="box-sizing: inherit;">The Fall of Wisconsin: The Conservative Conquest of a Progressive Bastion and the Future of American Politics</span>,</u></b> by Dan Kaufman. This remarkable book takes readers on a winding journey through the Native American, Scandinavian, and Socialist roots of the Badger State to its latest incarnation as a Trump satellite state.</font></p><p style="box-sizing: inherit; margin: 0px 0px 10px; padding: 0px;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">“Donald Trump’s victory may have shocked the Clinton campaign and media pundits, but the result merely heralded the final stage of Wisconsin’s dramatic transformation from a pioneering beacon of progressive, democratic politics to the embodiment of that legacy’s national unraveling,” writes Kaufman.</font></p><p style="box-sizing: inherit; margin: 0px 0px 10px; padding: 0px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Wisconsinites have had a front row seat to this unraveling. But this is not a gloomy book, nor the dry, didactic reporting of the mainstream newspapers stripped of historical context and evocative language. It is a beautifully drawn portrait of resistance told via the voices of the state’s beleaguered citizenry.</font></p><h2 style="box-sizing: inherit; line-height: 1.2; margin: 0px 0px 10px; text-transform: uppercase; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">PORTRAIT OF RESISTANCE</font></h2><p style="box-sizing: inherit; margin: 0px 0px 10px; padding: 0px;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">The book highlights Mike Wiggins, the chairman of the Bad River Band, and other tribal leaders who successfully battled the<b> Gogebic Taconite iron-ore strip mine </b>in the Penokee Hills after the company crafted its own bill and paid millions to buy off the state legislature</span><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">. “The tribes, Wisconsin’s first conservationists, have now become the last hope, the only group with any power to stop the dismantling of the state’s environmental heritage,” writes Kaufman in one of the book’s most affecting chapters.</span></font></p><p style="box-sizing: inherit; margin: 0px 0px 10px; padding: 0px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><b>It stresses the national importance of the fight over Act 10, Walker’s union-busting legislation, which blindsided the voters–even Republicans. </b>“Walker’s agenda, which was always there but nobody knew it, really came from somewhere else, like the Koch brothers, the national party, and ALEC [the American Legislative Exchange Council]. I don’t think it was a local agenda, frankly,” said former GOP State Senator Barbara Lorman.</font></p><p style="box-sizing: inherit; margin: 0px 0px 10px; padding: 0px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">It details the chutzpah of average citizens who step up to run for office when no one else will. From Lori Compass, who single-handedly launched a recall against Senate Majority Leader Scott Fitzgerald in 2011, to Randy Bryce, the ironworker who battled ALEC’s anti-union “right to work” bill and the gutting of prevailing wage. In 2018, Bryce decided to step up and take on one of America’s most prominent politicians, Speaker of the House Paul Ryan.</font></p><p style="box-sizing: inherit; margin: 0px 0px 10px; padding: 0px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Dozens of other Wisconsinites, including Tia Nelson, Jesse Barnes, Tim Cullen, Curt Meine, Todd Albaugh, Dave Poklinkoski, Marvin DeFoe, Dale Schultz, Tim Cullen, and more, are interviewed and paint a portrait of a resistance that didn’t waver though the deck was stacked against them. Included in this list is Rep. Fred Kessler, who found a way to challenge the GOP’s unprecedented partisan gerrymandering in federal court and get it ruled unconstitutional. Woven into the these tales are the stories of Chief Buffalo, “Fighting Bob” La Follette, socialist Emil Seidel, environmentalist Aldo Leopold, educator John Bascom, Congressman Victor Berger, Earth Day founder Gaylord Nelson, and other historical figures.</font></p><h2 style="box-sizing: inherit; line-height: 1.2; margin: 0px 0px 10px; text-transform: uppercase; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">CRITICAL INFRASTRUCTURE</font></h2><p style="box-sizing: inherit; margin: 0px 0px 10px; padding: 0px;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">Kaufman writes that “ALEC played an essential role in the conservative network that has transformed Wisconsin,” highlighting three ALEC measures: school vouchers, right to work, and voter ID.[CRONON?]</font></p><p style="box-sizing: inherit; margin: 0px 0px 10px; padding: 0px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">This became crystal clear to a young mom living and working in Madison named Chris Taylor. Walker’s attack on unions and on the public schools where her kids went to school inspired Taylor to run for office in 2012 and, once elected, she continued to dig deeper into the group’s radical agenda, which has prompted over 100 American companies to stop funding it. Just last week, long-time supporter ExxonMobil <a href="https://www.prwatch.org/news/2018/07/13368/alec-too-extreme-exxon-long-term-alec-board-member-dumps-alec-over-climate-denial" target="blank" rel="noopener" style="box-sizing: inherit; background: 0px 0px; transition: all 500ms ease-in-out; text-decoration-line: none;">stopped funding ALEC.</a></font></p><p style="box-sizing: inherit; margin: 0px 0px 10px; padding: 0px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><b>“ALEC defines the parameters of what’s possible,”</b> Taylor explains in the book. Since being elected to the State Assembly, Taylor has taken it upon herself to attend ALEC meetings as often as possible in order to report on the organization for multiple outlets. Taylor describes in the book how isolated she feels in a sea of conservatives, including being chased through the halls of one meeting by a drunken legislator.</font></p><p style="box-sizing: inherit; margin: 0px 0px 10px; padding: 0px;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">Taylor explains well the critical “infrastructure” that the GOP built in the state with the support of the $900 million Lynde and Harry <b>Bradley Foundation,</b> which the Center for Media and Democracy exposed in an 11-part series <a href="https://www.exposedbycmd.org/2017/05/05/documents-detail-bradley-foundation-efforts-build-right-wing-infrastructure-nationwide/" target="blank" rel="noopener" style="background-image: initial; background-position: 0px 0px; background-size: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-attachment: initial; background-origin: initial; background-clip: initial; box-sizing: inherit; transition: all 500ms ease-in-out; text-decoration-line: none;">in 2017</a>, and how that infrastructure was critical to the election of Trump and the defeat of Clinton. This infrastructure included candidate training, ALEC politicians, state-based “think tanks,” legal teams, and phony media outlets.</font></p><p style="box-sizing: inherit; margin: 0px 0px 10px; padding: 0px;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);"><b>Even in Democratic circles, the expanse and effectiveness of this infrastructure is not widely understood. “‘Republicans have a <em style="box-sizing: inherit;">network</em>, they have an infrastructure.’ We don’t</b>. We might pick up a seat or two here and there, but until we have an infrastructure as strong as theirs, we’re going to lose,” says Taylor.</font></p><h2 style="box-sizing: inherit; line-height: 1.2; margin: 0px 0px 10px; text-transform: uppercase; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">A NATIONAL MODEL</font></h2><p style="box-sizing: inherit; margin: 0px 0px 10px; padding: 0px;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">The book tells a tale of how Wisconsin “went from a state widely admired as a ‘laboratory of democracy’ to a testing ground for national conservatives” bent on making key states Republican strongholds. </span><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">“Those efforts have been wildly successful, culminating in Wisconsin’s startling deliverance of the White House to Donald Trump,” writes Kaufman.</span></font></p><p style="box-sizing: inherit; margin: 0px 0px 10px; padding: 0px;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);"><b>Grover Norquist explains the centrality of Walker’s Act 10 </b>legislation to the Trump election in the book: “Donald Trump’s unexpected victory in 2016 did not lay the groundwork for Republican political dominance. But the March 2011 signing of Act 10, a dramatic reform of public-sector labor laws, by Wisconsin’s Scott Walker certainly did. To understate it: <b>If Act 10 is enacted in a dozen more states, the modern day Democratic Party will cease to be a competitive power in American politics. It’s that big a deal.”</b></font></p><p style="box-sizing: inherit; margin: 0px 0px 10px; padding: 0px;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">Norquist’s anti-union coalitional efforts, hyper-funded by the Kochs and the Bradley Foundation, helped take the Wisconsin “model” national.</span><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"> The nation is now facing an Act 10 of its own, as Trump’s pick to the Supreme Court, Neil Gorsuch, served up the deciding vote for the June </span><em style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); box-sizing: inherit;">Janus vs. AFSCME Council 31</em><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"> decision, which will introduce “right to work” conditions nationwide, as the Center for Media and Democracy detailed in an award-winning investigation </span><a href="http://inthesetimes.com/features/janus_supreme_court_unions_investigation.html" target="blank" rel="noopener" style="background-image: initial; background-position: 0px 0px; background-size: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-attachment: initial; background-origin: initial; background-clip: initial; box-sizing: inherit; transition: all 500ms ease-in-out; text-decoration-line: none;">in February.</a></font></p><h2 style="box-sizing: inherit; line-height: 1.2; margin: 0px 0px 10px; text-transform: uppercase; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">HOPING FOR AN ENCORE</font></h2><p style="box-sizing: inherit; margin: 0px 0px 10px; padding: 0px;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">Kaufman followed his book with a <em style="box-sizing: inherit;">New York Times</em> essay “<a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2018/07/07/opinion/sunday/progressive-populism-wisconsin-trump.html" target="blank" rel="noopener" style="background-image: initial; background-position: 0px 0px; background-size: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-attachment: initial; background-origin: initial; background-clip: initial; box-sizing: inherit; transition: all 500ms ease-in-out; text-decoration-line: none;">Progressive Populism Can Save Us From Trump</a>.”</span><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"> Many in Wisconsin, who gave Bernie Sanders 71 of 72 counties in 2016, hope he is right.</span></font></p><p style="box-sizing: inherit; margin: 0px 0px 10px; padding: 0px;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">There is only one flaw in Kaufman’s important book.</span><b style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"> Walker’s brain, R.J. Johnson,</b><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"> is only mentioned once. </span><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">Johnson, a native of Florida, is not only Scott Walker’s chief political advisor, but he also oversaw and funneled some $20 million in dark money into the 2011-2012 recall races, and millions more into Senate, Assembly, and judicial races, prompting a criminal investigation by a Republican state prosecutor. Johnson has been responsible for the most disgusting political ads ever aired <a href="https://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php/R.J.Johnson" target="blank" rel="noopener" style="background-image: initial; background-position: 0px 0px; background-size: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-attachment: initial; background-origin: initial; background-clip: initial; box-sizing: inherit; transition: all 500ms ease-in-out; text-decoration-line: none;">in the state</a>, the utter destruction of the Wisconsin Supreme Court (turning one of the state’s most respected institutions into what <em style="box-sizing: inherit;">The New Yorker</em> called a <a href="https://www.newyorker.com/news/news-desk/the-destruction-of-the-wisconsin-supreme-court" style="background-image: initial; background-position: 0px 0px; background-size: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-attachment: initial; background-origin: initial; background-clip: initial; box-sizing: inherit; transition: all 500ms ease-in-out; text-decoration-line: none;">“disgraceful mess”</a>), and the wholesale dismantling of Wisconsin’s clean election laws. Few political operatives have had such as impact on the state as this slavish servant of secret money in campaigns and elections.</span></font></p><p style="box-sizing: inherit; margin: 0px 0px 10px; padding: 0px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Let’s hope Kaufman is saving material for his next book.</font></p><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">=</font></div>