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Freedom Foundation

formerly evergreen

ANTI UNION

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FOLLOW THE MONEY: Rusty Brown of the Freedom Foundation broke down how little of a teacher’s union dues actually stay local. In many states, more than half of every dollar is siphoned off to state and national affiliates that spend it on politics and pet causes, not teachers or classrooms. Brown warned that unions are increasingly open about their radical agenda, citing a Colorado resolution to “oppose capitalism” and push for a more “equitable” system. For teachers who value American principles, he argued, unions aren’t just wasting their money, they’re undermining the very future of the country.

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https://www.alternet.org/2019/10/trump-seems-to-have-no-problem-undermining-independent-unions/

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Trump seems to have no problem undermining independent unions

Written by Max Moran / Independent Media Institute October 17, 2019

Anyone praising the Ukraine whistleblowers for their courage, and fearful of the chilling effect of the Trump administration’s crackdown on whistleblowers, ought to support strong and independent public sector unions. Unions, after all, offer federal workers protection from the whims of the political appointees who are often their ultimate bosses.

Yet President Donald Trump recently lifted a man whose whole career has centered on eviscerating public-sector unions to a position with direct power over them, and it was only reported in a single state blog. Last week, Trump appointed Maxford Nelsen to fill a seat on the Federal Service Impasses Panel (FSIP), a board housed within the Federal Labor Relations Authority (FLRA).

Most people have never heard of Nelsen, FSIP, or the FLRA. But if you work for the federal government, this decision could leave you with less job security and more working hours. Since the federal government is the largest employer in the American economy, that’s a lot of people who could suffer due to this decision.

The FLRA is an independent agency which oversees the relationship between federal workers’ unions and their bosses—think of it as a neutral decision-maker when unions and management need an external voice to make the final call on a given issue. Within the FLRA, the FSIP has jurisdiction over two key statutes: one which gave federal workers the right to collective organizing around personnel in the first place, and the other which set rules around schedules and hours for federal workers.

When unions and management can’t reach an agreement over disputes around these two statutes, FSIP ends up having the final word. That’s important, since federal employees don’t have the right to strike, and there are often limitations on what a union can negotiate on within a given agency. An FSIP ruling is meant as an alternative to the usual way labor and management would close an unresolved dispute—namely, with talks breaking down, and the union perhaps going on strike.

As a new member of the FSIP, Nelsen’s vote serves as a substitute to the direct leverage a strike would normally exert, meaning union members’ hopes may end up riding on the decisions of him and his fellow FSIP members. They will almost certainly be disappointed by every ruling he makes.

Since 2013, Nelsen has directed the Freedom Foundation’s labor policy division. The Freedom Foundation is one of the hundreds of generically named conservative think tanks and advocacy groups in the State Policy Network, Charles Koch’s web of libertarian influence organizations. Public-sector unions are a particular bugaboo for the Freedom Foundation, whose CEO once wrote that “Labor bosses are the single greatest threat to freedom and opportunity in America today… The Freedom Foundation has a proven plan for bankrupting and defeating government unions through education, litigation, legislation and community activation.”

That “proven plan” was first developed in 2014, after the Supreme Court ruled that partially-public-sector workers—like home care aides paid through Medicaid—were not required to pay dues to a union they had not joined, even if that union’s negotiations directly benefited them. The Freedom Foundation began public awareness campaigns to urge former dues-payers against contributing. Nelsen’s own work included investigating a South Seattle research center’s financial connections to major unions, and he ultimately called the center “little more than a state-subsidized extension of the WSLC.”

Four years later, the Supreme Court expanded this dues-optional standard to all public-sector unions in the 2018 Janus v. AFSCME ruling. The Freedom Foundation filed an amicus brief for the Janus case which cited a report by Nelsen several times.

Unsurprisingly, Nelsen is a vocal Janus fan, writing blog posts to call out perceived slights from Washington state lawmakers, giddily highlighting dropping union membership, and being ejected from government buildings for handing out leaflets about the decision.

Now, from the board of the FSIP, he’ll have direct authority to make rulings that further weaken government unions’ capacity to credibly stand up to management. And importantly, he’ll be able to do this while still working at the Freedom Foundation to starve these unions of operating revenue. The FSIP is only a part-time commitment, and nothing prevents Nelsen from retaining his research job at the Freedom Foundation. Thus, he can pursue his anti-labor agenda from both the outside and the inside, at the same time, completely legally.

This is not what FSIP was designed for. It’s supposed to be a neutral arbiter between management and labor, not a tool for one side to exert dominance over the other. Which brings us to another key part of the story, namely, that it’s not a new story.

A cursory glance at the member bios shows the current FSIP members include the chair of a legal practice for companies fighting against labor unions, a vice president at the Koch-backedMercatusCenter, a Delta Air Lines lobbyist (the same airline which posted a notorious anti-union poster this year), the founder of a law center “offering free legal services to those hurt by public employee union officials,” a lawyer for the hyper-right-wing Goldwater Institute (named for Barry Goldwater), and a labor policy consultant for the aforementioned Koch vehicle, the State Policy Network.

Every single one of the FSIP’s members comes from a background indicating antagonism to organized labor. FSIP members are appointed for five-year terms, likely to protect against a president stuffing the board with loyalists and ensure some holdovers from administration to administration. But right now, there are no pro-labor members, or even just non-interested parties like academics, to offer any counter-weight to the pro-management bloc.

Nelsen’s appointment, then, is sadly just more of the same. It’s more of the same for FSIP and the FLRA, and more of the same for the Trump administration. Undeniably, there is a lot going on in the news right now, more than almost anyone can follow. But if we let appointments like these and rulings from boards like FSIP slip completely under the radar, the consequences can ripple out and enable the culture of unchecked corruption among appointees that we see today.

Max Moran is a research assistant at the Center for Economic and Policy Research (CEPR), which aims to increase scrutiny on executive branch appointments.

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9/14 spn alec koch defund left

$80 million network of state “think tanks” and other right-wing organizations known as the  State Policy Network (SPN) held a closed-door confab with Koch operatives, corporate donors, and ALEC staff to coordinate an assault on public sector unions to advance political control by right wing politicians in state houses nationwide. 

While these groups say they are advancing “worker rights,” documents obtained by CMD and featured in the Guardianlay bare their true political agenda. 

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

Tom McCabe of the Freedom Foundation

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http://www.theolympian.com/news/local/article126405904.html

1/17

Conservative think tank The Freedom Foundation has been accused of violating election laws during last year’s Initiative 1 campaign that went before Olympia voters.

The Northwest Accountability Projectannounced this week that it has filed a complaint with the Attorney General contending the foundation failed to register as a political committee or report expenditures to the state’s Public Disclosure Commission about its anti-initiative campaign.

Initiative 1 called for an income tax on the city’s highest earners to create a public college tuition fund for Olympia high school graduates. The measure failed when only 47 percent of Olympia voters approved the measure.

The complaint cites a fundraising letter from Freedom Foundation CEO Tom McCabe that was mailed in August to help fight Initiative 1, and notes that no expenditure reports were filed with the state’s Public Disclosure Commission.

“Your gift today of $5,000, $1,000, $500, $250, $100, or whatever you can afford,” the letter concluded, “will greatly help the Freedom Foundation as we make our stand against those who would saddle Washington with an income tax.”

The initiative was tied up in the courts and did not qualify for the election ballot until Sept. 7, about two weeks after the foundation’s letter was mailed. Jami Lund, senior policy analyst for the foundation, told The Olympian that these circumstances mean the fundraising activity does not require reporting.

“This letter constitutes basic issue advocacy — and illustrates the foundation’s thought leadership and grassroots organizing abilities in opposing an idea,” Lund wrote in an Oct. 14 email. “(Initiative 1) was not a ballot measure until the Court of Appeals ordered it to be so — long after this letter was sent out to potential donors.”

Greg Overstreet, the foundation’s managing attorney, denied the allegations and said the “Freedom Foundation is most certainly not a political action committee.”

But Andrew Biviano, co-founder and president of the Northwest Accountability Project, said the foundation devoted resources of staff and communications during the Initiative 1 campaign in an attempt to influence the election outcome. The public has a right to know what was spent, he said.

“If they didn’t violate the law, then the AG will determine that,” Biviano told The Olympian. “People should work out in the open.”

This isn’t the first legal clash between the two entities. In 2015, the union-backed Northwest Accountability Project filed a complaint with the Internal Revenue Service in an attempt to revoke the Freedom Foundation’s tax-exempt status.

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http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php?title=Freedom_Foundation

Evergreen Freedom Foundation

(Redirected from Freedom Foundation)

Freedom Foundation, formerly known as the Evergreen Freedom Foundation, is a libertarian think tank based in Olympia, WA whose mission is "to advance individual liberty, free enterprise, and limited, accountable government" by, for example, filing suit again Washington Governor Chris Gregoire for refusing "to turn over public records on more than 500 occasions in the last four years."[1]

Contents[hide]

Ties to the American Legislative Exchange Council

Bob Williams, Founder of the Evergreen Freedom Foundation, is on the Tax and Fiscal Policy Task Force of the American Legislative Exchange Council (ALEC) as of 2011.[2] He is also on the ALEC Board of Scholars as of 2011.[3]

ALEC is not a lobby; it is not a front group. It is much more powerful than that. Through ALEC, behind closed doors, corporations hand state legislators the changes to the law they desire that directly benefit their bottom line. Along with legislators, corporations have membership in ALEC. Corporations sit on all nine ALEC task forces and vote with legislators to approve “model” bills. They have their own corporate governing board which meets jointly with the legislative board. (ALEC says that corporations do not vote on the board.) They fund almost all of ALEC's operations. Participating legislators, overwhelmingly conservative Republicans, then bring those proposals home and introduce them in statehouses across the land as their own brilliant ideas and important public policy innovations—without disclosing that corporations crafted and voted on the bills. ALEC boasts that it has over 1,000 of these bills introduced by legislative members every year, with one in every five of them enacted into law. ALEC describes itself as a “unique,” “unparalleled” and “unmatched” organization. It might be right. It is as if a state legislature had been reconstituted, yet corporations had pushed the people out the door. Learn more at ALECexposed.org.

History

Evergreen Freedom Foundation was founded in 1991 as a private, non-profit public policy think-tank in Washington State. Its efforts center around public policy research and alternatives in these core areas: state budget and tax policy, education, labor policy, property rights, legal policy, and citizenship and governance. The Evergreen Freedom Foundation is, according to the "Seattle Times", a libertarian think tank, based in Olympia, Washington, founded by Bob Williams, a former state legislator and gubernatorial candidate.

EFF’s mission is to advance individual liberty, free enterprise, and limited, accountable government.

During Dino Rossi's failed attempt to gain the Washington State governorship through a court challenge to the recount process, Evergreen Freedom Foundation provided strong ideological support. They pushed a "Voter Integrity Project" which focused on requiring voter ID to prevent voter fraud and started a "Grassroots Washington" group.[4]

The Evergreen Freedom Foundation neither solicits nor accepts funds from public sources. All programs and activities are funded by private donations and grants. Its funding comes from individuals, corporations and numerous private foundations.

Causes

Freedom Foundation's main "causes" are: Budget and taxes, Educations, property rights, business and labor, 1st principles and voting and constitutional law.[5]

Funding

In 2008, Freedom Foundation had a total revenue of $2.5 million and a total expense of $2.6 million.[6]

Media Transparency reported this: "In fact, foundation tax records show that more than one-third of Evergreen’s support comes from out-of-state foundations -- most of them financed by advocates of anti-public education efforts, including school vouchers, or anti-labor activity including "paycheck protection." Several Evergreen contributors have strong ties to the State Policy Network, the national string of smaller think tanks that promote conservative agendas in their respective states. Evergreen is a SPN member and Evergreen President Bob Williams is on the SPN President’s Advisory Council."

More Information at: Media Transparency.

Leadership

Personnel

(as of September 2005)

Robert (Bob) Williams is the Founder and Senior Fellow of the Freedom Foundation, previously known as the Evergreen Freedom Foundation, a libertarian organization whose mission "is to advance individual liberty, free enterprise, and limited, accountable government."[1]

Williams also serves on the board of the State Policy Network and is a "visiting fellow" at the Mercatus Center.

ALEC, the Freedom Foundation, the Mercatus Center and the State Policy Network have all received funding or assistance from Koch-related funds.

Contents[hide]

Ties to the American Legislative Exchange Council

In August 2011, Williams received the American Legislative Exchange Council's (ALEC's) Private Sector Member of the Year Award.[2] He is listed as an ALEC "scholar" and has worked on several ALEC Task Forces, including the Tax and Fiscal Policy Task Force in 2011.[3]

ALEC is not a lobby; it is not a front group. It is much more powerful than that. Through ALEC, behind closed doors, corporations hand state legislators the changes to the law they desire that directly benefit their bottom line. Along with legislators, corporations have membership in ALEC. Corporations sit on all nine ALEC task forces and vote with legislators to approve “model” bills. They have their own corporate governing board which meets jointly with the legislative board. (ALEC says that corporations do not vote on the board.) They fund almost all of ALEC's operations. Participating legislators, overwhelmingly conservative Republicans, then bring those proposals home and introduce them in statehouses across the land as their own brilliant ideas and important public policy innovations—without disclosing that corporations crafted and voted on the bills. ALEC boasts that it has over 1,000 of these bills introduced by legislative members every year, with one in every five of them enacted into law. ALEC describes itself as a “unique,” “unparalleled” and “unmatched” organization. It might be right. It is as if a state legislature had been reconstituted, yet corporations had pushed the people out the door. Learn more at ALECexposed.org.

Background

Williams is also a visiting fellow with George Mason University’s Mercatus Center State and Local Policy Project, a Charles Koch-funded project. He is also the president of State Budget Solutions, which partners with the Koch-funded Evergreen Foundation. He previously worked as an auditor for the Pentagon and Post Office. He served five terms in the Washington State Legislature and was the unsuccessful 1988 Republican nomination for governor in Washington state.[4]

The Mercatus Center was founded and is funded by the Koch Family Foundations. According to financial records, the Koch family has contributed more than $30 million to George Mason, much of which has gone to the Mercatus Center, a nonprofit organization. Democratic strategist Rob Stein described the Mercatus Center as "ground zero for deregulation policy in Washington.” The Wall Street Journal has called the Mercatus Center “the most important think tank you’ve never heard of,” [5]

The Mercatus Center has engaged in campaigns involving deregulation, especially environmental deregulation. Fourteen of the 23 regulations that George W. Bush put on his hitlist were, according to the Wall Street Journal, first suggested by people working at the Mercatus Center.[6]

Related SourceWatch articles

External resources

External articles

References

  1. ↑ Mission Statement, "Freedom Foundation"
  2. ↑ American Legislative Exchange Council, "Solutions for the States," 38th Annual Meeting agenda, on file with CMD, August 3-6, 2011
  3. ↑ American Legislative Exchange Council Tax and Fiscal Policy Task Force, organization website, accessed May 28, 2011
  4. ↑ Freedom Foundation, "Bob Williams," organizational biography, accessed June 30, 2011
  5. ↑ Jane Mayer Covert Operations: The billionaire brothers who are waging a war against Obama The New Yorker, August 30 2010, at page 7
  6. ↑ George Monbiot [1] UK Guardian, October 25, 2010

Political Activities

In July 2001, a state superior court ruled against the union and ordered it to pay a $400,000 fine and $200,000 in legal costs. But a state appeals court and the Washington Supreme Court later ruled for the WEA, holding that Initiative 134 “unduly burdens unions” and is unconstitutional.[9]

In truth, Evergreen has built its revenue base and committed much of its expenses on a seven-year public relations and legal campaign to curb the Washington Education Association’s (WEA) use of dues for political purposes – the country’s most sustained and targeted "paycheck protection" campaign. Much of Evergreen’s work -- and its subsequent expenses and its fundraising – is tied to legal complaints in the courts and in Washington state’s Public Disclosure Commission. Evergreen carries on an agenda driven by its president, former Republican state legislator Bob Williams – an unsuccessful gubernatorial and congressional candidate -- and executed by Evergreen’s staff of active Republican political operatives and insiders."[10]

Contact details

PO Box 552

Olympia, WA 98507

Telephone: 360-956-3482

Email: info@myfreedomfoundation.org

Fax: 360-352-1874

Website: http://www.effwa.org

Articles and resources

Related SourceWatch articles

External resources

References

  1. ↑ Freedom Foundation.com
  2. ↑ American Legislative Exchange Council Tax and Fiscal Policy Task Force, organization website, accessed May 28, 2011
  3. ↑ American Legislative Exchange Council, Board of Scholars, organizational website, accessed May 2011
  4. ↑ Election dispute attracts 5 who lost race,"The Seattle Times." February 14, 2005
  5. ↑ Freedom Foundation "Causes"
  6. ↑ EFF Financials,"Charity Navigator Rating"
  7. ↑ EFF Profile,"Activist Cash.com"
  8. ↑ EFF Profile,"Activist Cash.com"
  9. ↑ EFF Profile,"Activist Cash.com"
  10. ↑ Evergreen Freedom Foundation Profile, "Media Transparency"

“Reshaping a map is very powerful” for donors, said Spencer Kimball, a political consultant who is executive director of Boston-based Fair Districts Mass. “It’s a big opportunity to have influence at the state level and the congressional level not one race at a time but for 10 years.”

Skillful redistricting can, of course, help create Republican or Democratic districts, but it can also grace incumbents with virtually guaranteed re-election or leave them with nearly no chance at all. In the process, it can also create seats almost certain to be held by minorities or break those same groups apart, ensuring that they have almost no voice.

But it’s not cheap, and that’s where corporations and other outside interests come in. They can provide the cash for voter data, mapping consultants and lobbyists to influence state legislators, who are in charge of redistricting in most states. Outside interests can also fund the inevitable lawsuits that contest nearly every state's redistricting plan after it is unveiled.

In Minnesota, for instance, the Republicans’ legal efforts to influence redistricting are being financed through a group called Minnesotans for a Fair Redistricting.

Fair Redistricting describes itself as independent, but it has much of its leadership in common with the Freedom Foundation of Minnesota, a group with ties to the political empire of the Koch brothers, industrialists from Kansas who’ve spent millions funding conservative causes. The head of the Freedom Foundation, Annette Meeks, told ProPublica she has “no involvement” with Fair Redistricting. But both organizations’ tax filings list the same address: Meeks’ home address.

Fair Redistricting is registered under the name of her husband, Jack Meeks, who is also on the board of the Freedom Foundation. He did not respond to requests for comment.

Who is actually paying for Fair Redistricting’s lawsuit and lawyers? And what district lines are they pushing for? The group doesn’t have to say and has so far kept its finances and plans under wraps. Annette Meeks did not respond to questions about the group’s donors or its ties to the Koch brothers, but she said the group complies with all legal filing requirements. But the group’s public tax filings contain no information on its contributors

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http://www.propublica.org/article/hidden-hands-in-redistricting-corporations-special-interests