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<font size="4" face="Times New Roman">=</font><div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">=</font></div><div><p id="firstHeading" class="firstHeading" style="margin-top: 8px; margin-bottom: 8px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">https://YYYtheguardian.com/us-news/2017/aug/30/rightwing-alliance-unions-defund-defang</font></p><p id="firstHeading" class="firstHeading" style="margin-top: 8px; margin-bottom: 8px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">no linx MANY docs</font></p><p id="firstHeading" class="firstHeading" style="margin-top: 8px; margin-bottom: 8px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font face="Times New Roman" size="4"><b>Rightwing alliance plots assault to 'defund and defang' America's unions</b></font></p><p id="firstHeading" class="firstHeading" style="margin-top: 8px; margin-bottom: 8px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font face="Times New Roman" size="4">Conservative campaign aims to strike ‘mortal blow’ on government unions</font></p><p id="firstHeading" class="firstHeading" style="margin-top: 8px; margin-bottom: 8px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font face="Times New Roman" size="4">&nbsp;‘A once-in-a-lifetime chance to reverse the failed policies of the American left’</font></p><p id="firstHeading" class="firstHeading" style="margin-top: 8px; margin-bottom: 8px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font face="Times New Roman" size="4">Ed Pilkington in New York</font></p><p id="firstHeading" class="firstHeading" style="margin-top: 8px; margin-bottom: 8px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font face="Times New Roman" size="4">
</font></p><p id="firstHeading" class="firstHeading" style="margin-top: 8px; margin-bottom: 8px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font face="Times New Roman" size="4">&nbsp;@edpilkington</font></p><p id="firstHeading" class="firstHeading" style="margin-top: 8px; margin-bottom: 8px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font face="Times New Roman" size="4"><b>Wed 30 Aug 2017&nbsp;</b>05.00 EDT Last modified on Wed 30 Aug 2017 12.11 EDT</font></p><p id="firstHeading" class="firstHeading" style="margin-top: 8px; margin-bottom: 8px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font face="Times New Roman" size="4">&nbsp;</font></p><p id="firstHeading" class="firstHeading" style="margin-top: 8px; margin-bottom: 8px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font face="Times New Roman" size="4">&nbsp;Teachers in California protest against a Wisconsin law affecting public-sector collective bargaining. Union membership among public-sector workers is about 35%.</font></p><p id="firstHeading" class="firstHeading" style="margin-top: 8px; margin-bottom: 8px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font face="Times New Roman" size="4">]</font></p><p id="firstHeading" class="firstHeading" style="margin-top: 8px; margin-bottom: 8px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font face="Times New Roman" size="4"><b>Rightwing activists across the US have launched a nationwide campaign to undermine progressive politicians by depriving them of a major source of support and funding – public sector unions.</b></font></p><p id="firstHeading" class="firstHeading" style="margin-top: 8px; margin-bottom: 8px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font face="Times New Roman" size="4"><b>A network of conservative thinktanks with outposts in all 50 states has embarked on a “breakthrough” campaign designed to strike a “mortal blow” against the American left. The aim is to “defund and defang” unions representing government employees as the first step towards ensuring the permanent collapse of progressive politics.</b></font></p><p id="firstHeading" class="firstHeading" style="margin-top: 8px; margin-bottom: 8px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font face="Times New Roman" size="4">
</font></p><p id="firstHeading" class="firstHeading" style="margin-top: 8px; margin-bottom: 8px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font face="Times New Roman" size="4">The campaign carries a powerful echo of the populist creed espoused by Donald Trump. The president was propelled into the White House last November after unexpected victories in several previously Democratic rust belt states including Michigan and Wisconsin, both of which have endured withering attacks on trade unions in recent years.</font></p><p id="firstHeading" class="firstHeading" style="margin-top: 8px; margin-bottom: 8px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font face="Times New Roman" size="4">
</font></p><p id="firstHeading" class="firstHeading" style="margin-top: 8px; margin-bottom: 8px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font face="Times New Roman" size="4">The new assault is being spearheaded by the State Policy Network (SPN), an alliance of 66 state-based thinktanks, or “ideas factories” as it calls them, with a combined annual budget of $80m. As suggested by its slogan – “State solutions. National impact” – the group outlines an aim to construct a rightwing hegemony throughout the US, working from the bottom up.</font></p><p id="firstHeading" class="firstHeading" style="margin-top: 8px; margin-bottom: 8px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font face="Times New Roman" size="4">
</font></p><p id="firstHeading" class="firstHeading" style="margin-top: 8px; margin-bottom: 8px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font face="Times New Roman" size="4">To do that, it first has to sweep aside the public sector unions and their historic ties to Democratic and progressive politicians<b>. In a 10-page fundraising letter, part of a set of documents obtained by the Center for Media and Democracy and published by the Guardian today for the first time, SPN sets out its mission in frank language that does not disguise its partisan ambitions.</b></font></p><p id="firstHeading" class="firstHeading" style="margin-top: 8px; margin-bottom: 8px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font face="Times New Roman" size="4"><b>The author of the letter, SPN’s president and CEO Tracie Sharp,describes the $8m “breakthrough” campaign as a “once-in-a-lifetime chance to reverse the failed policies of the American left … We are primed, right now, to deliver the mortal blow to permanently break its stranglehold on our society.”</b></font></p><p id="firstHeading" class="firstHeading" style="margin-top: 8px; margin-bottom: 8px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></p><p id="firstHeading" class="firstHeading" style="margin-top: 8px; margin-bottom: 8px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font face="Times New Roman" size="4">Sharp pitches the battle against unions as the start of a war on progressive politics, with the ultimate goal of winning elections for rightwing candidates. “Big government unions are the biggest sources of funding and political muscle for the left – and a major obstacle to the ability of voters to reclaim control of American government. To win the battle for freedom, we must take the fight to the unions, state by state.”</font></p><p id="firstHeading" class="firstHeading" style="margin-top: 8px; margin-bottom: 8px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font face="Times New Roman" size="4">
</font></p><p id="firstHeading" class="firstHeading" style="margin-top: 8px; margin-bottom: 8px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font face="Times New Roman" size="4" style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">The target of such union-bashing, she openly admits, is to “defund and defang one of our freedom movement’s most powerful opponents, the government unions”. The long-term objective is to “deal a major blow to the left’s ability to control government at the state and national levels.&nbsp;<b>I’m talking about permanently depriving the left from access to millions of dollars in dues extracted from unwilling union members every election cycle” (emphasis in original).</b></font></p><p id="firstHeading" class="firstHeading" style="margin-top: 8px; margin-bottom: 8px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font face="Times New Roman" size="4">
</font></p><p id="firstHeading" class="firstHeading" style="margin-top: 8px; margin-bottom: 8px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font face="Times New Roman" size="4"><b>SPN will be discussing its anti-union and anti-left agenda on Wednesday at its annual meeting in San Antonio, Texas. Its morning session will look at how “labor reform” can be pursued with renewed vigor under the Trump administration.</b></font></p><p id="firstHeading" class="firstHeading" style="margin-top: 8px; margin-bottom: 8px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font face="Times New Roman" size="4">
</font></p><p id="firstHeading" class="firstHeading" style="margin-top: 8px; margin-bottom: 8px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font face="Times New Roman" size="4">The discussion will feature some of the key architects of SPN’s political strategy, including&nbsp;<span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">Vincent Vernuccio who pioneered anti-union legislation in Michigan, and Tom McCabe of the Freedom Foundation,&nbsp;</span>who has sent his foot soldiers on an aggressive offensive against collective bargaining in the US north-west.</font></p><p id="firstHeading" class="firstHeading" style="margin-top: 8px; margin-bottom: 8px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font face="Times New Roman" size="4">
</font></p><p id="firstHeading" class="firstHeading" style="margin-top: 8px; margin-bottom: 8px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font face="Times New Roman" size="4">Mary Bottari, deputy director of the Center for Media and Democracy (CMD) which tracks the rise of rightwing groups in America, said the fundraising letter and other SPN documents published by the Guardian cast light on the conservative game plan. “It’s very rare to catch conservative thinktanks talking so openly and blatantly about their long-term political aims. These documents reveal to us that SPN’s goals are entirely political – they have no concern for workers or union members, their only goal is winning elections to advance rightwing causes.”</font></p><p id="firstHeading" class="firstHeading" style="margin-top: 8px; margin-bottom: 8px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font face="Times New Roman" size="4">
</font></p><p id="firstHeading" class="firstHeading" style="margin-top: 8px; margin-bottom: 8px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font face="Times New Roman" size="4"><b>Bottari added: “An $80m campaign to ‘defund and defang’ public sector unions is remarkable, both in its size and in its ambition.”</b></font></p><p id="firstHeading" class="firstHeading" style="margin-top: 8px; margin-bottom: 8px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font face="Times New Roman" size="4"><b>...</b></font></p></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">=</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">ref</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">https://yyy.theguardian.com/us-news/2016/mar/10/union-killers-freedom-foundation</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">no lnx</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">vid</font></div><div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><b>&nbsp;door-to-door union killers: rightwing foundation takes labor fight to the streets</b></font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">The Freedom Foundation says its goal is to offer choices, but union leaders say it’s part of a conservative effort to flip Washington and Oregon from blue to red</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Steven Greenhouse in Seattle</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Thu 10 Mar 2016 07.00 EST Last modified on Fri 14 Jul 2017 15.50 EDT</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">&nbsp;Washington state has passed union-backed progressive legislation recently, enacting a $15 an hour minimum wage.]</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
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</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">For several months, Shawna Murphy, a home-based childcare provider in Seattle, had received a stream of emails, letters and robocalls – some two dozen of them – telling her she had the right to stop paying union dues.</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Then early one afternoon, while the six children in her charge were napping, a man with a briefcase knocked on her door. At first Murphy thought he was a lawyer, but then she realized he might be a state inspector of childcare providers. So she opened the door.</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">“He said there’s this supreme court case that will impact me, and he pulled out this leaflet and told me that I don’t have to be part of the union and don’t have to pay union dues,” said Murphy, a member of the Service Employees International Union. “I told him, ‘I’m a proud supporter of the union, and you can leave now.’”</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Unions brace for supreme court case that could shake up powerful political force</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">&nbsp;Read more</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">The man was one of the many foot soldiers in a highly unusual offensive against public-sector unions in the US north-west. A conservative group, the , has dispatched activists to visit the homes of more than 10,000 childcare and home-care workers in Washington and Oregon to advise them that under a two-year-old supreme court decision, they can opt out of paying union dues.</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><b>Tom McCabe, chief executive officer of the fast-growing foundation, funded by a web of conservative groups, said: “My goal is to provide freedom to union members and to give them a choice about whether or not they want to belong to a union.”</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);">But labor leaders and their progressive allies say the group’s goals go far beyond that. Washington state in particular has passed union-backed progressive legislation recently, enacting a $15-an-hour minimum wage and a law that will allow Uber drivers to unionize. They say the Freedom Foundation’s unorthodox tactics are part of a grand plan to weaken unions and their treasuries, sap their political influence and ultimately flip Washington and Oregon from Democratic to Republican.</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
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</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Freedom Foundation TV ad: Mary Jane took back her freedom.</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">“The Freedom Foundation says they care about workers, but what they’re really about is defunding unions and defunding the left in our state,” said Aaron Ostrom, executive director of Fuse Washington, a statewide coalition of progressives. “They see this as the best tactic to turn Washington from a blue state to a red state.”</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><b>Labor leaders say never before have they seen a foundation undertake such an aggressive, multi-pronged campaign against unions; nor have they ever seen such canvassing to advise workers about quitting their unions</b><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">. Labor leaders predict that if the foundation succeeds in weakening public-sector unions in Washington and Oregon, conservatives will roll out similar campaigns in Illinois and Pennsylvania. Labor officials say the foundation is part of a nationwide conservative, dark money network, with the&nbsp;<b>Koch-backed State Policy Network, a 50-state free-market group, helping to finance the foundation.</b></span></font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">The foundation’s tactics go well beyond door-knocking. It has made public records requests to numerous counties to obtain the names and addresses of home-care and childcare aides. It does podcasts that rail against unions and sponsors a website, , telling public-sector workers they can quit their unions.</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);">Last December, the foundation sent activists dressed as Santa Claus to stand outside government buildings, where they told workers they could give themselves a holiday gift by exercising their right not to pay that portion of union dues that goes to political activity. The foundation has also filed myriad lawsuits and complaints against public-sector unions, challenging everything from their ability to speak to newly hired government employees to their failure to file all required political spending reports</span>.</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);">“I have to give them credit, they’re pretty nimble,” said Greg Devereux, executive director of the Washington Federation of State Employees, part of the American Federation of State, County and Municipal Employees (Afscme). “They get to attack all day long. They don’t have to be for anything. It’s fun for them to go after SEIU [Service Employees International Union], the Washington Education Association [a teachers’ union] and Afscme. We’re three of the major political players in the state, and they get to attack 24/7, 365 days a year.”</font></div><div><b><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></b></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><b>Northwest Accountability Project, fighting back against would-be union busters.</b></font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Unions are so concerned about the foundation’s efforts that they have created a new organization, the Northwest Accountability Project, that seeks to expose and discredit the foundation. It, too, has made hard-hitting videos, and it has gone house to house in Tom McCabe’s neighborhood to distribute flyers attacking him as an extremist. The Accountability Project has also made disparaging robocalls to McCabe’s neighbors and church congregants.</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">McCabe says the foundation is misunderstood – and wrongly vilified. “The focus that we have is on helping union members, informing union members that they have a constitutional right to leave their union if they wish,” he said. McCabe was referring to a<b>&nbsp;2014 supreme court decision, Harris v Quinn, which ruled that it violates the first amendment to require partial public employees, like home-care aides and home-based childcare workers, to pay union dues.</b></font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">McCabe decried Washington and Oregon laws that require government workers to pay so-called fair-share fees to the unions that represent them even when they refuse to join the union. “They’ve gotten the legislature to require that if you’re a union member, the government takes money out of your check every month and sends it to the union, and there’s nothing you can do about it,” he said.</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">&nbsp;Labor bosses are the single greatest threat to freedom and opportunity in America today</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Tom McCabe, Freedom Fund</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">McCabe denied that the foundation’s goal was to defund the left. “Personally and professionally, that’s not a priority to me.” He said defunding the left might be “an ancillary benefit” of the foundation’s campaign to educate workers about their rights.</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">But in a fundraising letter last August, McCabe indicated that his foundation’s goal was indeed to defund and defeat public-sector unions – in part to undo Democratic control in the north-west.</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">“Labor bosses are the single greatest threat to freedom and opportunity in America today,” he wrote. “By taking money from hard-working, dues-paying Americans, they’re funding a broken political culture in states like Oregon and Washington.”</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">His fundraising letter added: “The Freedom Foundation has a proven plan for bankrupting and defeating government unions through education, litigation, legislation and community activation.”</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Noting that his group has expanded its efforts from Washington into Oregon, McCabe continued: “We have crossed the Columbia [river], and we won’t be satisfied with anything short of total victory against the government union thugs.”</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><b>In a January speech in Oregon to the Koch-backed group , Anne Marie Gurney, the Freedom Foundation’s Oregon coordinator, declared: “Our No 1 stated focus is to defund the political left.”</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);">Convinced that the Freedom Foundation is partisan, 18 labor unions and progressive groups have asked the Internal Revenue Service to strip the foundation of its tax-exempt 501(c)(3) status. “The Freedom Foundation is operated for the private benefit of the Republican Party and other conservative and libertarian groups,” the groups wrote. “The fact that the Freedom Foundation is a 501(c)(3) is ridiculous,” said Jaxon Ravens, chairman of the Washington state Democratic party. “McCabe is a Republican political operative.”</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">“They’re strong and they’re getting stronger,” Ravens added. “There’s a ton of money out there that rightwing groups can dump into these efforts.”</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">But Freedom Foundation officials deny that they are partisan or are flouting IRS regulations. “We didn’t violate any laws,” said James Abernathy, the foundation’s general counsel. “They take things out of context. They tell half-truths.</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">“Our goal is not to help a political party,” McCabe added. Then, referring to union members, he said, “Our goal is to help people who we believe are being held in bondage against their will.”</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Before taking the foundation’s helm, McCabe headed the Building Industry Association of Washington, turning it into a political and lobbying powerhouse during his two decades there.</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">The Seattle Times wrote that under McCabe, the builders association “became virtually synonymous with GOP politics in the state, spending nearly $11m on conservative candidates and causes from 2002 through 2010”.</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Under McCabe, the group described the former Washington governor Christine Gregoire, a Democrat, as a “heartless, power-hungry she-wolf”.</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">In 2008, the Washington attorney general sued the association for failing to report all political spending, and it ultimately paid $242,000 in fines. After tensions erupted over the association’s politicking, McCabe resigned, leaving with a $1.25m severance package</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Just as unions abhor the Freedom Foundation, the foundation detests the labor-backed Northwest Accountability Project. “It’s been set up to harass us, intimidate us and stop us,” said Abernathy, the general counsel.</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">The flyers it distributed to McCabe’s neighbors decry his “record of failure” and “rightwing agenda”, accusing him of “campaign finance violations” and “wasting millions on extreme politics”. Its robocalls say McCabe’s foundation is funded by “out-of-state billionaires who want to keep wages low, eliminate paid sick leave” and slash education funding.</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">His wife, Susan, was so upset that she wrote a letter to neighbors defending her husband, slamming the Accountability Project’s “four-page page glossy hit piece” and saying: “It is disappointing to see unions resort to harassment and intimidation.”</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><b>The Accountability Project organized a protest at Wells Fargo bank in Seattle to protest that one of its executive vice-presidents, Jeffrey Grubb, is a trustee of the Murdock Charitable Trust, which has donated heavily to the Freedom Foundation.</b></font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">“They attack our CEO and a board member,” Abernathy said. “They’re using traditional union intimidation.”</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">What especially galls some Freedom Foundation officials is that public-sector unions use members’ dues to help elect government officials, who, they say, become too generous in collective bargaining.</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">“You lose the adversarial nature of the negotiations when the government, the employer on one side of the table, supports and was supported by the union on the other side,” Abernathy said. “They’re a giant lovefest between each other.”</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">But Devereux, president of the state employees’ union, called that pure fiction. If negotiations are such a lovefest, he said, why did 110,000 state employees have to endure a seven-year pay freeze from 2008 to 2015?</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">The Freedom Foundation boasts that 55% of the home-based childcare providers in Washington have stopped paying union dues. But the union representing the state’s childcare providers, SEIU Local 925, said many providers were already not paying dues when the foundation began its campaign. Local 925 officials acknowledge that 600 of the 7,000 home-based providers represented by the local have stopped paying dues in response to the foundation’s campaign.</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Kathy Miller, a childcare provider, said she opted out of paying dues “because I didn’t appreciate having the union strongly suggest whom I should vote for in every election.”</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">“To be fair,” Miller added, “in the beginning the union did help, but as time went on, it became crystal clear that they were all about collecting dues money to get more Democrats elected.”</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Labor leaders point to an irony in the Freedom Foundation’s canvas – when labor organizers knock on workers’ doors as part of a unionization drive, company officials and conservatives frequently complain that “union thugs” are intimidating workers and violating their privacy.</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Mary Kay Henry, the SEIU’s national president, says the Freedom Foundation is weakening workers and not just unions. “I look at this as an attack on workers who are trying to come together to improve their lives,” Henry said. “It’s a direct assault on childcare workers who have invested in an organization that has lifted them to a better life – from a sub-minimum wage to minimum wage and now to a salary above minimum wage with paid time off. And now they’re door-knocking and saying, ‘Do you want to save $30 a month to buy your kids’ shoes?’ That enrages me.”</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Murphy, the Seattle childcare provider, acknowledged that she was sometimes frustrated that her union hasn’t achieved more for the workers. But rather than consider quitting, Murphy said: “We need, a bigger union because that will help us bargain better.”</font></div></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
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</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">meet THE RECKLESS, UNETHICAL, AND FAILING LEADER OF THE FREEDOM FOUNDATION<span style="white-space:pre"> </span></font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">May 23, 2018</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">&nbsp; Tom Mccabe</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Tom McCabe, the CEO of the extremist Freedom Foundation</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">When conservative ideologue Tom McCabe took the reins at the Freedom Foundation as CEO in 2013, he made his goal crystal clear: to utterly dismantle the power of working people in Washington and Oregon.</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">McCabe and the Freedom Foundation believe that if they take organized labor out of the picture, they can work with their right-wing allies to elect regressive, Republican candidates and push an extreme conservative agenda in the Pacific Northwest. McCabe’s vision has been made clear in a number of YouTube videos, fundraising documents, and on the Freedom Foundation’s own website.</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Over the last four years, McCabe has spent countless resources — including staff hours and donors’ money — in a blatant effort to harass workers and coerce them to opt out of their union. He’s directed Freedom Foundation staff to aggressively obtain the names, home addresses, and other personal information of working people in order to contact them via mailings, social media, phone calls, and through door-to-door canvasses. Union members all across Oregon and Washington have reported incidences of Freedom Foundation staff visiting their workplaces unannounced, and even coming right to the doorsteps of their homes to harass and intimidate them. We even received reports that the Freedom Foundation lies about who they are (claiming they are union organizers) and that they’ve claimed that the union provided them with members’ contact information. These are all lies.</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Despite McCabe’s rhetoric and outright disregard for the law and the privacy of workers, his efforts have been a complete failure. Union members have embraced their unions. And they’ve come together in an effort to protect themselves and their coworkers from the Freedom Foundation’s lies and efforts to badger them at work and at their homes.List of Tom McCabe's failures</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">A LONG LINE OF FAILURES</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">The failure of the Freedom Foundation’s “opt-out” campaign is yet another in a long line of their failures. To this date, they have not passed any significant legislation in either Oregon or Washington. Their local attempts at passing “right to work” laws have all failed, and Oregon, Washington, and California are all dominated by Democrats passing some of the most progressive pro-worker policies in the country. This includes historic minimum wage increases and paid sick leave… issues the Freedom Foundation vehemently opposes.</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">MCCABE’S BIGOTED AND DANGEROUS STAFF</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">McCabe has stopped at nothing to try and salvage his right-wing, regressive vision for the Freedom Foundation. This includes putting worker’s safety at risk by sending poorly vetted staff members to interact with union members and their families. The Freedom Foundations’ Washington Field Director Matthew Hayward — who oversees union member outreach — has a violent criminal record. Hayward has even joked about bringing a gun with him to the homes of workers.</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">McCabe has also surrounded himself with staff who have made disturbing and derogatory statements about women, communities of color, and the LGBTQ community. One former staff member wrote on a personal blog, “We all know there were good slave owners and bad slave owners just like there are good dog owners and bad dog owners.” One staff member even called for the deportation of all Muslims.</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">A WASTE OF DONOR DOLLARS</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">But even after all of these efforts and all their money spent, McCabe’s campaigns have been futile. In fact, union membership is at record levels along the West Coast in recent years. This is particularly true of AFSCME, SEIU, and the educators unions, the unions the Freedom Foundation has tried to attack. Additionally, a recent Gallup poll showed that support for unions is at a 14-year high.</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">In addition to wasting donor money on harassment campaigns, McCabe admitted that the Freedom Foundation has spent millions of their donors’ money on legal defense because of their scurrilous activities. This is no surprise, considering McCabe’s history of racking up legal bills and wasting donor funds. When he was head of the Building Industry Association of Washington (BIAW), McCabe got into hot water with members — predominantly builders and contractors — by spending millions on failed conservative candidates and causes, moving the organization to the extreme right and violating state campaign finance laws.</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">MCCABE WILL FAIL AGAIN</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Unfortunately, this time, McCabe’s unethical and nefarious tactics have jeopardized the privacy of workers and have subjected them to harassment. We have every confidence that McCabe will continue to fail and put the Freedom Foundation out of business.</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Until then, we will continue to protect workers and will always be their advocate. And we will continue to shine a light on extremism by the Freedom Foundation and their right-wing ilk. No one deserves this kind of treatment from a bully like Tom McCabe.</font></div></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"></font></div></div>