Transcripts For CSPAN3 Public Employee Rights 20170824

If you were convicted of witchcraft well be back with more on the salem witch trials after we break away for about an hour to bring you live coverage of a forum with key players with with Agency Practices in all forms. Simply emailing speaker heritage. Org. Leading our discussion and welcoming our special guest is david croitzer is our legal fellow. Prior to joining us here at heritage, he taught economics at James Madison university, from 2004 to 2007. In 1994, he was a visiting economist at the food and Drug Administration and in the early 80s he was also a visiting economics instructor at ohio university. Please join me in welcoming david coritzer. I want to welcome all of you here online and watching on television to our event, protecting Public Employees First Amendment rights major cases challenging abud. Im going to give the bio, a brief introduction of our guests and then ill turn it over to collin and each speaker will speak for roughly 10 minutes and then well have plenty of time i hope for questions and answers afterwards. Rebecca fredericks served as a elementary schoolteacher early in her career. He was concerned about the policies and politics of the Teachers Union she was forced to join and ultimately support. As a result she was involved in a lawsuit suspending free rights and free stoerks to millions of public works. Her union filed with nine other Teachers Unions brought suits against the nea, uta and superintendents. Rebeccas editorials have been published on fox news. Com, the San Diego Union tribune and several other print and online outlets. Shes been a guest on many radio shows across the country including politico and the national review. And shes appeared on fox news and nbc and fox business news. She now serves as a state policy expert. Glad youre here. Next is jacob hubert, jacob hubert is a judge at cases to protect economic liberty, the First Amendment and other Constitutional Rights in federal and state rights in illinois. Jacob received his b. A. From the university of illinois and his j. D. From the university of chicago law school. After law school he clerked for judge deborah cook. He then workas anned adjunct l professor, he has taught at several colleges of law. He has spoken at Federalist Society chapters at law schools across the country on topics involving economic liberty and judicial selection. Hes authored a book and is admitted to practice in the state of illinois as well as the United States Supreme Court, the United States court of appeals for the seventh circuit, the United States court of appeals for the sixth circuit and several other federal courts. Next is terry pell, hes at the end. Terry is president of the center for individual rights, a nonprofit Public Interest law firm located in washington, d. C. Dedicated to defense of individual liberties against the increasingly aggressive and Unchecked Authority of federal and state governments. Mr. Pell received his phd from notre dame in 1996, hiss jd. From Cornell Law School in 1981 and his b. A. From Haberford College in 1976. Mr. Pell worked as an attorney for thor the errant, fox law firm. He later served as general counsel and chief of staff for the National Drug abuse upon si. He joined cir in 1977. Collin sharky is the executive Vice President for american educators, a national nonunion teachers association. Collin overseas the day to day operations of uae, providing benefits to tens of thousands of members nationwide, expanding membership each year. Collin also overseas operations at aa501c. He also coleads the National Employee freedom week, a National Information campaign and coalition, now in its fifth year, highlighting the rights employees have regarding Union Memberships including opting out and joining nonunion groups. Before joining aae in 2008, collin served in Coalition Relations department at the Heritage Foundation. Collin graduated from the university of notre dame and im going to ask him to take over the program until q a, thank you all. Thank you, david, and thank you to the Heritage Foundation for agreeing to host this event and thank you to all of you for attending and everyone whos watching the live stream on cspan, i appreciate you tuning in. And thank you to the other panelists who made it to d. C. In august, and the fact that youre here means you didnt win the power ball last night. Welcome to National Employee freedom week. Its all week through august 26. I have to apologize and admit that National Employee freedom week as great as it is, had nothing 20 do with taylor swift dropping songs, the Solar Eclipse was, we set that up as a great start to the National Employee freedom week. My names collin sharky, im executive Vice President of american nonunion education. We serve all 50 states, all school environments, especially public district teachers and public charter teachers, they get their professional Association Benefits from uae, rather than joining the union, but we dont participate in collective bargaining, we dont support strikes or engage in pa partisan politics. You can learn more about ae teachers. Org. Aea was founded as the only other offer for teachers if they wanted their Liability Insurance and professional Association Benefits. There were National Teachers that thought that was not fair, teachers deserved an option. We ask so much of teachers that it was unfair to force this unexpensive option. So ae was founded. And we found out very quickly, even though we offered great benefits, found out very quickly a problem. And that is that there are many teachers that dont have the choice of their association. We enjoy freedom of association in america, but for teachers, they can be forced to fund an association they dont want to belong to and therefore cant join an association that would better serve them or they believe would better serve them. Not only is that a problem that they cant choose their association, but if they do have that right, they may not know they have the right to kpexerci it. And if they do exercise it, they may not think its of benefit them to exercise it. Viewpoi as a result, were a plaintiff in a lawsuit youre going to hear about today. And five years ago, aae cofounded National Employee freedom week. This was an effort to concentrate attention in a positive, pro employee, focused way to inform the American Workforce about this problem as well as what rights they do have and how to exercise them. The response has been excellent, if you forget the fourletter words that some responses contained. National employee freedom was really just an opportunity to concentrate a coalition of organizations to draw attention to this. For the most part, employees just dont know that they have the right, and if they do know, they dont know how to kper s e it and theyre afraid to ask. Aae and the Nevada Policy Institute which is a think tank based in nevada recognized this need and formed this Coalition Five Years ago and events like this and opeds and facebook and twitter are all part of that effort to inform the American Workforce of the rights they do have. One other element of National Employee freedom week, we end up talking about what limitations still remain on employees. And this panel is talking about one significant limitation, one significant burden that remains on Public Employees and lawsuits that are challenging that because it infringes on the rights of Public Employees. My goal for the panel is that youll be more familiar with that abbud precident. I want you to be familiar with that. As well as when you hear these case names again in two months or six months or 12 months, youll know the import of that case, why its being discussed in the news at that stage and what could happen if its victorious. So before handing it over to the first panelist, i want to give a little bit more context to how we got to the stage of needing these lawsuits, its going to be surprisingly brief. The labor history in america is troublesome and fascinating and its certainly worth being familiar with, but im going to speed through a few points that will take us up to when these lawsuits were deemed necessary and started to proceed. In 1945, franklin roosevelt, with violence between Union Supporters and opponents, pressure had National Labor relations act of 1935. Controlling essentially the workplace, they had control over who would where working there, they could collectively bargain, they could strike, they could organize. It was very union friendly. Not surprisingly, the result of that legislation, the unions grew in membership and in power. Also not surprisingly, within about 12 years, popular opposition to union power had grown so much that democrats and republicans together overrode a veto by president truman to take away some of the powers that were given to union. There were very unpopular strikes that were so significant that the democrats in congress along with republicans ignored the wishes of the president s veto and passed the taft hartley act. What taft hartley did closed the office that had control over the union workforce. And became the agency workshop. The agency fee, and other coverage of these issues may call it forced dues, compulsory dues, but essentially nonmembers in unionized work force can be forced to pay even if theyre not in the union. The first 1935 law gave an out for religious objectors, but at this stage it was essentially if the union was taking over the workplace, everyone was paying for it whether they liked it or not. That was private workplaces. By the 1960s, the collective workforce act extended to government workers. The state of the wisconsin extend end it to federal workers there. Richard nixon expand that in 69 and very quickly public unions started to outpace the growth of private unions. The percentage of Union Members in Public Employment was greater than that in private employment. It used to be about a third of private workers were unionized and now its actually about a third public workplaces. Many teachers today were not at that school when it first welcomed the union and they really have never had a chance to decide whether they want to keep that union, theres no recertification vote, it really has always been there. You were there 28 years ago, was the union there . It was voted in when i was a child. Adding these unionized workplaces and maintaining the structure of agency. So in the late 1960s, early 1970s, some public schoolteachers in michigan where they had an Agency Shop Law and they were forced to pay dues even though they didnt want to belong to the union, challenged it in court saying this is an infringement on our First Amendment rights. This is forcing us to pay for political speech, and we feel that we shouldnt have to do that. That became the abud Supreme Court indication that were going to be talking about. Thats essentially the framework that were under today. Its been refined some, there was a case in 1986 called hudson and it addressed some transparency issues, but the basic issue was that forced union dues to people who did not want to belong to the union, it was about 70 or 80 . In 2014, harris b. Quinn had started to challenge the frame work that the abud, the 40yearold press department now, that this was not new speech. O collective bargaining is political speech and you cannot force an employee to fund that. There was a reason why that didnt proceed. But then there was another challenge in 2016, fredericks v krrc v. Cta, so im going to turn it over to Rebecca Fredericks to continue our story. Good afternoon, everyone, in 1987, i was a bright eyed and bushy tailed student teacher, and an outstanding Master Teacher taught me everything i have ever known, but next door, there was a teacher who i had come to call the witch. Every day she would grab young children, by the arms, she would get in their faces and scream at them. She towered over them. I was 22 i was terrified. They were 6 years old, first graders, i cant imagine what they were feeling, but she abused them like this every single day. And this was just outside, i dont know what went on when the door was closed. I went to my Master Teacher, and i said im learning how to report child abuse and i think i see some next door and its the teacher, and my Master Teacher sat me down and said today, rebecca is the day you learn about forced unions and teacher tenure. Teacher tenure works together with collectively bargained with grievance procedures and quite effectively ties the hands of administrators so people like the witch are protected and the vulnerable students that were in her class were abused. I didnt want to put the protection of an abusive what i call witch, put her job security above the safety of small children. But i soon found out i didnt have a choice. I didnt have to join the union and pay their dues, but i had to sip the unions representation and pay their fees. They use a lot of little tricky language, so you have to Pay Attention to what it is theyre forcing you to do. Some of their tricky language is, the unions tell the american union, rebecca can opt out. Teachers dont like it they can opt out. Really . Let me tell you about opting out. First of all they dont tell you how to do it. When i went to my teacher rep and asked how to opt out. She said thats easy, just check the box. This is what i found out about that, when you check the box, you have just asked the union to give you a rebate of the 20 year you didnt know you were donating to the unions Political Action committee. So you get back that 20 bucks, but you are still a full union member paying for all politics having to do with the union. I thought that was deceptive. So i started learning about how to opt out. When you opt out, you become something called an agency fee payer. This is how it works, as an agency fee payer, you pay 100 of the collective bargaining fees, but you have no voice in collective bargaining, im not even invited to the meetings. You have no vote in collective bargaining, so even though youre paying for all of it, you dont even get to vote on what theyre deciding and to make sure that they punish you for having an independent mind, they take away your professional Liability Insurance, making you vulnerability in front if a class room, which is why we need aae. Also youre not allowed to purchase Disability Insurance from your employer. I was on bedrest for six months, and i was not able to collect disabili disability. My husband just happens to be an agency fee payer, nonmember in a university in california, his agency fees are 1,200 a year. No vote, no voice. That seems pretty unconstitutional to me. So i even had a call from a san diego teacher the other day, he said even though we have had all these challenges from the Teachers Union, they raised or dues. So the yuans ai want you to go the witch, i want you to imagine that your child is in the witchs child, or how about your grandchild, your grand child is in the witchs class. Thanks to the collective bargaining procedures, your child is in danger, you as a parent have no voice in the School District. Arve and guess what, the teacher next door, the one reporting the abuse, im silenced by a union im forced to fund. So i know what youre thinking ill just move my child. Ill take my child to a private school. What if you were poor, what if you were low or middle income, what if youre like me, i was a Single Parents for severen years. I know, School Choice, ill take my child to the Charter School down the road. Did you know that the Teachers Union fund a multimillion dollar battle against School Choice using the money i pay fight School Choice . Teache only the Teachers Union has a voice. But teachers dont have a voice. Teachers unions, i guess a lot of teachers would like it if the union were accountable to us. But the unions get our money no matter what they do. So do you think they listen to us . No. They speak on behalf of the union leadership, not on behalf of teachers like myself who want to protect the children from the witch. So let me just tell you one quick story. I decided to become a full member at one point, because remember, i had no voice, paying those fees. So i became a full member and i served for three years as a union rep and a leader on my local Union Executive board. I was a secretary. During that time, we had a downturn in our economy. And several district teachers, we were told, were going to be laid off. By the way, they were laid off for the crime of being new. Because based on the Teacher Union rules, the last in, first out. You have tenure, you keep your job. While someone whos working really hard, loving on the children lets just say the witch, the witch would keep her job, but some really hard working loving teacher who just happened to have less seniority would be booted out. I talked to the teachers on my campus, and we agreed we would take a pay cut, to save the jobs of these teachers who are about to lose their jobs, its a low income district, lets keep the class sizes small, thats what the union says is good, low class sizes, i went to the union, i said look, teachers on my campus, we want to safe the jobs of these teachers, we want to do whats right for our kids. They said the teachers will never do it. I said do you realize that im speaking on behalf of the teacher sngs im their representative. I said lets have a vote. They said rebecca, dont worry about those teachers who are going to lose their jobs, the union is going to take care of them. Were going to offer them a seminar on how to get unemployment benefits. And my jaw dropped. Those teachers were paying 1,000 a year for representation, and every within of them was recpresented right out of job, and every one of those students and their parents lost Great Teachers. I have talked to a lot of teachers across the country and over 90 of the teachers i have spoken to, they like the local representation of their friends, you know, their teacher colleagues, you know the ones that wanted to take the pay cut to save their jobs, they like that representation, but they resent the state union and the National Union and they resent all the politics, they resent the one sided policies that the unions are passing behind our backs. We dont know what theyre doing most of the time. They just take our money and run. Lets say my husbands 1,2 1,20 year, did you know that only 20 stays in the local union. 50 goes to the state union, 30 goes to the National Union. Thats a lot of money. And teachers represent that. They have no problem with the local, but they have a real problem with that state and national. So in 2012, i realized i cant make my voice be heard in this uni union, my School District was terrified of the union. So i started writing editorials in the local newspaper. All i wanted to do was just educate the community, and educate my fellow educators on, look, we dont have to put up with this, we have to stand up for whats right for the children, thats why were there, right . Were there for the children, so i started writing these editorials. And thank god, within six months, i had this opportunity to bring a lawsuit, a National Lawsuit and i had the blessing of being the lead plaintiff so fredericks versus the California Teachers Association became our case. And we had one just very simple argument. The teachers should be able to decide for ourselves without fear or coercion whether or not to join or fund a union. That seems pretty fair to me. But do you know that the unions took that message and they twisted it. And they fought mercilessly. Heres what they did to my fellow plaintiffs and me. They shunned us, they labelled us pawns of the wealthy 1 . As if we were too stupid to think for ourselves. They told teachers, they told my friends that we were trying to ruin the pensions of teachers across the country, i have lost friends over that because they believe the lies. They told everyone we were union busters, even though we were trying to make our local union stronger. They told everyone we were free riders, even though they were the ones free riding off of us. And they terrified teachers across the country and a lot of those terrified teachers came to me in dark closets or they would send me a private email, and they would say thank you, rebecca, for speaking for us. Do you know that Kamala Harris ve intervened on the unions and the Obama Administration got involved in the case in favor of the unions . These are politicians who say hey, were for the little guy. I want to tell you something, im the little guy, and all of my teacher colleagues and all my fellow plaintiffs, were the little guy. And those little kids being abused by the witch, theyre the little guy. And these politicians stood in solidarity with powerful special interest unions against the little guy. Against those little 6yearold guys. I find that repugnant, to be honest. On january 16, we went to the United States Supreme Court, in 2016, and we argued on behalf of teachers and on behalf of the safety of children and on behalf of the voice of parents and you know what . Everyone knew that we won the arguments that day, even the union knew we won. And you know what else . Our opponents during arguments conceded to our argument that all collective bargaining in the Public Sector is political. They admitted that. So we knew, things went great. But do you know what else . You know. One month later, Justice Scalia died. Ah. We ended up with a 44 decision, but we asked for a rehearing, once there would be nine justices back on the court, and on my birthday, we were rejected. So we lost on my birthday. But i havent lost hope, even though we lost on my birthday. Maybe thats a sign, we lost on my birthday so i should have hope. Heres why i have hope. Theres more cases coming, youre about to hear about the janice case thats petitioning the court now. And youre going to hear about the yawn case. My job is, im out educating teachers, im educating legislators, people like you, policymakers, im educating parents, im trying to help them understand, we dont have to put up with this, this is america, and we can be free. Were starting to be heard, but we cant do it alone. So i have a call to action today, we need your help. Could you please adopt a teacher . Everybody knows a teacher, theres a teacher in your church or synagogue, theres a teacher in your family, i bet you. Just adopt at least one and do this, start educating that teacher on the truth. The truth that we can desse cery these unions. The truth that they dont need to be terrified always time. Dont get mad at them if theyre afraid, empathize, they are bullied on our campuses. Empathize with them. Then empower them, to listen to this little talk or to read about our cases. Heres why we need your help. And this will be my last thought. When teachers are freed from forced unionism, little kids can be safe again in the classroom, and they can learn again. When teachers are freed from forced unionism, parents can have a voice again, grandparents too. When teachers are freed from forced unionism, Great Teachers can thrive again, and when teachers are freed from forced unionism, americas schools can be skpexcellent again, wouldnt that be great . S so adopt a teacher with me today. Thank you for listening. Well, Rebecca Fredericks is a hard speaker to follow, especially when youre going to talk about the mundane details about it all. About 30 years ago, the u. S. Supreme court said governments can force their employees to pay union fees as a condition of their employment. The court said you cant make employees pay for Certain Union political activities, like support for electoral campaigns and things like that, but you can make them by for their share of the unions cost of bargaining on their behalf. And the Supreme Court thought this struck a good balance under the First Amendment because supposedly no one would be forced to pay for union politics, but you would prevent workers from what they call free riding off the unions efforts on their behalf. So ever since then, we have had this scheme where in states that dont have right to work laws, Government Employees, millions of Government Employees have been forced to pay money out of every paycheck to a union, either full union dues, or what they call agency fees which are tipically slightly less than full union dues. And there are problems with this scheme and problems with the abud decisions reasoning. One problem is that the scheme that the Supreme Court worked out does not in fact protect workers from paying for union politics. One reason why is because everything a Public Sector union does is political. When a Public Sector union bargains with the government, it tells the government what it should pay employees, how it should run programs. And thats political speech. If you and i talked to the government about those things, we call it lobbying and everybody agrees thats quintessential government speech. So if an employee is forced to pay any amount of money to a union at all, theyre being forced to pay for political speech, and thats something the First Amendment virtually never allows. E another problem with the Supreme Courts reasoning in abud is that you can be forced to pay money to an organization to stop them from free riding on their efforts. In fact not every worker benefits from a unions bargaining, some workers think they could do better if they could bargain for themselves. They dont want the unions services, they would like to bargain on their own behalf and be judged and compensated based on their individual merit rather than being lumped in with all other Government Employees, so when the union bargains on their behalf in their place, they dont consider that to be a benefit, they consider that to be a harm. Another problem with the whole free rider idea, is that even if you accept the idea that unions get every employee more compensation than they otherwise would receive, that doesnt actually necessarily mean that every worker benefits from the unions efforts. As we have seen from what rebecca said, there may be situations where particular employees dont want more compensation, they would rather get less compensation and have more people employed because they think thats fair. Or our client, he works for the state of illinois as a Child Support specialist and he thinks that the union hes forced to support is partly responsible for the fiscal and Economic Disaster that is the state of illinois. He thinks that illinois is in the bad shape that its in because of unreasonable demands that his union has made over the years. And he thinks it would be wrong to ask taxpayers to pay significantly more for employee salaries when the states in the bad shape that its in and people in the private sector are hurting. The states argument assumes that everyone is only concerned about their own narrow pecuniary selfinterest. Thats not true. Lots of people care not only about themselves, but their neighbors, their states economy, so they dont support more for themselves if it means imposing an unfair burden on other people. So when those people are forced to fund advocacy theyre forced to agree with, theyre not free riders, theyre forced riders. But court cases have been recognized, and its signaled, at least the conservative justices have signaled that they might be willing to reconsider the abud decision and overturn it if the right case came along. Which thought that would hatch with rebeccas case, but as she said that fell through when Justice Scalia unfortunately died after oral arguments. But fortunately our case was already in the pipeline when fredericks was before the Supreme Court. And our case started when the governor of illinois issued an executive order directing state officials not to take union fees from anyone who wasnt already a union member. Because he said that would violate their First Amendment rights. And at the same time, he filed a federal lawsuit asking the federal courts to declare that the First Amendment required him to do this. The unions and the illinois attorney general responded to this by saying that the governor didnt actually have standing to bring this lawsuit because he was never forced to pay union fees, so he has nothing in it personally, when we saw that, we, together with at the Liberty Justice center, together with attorneys at the national right to Work Legal Defense Foundation moved to intervene in that case on behalf of several Illinois State employees who had been forced to pay thousands of dollars to the union over the course of their career and the court then let the case go forward without the governor and with our plaintiff. Now its down to one plaintiff, mark janice, a Child Support specialist whos been incredibly heroic in standing up to ask me, which is one of the most powerful Political Forces in the state of illinois. The timing of everything was very fortunate for us, because we were in a position to petition the Supreme Court to take our case in june, which is shortly after the Supreme Court got a new ninth justice with neil gorsuch. Now the courts in a position to take this issue up again. And were hopeful that it will grant our petition as soon as it comes back for its new term in october. Of course you cant predict what the Supreme Court will do, but you would think, if they wanted to resolve this issue in Rebecca Fredericks case, they would still want to do it now. And if the court will enter a favorable decision in june, which will mean by this time next year, every government worker in the country, every level of government will be free to choose for themselves whether they want to give any of their money to a union. That will be an incredible victory for the individual if that happens, but that wont be the end of the story, because there will be other things that have to be done to ensure that governments and unions respect the individuals right. And with that i will hands things over. Well, thank you, collin for organizing this and thank you to the Heritage Foundation for hosting this. Jacob talked to you about a case that he hopes to get to the Supreme Court this term that asks to end compulsory dues nation wide. If they take the case, we expect that by this time next year, compulsory dues will be a thing of the past. They will rule that its unconstitutional to make employees like rebecca union fees to support the union. The thing im going to talk about the next step, about the need to support unions truly voluntary. Its necessary because the unions are not like lly simply give individuals the choice whether to join or not. We know that yuan yocunions are determined to keep their members, they get millions of dollars each year in revenue, that they dont have to do anything, it just shows at their doorstep, so it would not be unreasonable for them to keep as many members as they can and to determine what the Supreme Court decides this year, in as narrow away as possible. So what are the unions likely to do . Theyll say, all right, compulsory dues are a thing of the past, but most of our members have already voluntarily decided to pay these dues so were going to let them continue to pay these dues, until they tell us otherwise or they leave the union or opt out of paying further dues for the union. You might think its an easy thing for someone to leave the union, but its not so, the union can impose rules about how you can leaf and when you can leave. It may say you can only opt out of Union Membership once a year during a twoweek period, and they can put that twoweek period during the start of school when teachers are going crazy trying to get the school year started. Teachers have to go looking for or hear about by worth of mouth. So and then theres another thing the unions can do, which is even more troublesome, the unions can say, its not enough to just leave the union once, were going to assume every year that you want to be a member of the union, unless you tell us all over again that you want to opt out of Union Membership, according to the same complicated rules and procedures that you had to use the first time. How likely is it that the union also put all these barriers and impediments on people wanting to leave the unions. When rebecca became an agency fee payer, she had to file a letter with the union and then follow up with a refund request for dues that she paid, she has to make that refund request within a narrow time period, that generally falls in the middle of the school year. So theres no reason to think that these unions wont impose these kinds of conceditions on employee who is decide they want to leave the union. Were asking the court to strike down these opt out rules and replace them with an opt in system, where our case asks the court to rule that these kinds of impediments amount to an ri employees. If jason wins his case, the court will have said that everybody has a First Amendment right to decide for themselves whether to join the union. Well, in that case, the union cant attach all sorts of conditions to the ability of employees to actually exercise that right, and were asking the court to strike down those conditions. So just to be clear here, the right that were talking about and the right that our case defends is the case to remain silent. The right for teachers to decide on their own whether they want to join the union, and to not have to go through the procedure of leaving of deciding not to join the union. This right to remain silent, to stay out of the public discussion, is in some ways the opposite of the normal free speech right that most people think they have. Everybody understands that they have a right to speak out without the government sensoring them, but not many understand that part of that right is the right to not speak out, the right to remain silent, the right to decide for yourself when and how to participate in public discussions. So in our case, in yon btca, were fighting for the right of teachers to not have to join various discussions the union would like to have and instead opt out of all of those discussions, not to participate in any of them. Were asking for the right of teachers to remain silent, to not be a participant in these public debates. Well, the right to choose for ones self under what circumstances to participate in public discussion runs current to everyones general understanding of why free speech is available. Most people think free speech is justified because it leads to a discussion and an open discussion and a marketplace of ideas which allows us to see which claims are true and which claims are false. But a right not to speak doesnt really contribute to the marketplace of ideas. It allows people who might have very important points of view to make to just sit back and remain silent. So thats why this view or this right is not particularly well understood, but the truth is like many other rights in the constitution, the First Amendment is not so much designed to achieve a perfect marketplace of ideas but to prevent an abuse, specifically designed to prevent the government from coercing speech. So that means that individuals, not the government, get to decide not just what to say but whether they want to say anything at all. Its not up to the government or the unions to decide that we have to have a perfect marketplace of ideas by requiring everybody to pay to participate in a large public discussion managed by the union. Its okay under the constitution for an individual to say i dont want to participate in that conversation. One way or the other. So in the context of the union dues case, the right not to speak means that nobody should be a member of a union unless they affirmatively decide to join. Theyre free to refrain from taking a position one way or the other on the myriad of issues that the union wants to talk about. Were representing six teachers in california and the association of american educators. Who have a variety of views about unions, some of our clients in this case think that unionism is generally a good thing. They just dont happen to like the California Teachers Association and the nea. They think those unions do a bad job. Others of these clients dont like to be part of a union at all. They disagree with the idea of unions, they disagree with the fact these unions have become highly political organizations and they want nothing to do with it. What joins all these plaintiffs together is they think each of them as individuals should have the right to decide whether to participate in the union in the first place. Theyre saying that individuals have a constitutionally protected right to not speak and that they shouldnt have to run around and comply with various opt out rules in order to exercise that right. Instead, the burden ought to be on the union to run around and encourage individuals to join the union on their own terms when and if they want. So if the Court Decides in janice that unions may not charge agency fees, it will still be important to settle the conditions under which employees can exercise that right. They can exercise the choice to join or not join union on their own terms. Our case asks the court to put that choice firmly in the hands of individuals by respecting their right not to have to make a choice, to respect their right to remain completely silent on the question of on the issues that the union wants to talk about. So you might want to think about our litigation, the litigation of all, you know, jasons firm and my firm, as a kind of chess game. At each stage, its necessary to kind of think forward to what the next step, you know, down the road is going to be. So if jason wins his case, then the next step is going to be trying to satisfy the conditions that are necessary to make the choice to join the union a truly free and not coerced in any sense of the word. Thank you. Well, i want to thank the speakers for being time conscious. We have, i think, five minutes here for some questions. We have john will come around. Is the microphone working . We have a couple of them. Raise your hand if you want to ask a question, and if the mike comes to you, please state your name and any affiliations for the people watching online and listening on cspan can hear. We have questions . Yes, thank you. Mel, accuracy is academia. I have a really mundane one. Can you lay out exactly how many members you got and what benefits they exactly get . Sure, we have over 20,000 members throughout the country. And the reason that the teachers join the association of american educators is they get a 2 million Liability Insurance policy along with Employment Rights covered. They get to work with an attorney when theres a job action. That is in lieu of what people would usually get from the union, but a significant difference is that coverage is actually guaranteed as a part of the Liability Insurance benefit. Whereas with the union, you paid them for some years, theres no guarantee to provide you with that protection. Thats the most significant benefit. Theres other traditional professional Association Benefits and more information on aeteachers. Org. Next question down here. Hi. My name is mark. I work in the senate. I wanted to ask if the sort of rights and freedoms that would be won by these lawsuits would go beyond the whats protected under right to work laws in the 28 states or however many there are that currently have them in effect. I think what if the court agrees and strikes down compulsory dues, essentially, it makes the entire country a right to work country. So the rules in particular states may vary and there are going to be fights afterwards. In our case, for example, but the general point is that the entire country will become right to work with a stroke of a pen. Hi. Im kevin with the daily signal here at heritage. The harris v. Quinn decision, the unions have made every effort to undermine that ruling, and there are people who are paying dues who dont have to pay dues. If we get the decision, thats a beginning and not an end because the unions will work with allies in government to gut that ruling. Rebecca, i think you know your partners in Washington State have been draining the membership roles by educating people about their rights. I hope we dont sit back passively. I would like to address that quickly. Thats why precisely why i asked you to adopt a teacher. Even if the janice case wins and the yon case wins and the teachers have the right to opt in rather than opt out, they will be bullied for taking that stance. If you have an independent mind, the union supposedly speaks up for womens rights, but they punish me constantly for having an independent mind. These folks will be bullied. Theyll be shunned. Theyll be isolated. Theres a lot of ignorance where people cant figure out how to do it. So its just the beginning. We have to keep on fighting. We cant relax once these cases, if these cases are successful. Thanks, kevin. I think this will be the last question. We have one minute. Joel, im an attorney here in washington. You just said that if you won the case, you would have an effect on the national right to work law. This decision, no matter how favorable, wouldnt affect private employers, would it . Thats true. This is limited to Public Employees. Okay. The majority of unions of americans. All right, i want to thank you all for showing up and for watching online and on cable. And i want to thank the panel for being here. Thank you very much. [ applause ] they lost one of the justices so there werent enough votes to decide it in her favor or to decide it at all. And there werent enough votes to rehear it. Yeah, they will look amongst themselves and each side will decide what the votes are likely to be, and on that basis, decide whether to take it or not. Yeah. I dont see why it would change. You think they would have finished what they started. Thank you. Hi. Yes. I will provide that to you. Okay. Definitely. Hi. Great to see you. Did you have a question for the guys . Oh. Oh, youre ready. Hillary with one l and her email address is hgowins illinoispolicy. You know what. Im sorry. American history tv in primetime features our weekly series the presidency. A discussion on the leadup to john f. Kennedys 1960 president ial campaign, and a look behind the scenes into Richard Nixons white house. Watch tonight starting at 8 00 p. M. Eastern here on cspan3. Coming up this weekend on American History tv on