With no apologies to Dr. Seuss, union-busting Grinches masquerading as Santa and his elves have spent the holiday season trying to swipe economic security from America’s public workers.
It’s a new low for the insidious anti-union campaigns bankrolled by the Koch organization and billionaire friends, who have been pressuring public workers to abandon their unions ever since the U.S. Supreme Court opened the door last year in Janus v. AFSCME.
In the weeks leading to Christmas, activists costumed in red and green showed up at homes and government buildings to deliver lies about unions in the guise of seasonal greetings.
“Ohio Public Employees – have you seen Santa outside your work? @FreedomFdtn Santas are spreading good cheer and good news of leaving government unions and keeping more of your money,” proclaims a tweet from the Koch-created Freedom Foundation, which has been particularly boastful on social media about its holiday hostility.
Deceptive emails and postcards reached even more union households. A smiling shopper with an armful of wrapped gifts appears next to underhanded and grossly inflated claims about the money public employees could save by cutting off their union dues.
There’s no mention of the higher wages, enviable benefits, and job security that union members get for their investment.
“When even Christmas isn’t off limits, it really shows their desperation,” International President Lonnie R. Stephenson said. “For 18 months now, their hostile tactics have overwhelmingly failed to persuade public employees to leave their unions. In fact, Janus was a wake-up call. It helped more workers understand how valuable their union membership is – how much bang they get for the buck.”
That “bang” includes average wages that are 13.2 percent higher than nonunion workers receive, according to a 2017 Economic Policy Institute study. It also found that:
- More than nine in 10 workers covered by a union contract – 94 percent – have access to employer-sponsored health benefits, compared to 67 percent of nonunion workers. Employers with union shops also pay a far greater share – 77.4 percent more – of their workers’ healthcare costs.
- Paid sick days are offered to 87 percent of unionized workers, compared to 69 percent of nonunion employees.
- Union-represented workers are far more likely to have retirement benefits of any kind, and 74 percent still enjoy the security of traditional defined-benefit pensions, compared to just 15 percent of nonunion workers.
Through education campaigns heavy on member-to-member outreach, the IBEW and other unions who represent public sector members began stressing those benefit and many others well in advance of the anticipated 5-4 Janus ruling. Politico reported in May that only one of 10 unions they researched had lost money in the wake of Janus, and the 10 unions collectively gained more than 132,000 members.
Politico called the results “especially striking” given that Janus allows public workers to sponge off their unions the same way that right-to-work laws create freeloaders in the private sector.
Vacaville, Calif., Local 1245 helped lead the way in the California labor movement’s response to Janus. The local reported on its website in October that it’s retained 98.5 percent of its public sector members, largely through the high-energy efforts of Volunteer Organizing Committees.
As IBEW and other campaigns keep proving, public employees understand that a strong, collective voice at work is the only thing that makes their above-average wages and benefits possible.
The last thing the Freedom Foundation wants is for workers to connect those dots, as one especially laughable post on its Twitter feed illustrates.
Purporting to be a thank-you from a Washington state public worker who allegedly saved hundreds of dollars by withholding union dues after receiving a holiday postcard, the tweet says, “I’m so glad this was an option; good luck informing more ppl. I hope to see more of my coworkers join me in this added freedom!”
Be careful what you wish for, Stephenson warned.
“If your coworkers are foolish enough to join you, you’ll all be saying goodbye to union-negotiated wages, benefits and the due process that means that you can’t be fired without cause,” he said. “You’ll find out very quickly that you’ve been conned by people who couldn’t care less about the consequences for you and your family.”