Welcome to the Heritage Foundation. We welcome use who join us on the heritage. Org as well as cspan networks. For those inhouse, we would affect courtesy to know that mobile devices have been turned off. For those watching online, you are welcome to ask questions online. By simply emailing speaker heritage. Org. Leading our discussion and welcoming our special guest is david croitzer our legal fellow. Our Senior Research fellow for labor markets and trade. Prior to joining us here at heritage, he taught economics at James Madison university, from 1984 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. [applause] i want to welcome all of you here online and watching on television to our event, protecting Public EmployeesFirst Amendment rights major cases challenging abood. 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. She 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 to free speech and Free Association to millions of public works. Employees. 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 cbs, and 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 worked as an adjunct law 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 StatesSupreme 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, his jd from Cornell Law School in 1981 and his b. A. From Haberford College in 1976. Mr. Pell worked as an attorney for fox law firm. He later served as general counsel and chief of staff for the National Drug abuse upon si. Drug control policy. He joined cir in 1997. 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 collin also overseas operations at aaes 501c support foundation. 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. Collin 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. 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 colin 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, aae, rather than joining the union, but we dont participate in collective bargaining, we dont support strikes or engage in part partisan politics. You can learn more about aeteachers. Org. Aae 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 aae 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 exercise it. And if they do exercise it, they may not think its of benefit them to exercise it. Viewpoint 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 how to exercise 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 eof 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 extended 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 the Abood Supreme Court case 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 challenge the frame work that the abud, that abood, the 40yearold press department now, that this was not new speech. One 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 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 people, 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 disability 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 raised our dues. You to go back to the witch, i want you to imagine that your child is in the witchs child, is in the witchs class, 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. 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 parent for seven 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