Page, facebook. Com book tv. Book tv on cspan2, television for serious readers. Next, a discussion on Current Court cases that are challenging the constitutionality of union thieves regardless of Union Membership. Speakers involve the lead plaintiff in a Supreme Court case that resulted in a four for ruling as well as attorneys involved in two related cases that the High Court May hear. This is one hour. Welcome to the Heritage Foundation and welcome to those who joined us on our heritage. Org website as well cspan networks. To those in house, we ask a courtesy to see that our mobile devices are silenced or turned off and those watching online, you are welcome to send questions or comments at any time by emailing speaker heritage. Org. We will post the program on the heritage homepage for everyones future reference as well. Leading our discussion is david. He is the Senior Research fellow for labor market and trade. He has taught economics at James Madison university from 1984 until 2007. He also served as director of International Business program in 1994 he was a visiting economist at the food and Drug Administration and in the 80s he was in economics and instructor at ohio state. Please join me in welcoming david. [applause] welcome all of you, online and watching on television. Welcome to our event, protecting Public EmployeesFirst Amendment rights, major cases. The way we will work it is i will give the bio, brief introduction of our guests and i will turn it over to colin and each speaker will speak for roughly ten minutes and will have plenty of time for questionandanswer after words. Rebecca frederick served as an Elementary School educated in Southern California for 28 years. Since the first day of her career in 1988, she was concerned about the policies and politics of the Teachers Union she was forced to join and financially support. As a result, she was lead plaintiff in a lawsuit attempting to restore the First Amendment rights of free speech to Free Association to millions of Public Sector workers. Hirsute, friedrich versus California Teacher association, filed with nine other teachers brought suit against the nea, the cta and ten local unions superintendents. Rebeccas editorials have been published on foxnews. Com, the Orange County register, the San Diego Union tribune and other online outlets. She has been a guest on many radio shows across the country, has been interviewed by numerous printed news outlets including political and the national review. She has also appeared on cbs news, nbc and fox news on foxbusiness news. She now serves as a fellow at the state policy network. Next is jacob hubert. He is senior attorney at the justice center. He litigates cases to protect economic liberties, the First Amendment and other Constitutional Rights of federal and state courts in illinois. He received his ba in economics and his jd from the university of chicago law school. After law school, he clerked for deborah cook of the United States court of appeals with the sixth circuit. He then worked as a litigator in ohio before joining the Liberty Justice center upon its founding in 2011. As an adjunct law professor he has talke taught at the Chicago College of law, the Ohio State University college of law. He has spoken to many chapters of law schools across the country on topics including economic liberty and judicial selection. He is the author of the book libertarianism and his writing has been widely published. He was admitted to practice in the state of illinois and the United StatesSupreme Court and the court of appeals for the seventh circuit and six circuit and several other federal courts. Next, but not next on the dais is terry powell who is at the end. Terry is president of the center for individual rights. A nonprofit Public Interest law firm in washington d. C. Dedicated to the individual liberties against the aggressive and Unchecked Authority of federal and state government. He received his phd from notre dame in 1996. His jd from Cornell Law School in 1981 and his ba in 1976. Prior to working to cir he works for an attorney from 1985 until 1988. He was a Deputy Assistant secretary for civil rights and the u. S. Department of educatio education. He later served as general counsel of chief of staff at the office of National Drug control policy. Mr. Sharkey is the executive Vice President for the American Association of educators. He oversees the daytoday operations of aae including providing members benefits to tens of thousands of members nationwide, expanding membership each year end working with partners on education reform and labor reform. He also oversees operation at the 5o1c3 for support foundation and the growing network of state chapters. In addition, colin cofounded National Educator freedom week and campaigning coalition in its fifth year and highlighting the rights of members. He has been interviewed on National News programs by numerous radio host. Before joining in 2008 he served at the Heritage Foundation. He graduated from the university of notre dame and i will ask him to take over the program. Thank you all. Thank you david. Thank you to the Heritage Foundation for agreeing to host this event, and think you to all of you for attending and everyone watching via the stream and cspan, i appreciate you for tuning in. Thank you to the panelists who made it in december that the fact that youre here probably means he didnt win the powerball welcome to National Employee freedom week. All week, i do have to start off to admit that as great as this week is, as nothing to do with taylor swift dropping songs at the end. You can learn more at the website. It was founded as an alternative to the usual, the only other offer for teachers if they wanted Liability Insurance and benefits. We thought teachers deserved an option and it was unfair to force one extensive option that has a lot of baggage with it so ae was founded. We found out very quickly, even though we had great benefits, we found a problem and thats that many teachers dont have the choice of their association. We enjoy freedom of association but they can be forced to join an association i dont want to belong to and therefore cant join one that would better serve them. Not only is that a problem if they cant choose their association but if they do have that right they dont have the right to exercise it and if they do its burdensome and complex and challenging not to mention the pressure they may receive. As a result of trying to be an option for a professional option for teachers they fell into the role of trying to expand and defend their freedom association. As a result, we are plaintiff and one of the lawsuits you will hear about today. All the plaintiffs in that case are members. They cofounded National Employee freedom week. This was an effort to concentrate attention in a pro employee focused way, to inform the workforce about the problem. Response has been wonderful. If you ignore the four letter responses that we get about what were trying to do, ive been called much worse, ive played call of duty online so they really dont have anything on me, but its really an opportunity to concentrate and draw attention to this. For the most part, and please just dont know that they have the right, and if they do know they dont know how to exercise it. There was no one out there. At the Nevada Policy Institute based in nevada, they recognize this need informed this Coalition Five Years ago, and events like this in our beds and campaigns in billboards are all part of that effort to inform americas work force. By nature of talking about what rights they do have, we also talk about limitations on employees. This panel is talking about one significant limitation, one significant burden that remains on Public Employees, and the lawsuits that are challenging that because it infringes upon the First Amendment right of Public Employees. Thats what we will talk about today. My goal for the panel as they are more familiar with that significant limitation. I will be talking about it through the nature of these lawsuits. I want to be familiar with that as well as these cases that you may hear again in two months or six months or 12 months and youll know the importance of that case, why its being discussed in the news, and what could happen if its victorious. Before handing it over to the first panel, i want to give a little bit of distraught context about how we got to the stage of meeting these lawsuits. It will be surprisingly brief. Its rich and troublesome and fascinating and it certainly worth being familiar with the key viewpoints to catch us up when these lawsuits were deemed necessary. In 1935, during the great depression, following decades of strikes and poles and railroads and violence between supporters and opponents, they had grown to support major labor legislation. Essentially it created the private unions to control the workplace. They had control over who would be working there, they could collectively bargain and strike and organize. It was very union friendly. Not surprisingly, as a result, the unions group had the power and also not surprising, in about ten years opposition had grown so much that democrats and republicans overwrote a veto by president truman to reform the act to restrict just about the power they had given the unions. There was a wave of strikes following world war ii. Popular opinion had been so significant that the democrats in congress along with the republicans ignored the veto. There was a new form of control they had over the workforce and it allowed for what became the agency shop. You will hear in these lawsuits the importance of the word agency fee and other coverage of these issues may collect forced dues or compulsory dues. Basically nonmembers can be forced to pay the equivalent of dues of belonging to the union. As you can imagine, people would just in the union of their being forced to pay anyway. The first 1935 law gave an out for religious objectors, but at this point it was still if the union had taken over the workplace, everyone was paying whether they liked it or not. That was private workplaces, and not even all of them. It wasnt until the 50s and 60s that the collectivebargaining rights had been expanded to public workers. 1958 in new york city he expanded it to some the workers in the city and many of the public workers. Numerous states followed. President kennedy extended some federal workers Via Executive order. Richard nixon extended it in 69. Public unions started to outpace the growth of the public unions. The percentage of Union Members in Public Employment was greater than private employment. It used to be a third of private workers were unionized. As a result, many areas became unionized. Many were not at their school when i first welcome their union. They didnt really have a chance to decide whether or not they wanted to keep that. There was no recertification vote. Its just kind of always been there. You been an educator for 20 years. Was it there the first day. Yes, it was there when i was a child. Tyler adding me unionized workplaces, and maintaining the structure of agency. In the late 1960s, early 70s, some Public School teachers in michigan where they had an Agency Shop Law and forced to pay dues even though they didnt want to be long, challenged in court saying this is an infringement on our First Amendment rights. Were forced to pay for political speech, and we feel we shouldnt have to do that. That became the booed Supreme Court case that we will talk about. That is the precedent, the framework that we are under today. There is a case in 1986 called hudson that address some transparency issues, but the framework is essentially forced nonmembers of the union can be forced to pay almost the equivalent of dues. Seventy or 8090 . In 2014, quinn started to challenge this but this lawsuit had started to challenge the framework that was based on that this is political speech. This wasnt a new argument, this was from the concurring opinion at the time by one of the other Supreme Court justices recognizing that collective bargaining is political activity and political speech you cannot force a Public Employee to fund that. The court went though it did but that was an opportunity and there is a reason why that didnt proceed. Then there was another challenge in 2016, with that i will turn it over to rebecca to talk about what happened in our story. Thank you. Good afternoon everyone. In 1987, i was a brighteyed wishy tailed student teacher. An outstanding Master Teacher taught me everything i had ever known. Next door to us was a teacher i had come to call the witch. Every day, she would grab these little children, she would yank them by the arm, she would get right into their faces and scream. She cowered over them. I was 22, i was terrified. They were six years old. I can imagine what they were feeling. She abused them like this every single day. This was just outside. I dont know when on the behind the door when it was closed. I went to my Master Teacher and i wanted to know about reporting child abuse because i think i see some nextdoor and its the teacher. He sat me down and said today is the day you learn about Teachers Unions and teacher tenure. What i have come to learn since then is teacher tenure works together with collectively bargaining grievance procedures and quite literally ties the hands of administrators so that teachers like the which are protected and the Vulnerable Children in her class are out of luck. I thought that was wrong. I didnt want to join this union. I didnt want to pay union that put the protection of an abusive which, put her job security above the safety and security of small children. I soon found out i didnt have a choice. I didnt have to join the union and pay their dues but i had to accept the unions representation and pay their fees. They use that tricky language. You have to Pay Attention to what it is theyre forcing you to do. Some of their tricky languages they tell the American People that rebecca cannot doubt. Teachers dont like this, they can opt out. Let me tell you about that. You cant figure out how to do it. The process is very convoluted. When i went to my teacher wrap and i asked her how to opt out, she said thats easy, just check a box. Heres what i found out about that. When you check the box you have just given, asked the union to give you a rebate of the 20 a year you didnt know you were donating to their Political Action committee. Now you get back that 20 bucks but youre still paying full union dues and you are a full member paying for all politics and everything that has to do with the union. I think thats deceptive. I started learning about how to actually opt out. When you opt out you become an agency fee payer. As an agency fee payer, you pay one 100 of the collectivebargaining fee, but you have no voice in collectivebargaining, im not even invited to the meetings, you have no vote in collectivebargaining so even though youre paying for all this you dont get to vote on what theyre deciding, and to make sure they punish you for having an independent mind, they take away your professional Liability Insurance making you vulnerable in front of the classroom which is why we need groups like aae for Liability Insurance. Youre also not able to purchase Disability Insurance from your employer. I was on bed rest for six months during pregnancy and had no disability so my little baby and i were vulnerable. Thats thanks to Teachers Union fees im forced to pay. My husband agency fees are 1200 a year. No vote, no voice. That seems pretty unconstitutional to me. So i had a call from a san diego teacher. She said because of all these changes that the Supreme Court , they are raising our do because we dared to try to fight for some freedom. I think thats wrong. I want you to go back to the which could i want you to imagine your child is in the which is class. Or how about