Last week, the Freedom Foundation was handed another defeat in their failed attempt to destroy organized labor on the West Coast. A panel of judges in the Division II Court of Appeals unanimously ruled in favor of protecting workers and their constitutional right to privacy by denying the Freedom Foundation’s request for certain personal information of public workers.
KIRO 7 covered the story and had this to say: “…the appellate court ruled Tuesday that disclosure of names and matching birth dates gives no useful information to the public about how government is operating and could lead to identity theft and other potential difficulties for state workers.”
The Northwest Accountability Project agrees that releasing this type of information to a shadowy organization like the Freedom Foundation does nothing for the public interest and only serves the interest of out-of-state billionaires while putting workers at risk.
For the past three years, the Freedom Foundation has been trying to acquire the personal information of public workers including names and dates of birth. Their goal is to badger and harass workers to quit their union, but their so-called “opt out” campaign has been a complete failure. The end result has been putting workers at risk of identity theft and bothering people at their homes.
This recent failure is yet another in a long line of their failures. Two weeks ago, the Portland City Commissioners voted to protect workers from the Freedom Foundation. To this date, they have not passed any significant legislation in the states they operate in, Oregon, Washington, or California. 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, paid sick leave and fair scheduling… issues the Freedom Foundation vehemently opposes.
While this defeat means a great deal to the workers whose information has been protected, we know the Freedom Foundation’s billionaire funders will continue their assault on working families. We will remain diligent in our efforts to expose the Freedom Foundation and their network of extremist right-wing allies.