ZadekpediaRebecca Friedrichs is a California teacher who was the plaintiff in Friedrichs v. California Teachers Association, a US Supreme Court case challenging compulsory union dues in the public sector. She appeared on the show with her attorney Terry Pell, president of the Center for Individual Rights, to discuss the case and her experience as a fee payer. A Teacher’s Brave Stand Against Her Union – Rebecca Friedrichs and Terry Pell (2017)
On the show
1 appearance, 2017.
- 2017-06-18 · A Teacher’s Brave Stand Against Her Union – Rebecca Friedrichs and Terry Pell · 34:57 — Challenging Compulsory Public Sector Union Dues. With Terry Pell.
The case and its background
Bob Zadek introduced Friedrichs as a teacher in California who brought a lawsuit asking the courts not to require her to contribute her own money in support of causes she did not agree with, specifically the California Teachers Association. He described her as a teacher of about 28-plus years in the California school system and a tenured teacher, and said the case was argued before the US Supreme Court. A Teacher’s Brave Stand Against Her Union – Rebecca Friedrichs and Terry Pell (2017)
Zadek said the case was profoundly affected by the premature death of Justice Scalia on February 13, 2016, and that although it was expected Friedrichs would be victorious, Scalia’s death changed everything. He said the case sought to re-establish the free speech rights of public employee union members so they would not be compelled to support speech they did not approve of. A Teacher’s Brave Stand Against Her Union – Rebecca Friedrichs and Terry Pell (2017)
Friedrichs’s account of the union
Friedrichs said that throughout her teaching career, from day one, she had been discouraged by the way unions are not accountable to teachers, and that the union’s core values were in direct opposition to her own and to those of many of its forced members. She said the union’s core values affect every political decision and collective bargaining stance it takes, so that no matter where her fees are directed—toward overt politics or toward collective bargaining—those fees promote the union’s political agenda. A Teacher’s Brave Stand Against Her Union – Rebecca Friedrichs and Terry Pell (2017)
She described herself as a fee payer rather than a dues payer, paying about 70% of the dues, which in her case ran around $650 to $700 a year. She said fee payers are not given a vote within collective bargaining and cannot serve in leadership, and that the union was voted in when she was a small child, so she was never given a vote on whether she wanted it. A Teacher’s Brave Stand Against Her Union – Rebecca Friedrichs and Terry Pell (2017)
Friedrichs said she was a full union member for 14 years of her teaching career and served on her union executive board for three years, where she tried to make the voices of herself and her colleagues heard. She said the final straw was an effort to save the jobs of outstanding teachers in her district who were going to lose their jobs because of last in, first out, a collectively bargained seniority rule she disagreed with. She said she proposed that teachers take a small pay cut to save the jobs, and that the union would not listen, would not consider it, and would not allow a survey of teachers; she said the union told her not to worry about those teachers and offered them a seminar on how to get unemployment benefits. A Teacher’s Brave Stand Against Her Union – Rebecca Friedrichs and Terry Pell (2017)
Culture of fear and opt-out
Zadek said Pell estimated that about 10% of teachers in the union are agency fee payers rather than dues payers. Friedrichs said teachers do value their First Amendment free speech rights, but that unions control teachers with fear and misinformation, and that the union has monopoly control—including over teacher email and physical mailboxes—so teachers hear only one side of the story. She said many teachers fear that if they opt out they will be fired, lose their job, or be picked on by an unscrupulous administrator, and that the unions are very good at dividing teachers from administration and parents. A Teacher’s Brave Stand Against Her Union – Rebecca Friedrichs and Terry Pell (2017)
Across episodes
The topic recurs in two later episodes, but the episodes show no development of Friedrichs’s own account: the 2023 episode on the IRS’s hiring spree discusses the Janus decision and the Freedom Foundation’s campaign helping public employees leave their unions, and the 2023 episode with Philip K. Howard discusses the flow of union funds and the Guarantee Clause. In the latter, Zadek refers back to having done a show on Janus and on Rebecca Friedrichs and her fight in California, while Howard argues that public-sector collective bargaining is unconstitutional under the Guarantee Clause. What the IRS’s Hiring Spree Means for You (2023) Government by the Unions, of the Unions, for the Unions (2023)