Rebecca Friedrichs is a California teacher who was the plaintiff in Friedrichs v. California Teachers Association, a U.S. Supreme Court case challenging compulsory union dues in the public sector. She appeared on The Bob Zadek Show on June 18, 2017, with her attorney Terry Pell, president of the Center for Individual Rights, to discuss the case and her experience as a non-member fee payer. A Teacher’s Brave Stand Against Her Union – Rebecca Friedrichs and Terry Pell (2017)
Background and the fee-payer system
Friedrichs described herself as a teacher in California with about 28-plus years in the California school system. She said she had been a full union member for 14 years of her teaching career and served on her union executive board for three years. She said she was discouraged throughout her career by what she called the unions’ lack of accountability to teachers, and that the union’s core values were in direct opposition to her own and to those of many forced members. A Teacher’s Brave Stand Against Her Union – Rebecca Friedrichs and Terry Pell (2017)
She explained that as a “fee payer” she paid 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, cannot serve in leadership, and are stripped of rights of membership while still having their money taken. She said the union was voted in when she was a small child, so she had never been given a vote on whether she wanted the union. A Teacher’s Brave Stand Against Her Union – Rebecca Friedrichs and Terry Pell (2017)
Bob Zadek framed the case as seeking 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. He identified the case as Friedrichs v. California Teachers Association and said Friedrichs sued the California Teachers Association with the aid of Terry Pell at the Center for Individual Rights. A Teacher’s Brave Stand Against Her Union – Rebecca Friedrichs and Terry Pell (2017)
The seniority dispute
Friedrichs said the final straw came when teachers in her district were going to lose their jobs because of “last in, first out,” which she described as a collectively bargained issue. She said the best teachers should keep their jobs, not the ones who had been there the longest. Bob Zadek summarized “last in, first out” as strict seniority irrespective of competence. A Teacher’s Brave Stand Against Her Union – Rebecca Friedrichs and Terry Pell (2017)
She said that as a union leader she proposed that teachers take a small pay cut to save jobs, and that teachers on her campus were supportive. She said the union would not listen, would not consider it, and would not allow a survey. She said the union told her not to worry about those teachers and that it would offer them a seminar on how to get unemployment benefits. She said the teachers were given unemployment for $1,000 a year, and that many boots-on-the-ground teachers wanted to save the jobs but their voices were stifled by the union they were forced to fund. A Teacher’s Brave Stand Against Her Union – Rebecca Friedrichs and Terry Pell (2017)
The Scalia death and the case
Bob Zadek said February 13, 2016, was the day Justice Scalia died somewhat suddenly, and that his death changed everything in America. He said the case was argued before the U.S. Supreme Court and that although it was expected Friedrichs would be victorious, when Scalia died it changed everything. He described the case as profoundly affected by the premature death of Justice Scalia. A Teacher’s Brave Stand Against Her Union – Rebecca Friedrichs and Terry Pell (2017)
Culture of fear and misinformation
Friedrichs said teachers do value their First Amendment free speech rights, but that unions control teachers with fear and a lot of misinformation. She said the unions have monopoly control, so if teachers wanted a second union they could not bring one in. She said the union has monopoly control over teacher email and teacher mailboxes, so teachers hear only one side of the story. A Teacher’s Brave Stand Against Her Union – Rebecca Friedrichs and Terry Pell (2017)
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. She said the unions are very good at dividing and create a culture of division between teachers and administration and parents. She said that was why, in her opinion, more teachers were not opting out. A Teacher’s Brave Stand Against Her Union – Rebecca Friedrichs and Terry Pell (2017)
Bob Zadek said he had learned from Terry Pell that about 10% of the teachers in the teachers union were agency fee payers rather than dues payers, which he took to mean only 10% of teachers really cared about preserving their individual free speech rights. He said that seemed unusually low to him. A Teacher’s Brave Stand Against Her Union – Rebecca Friedrichs and Terry Pell (2017)
Across episodes
The topic recurs in later episodes. In a 2023 episode, a guest said that since Janus in 2018, the Freedom Foundation had helped 132,000 people leave their unions, stop paying dues, and that this had cost the unions 267 million dollars that government employees got to keep in their own pockets. The guest said the organization started in Washington State, then moved into Oregon and then California, and had since moved across the country. What the IRS’s Hiring Spree Means for You (2023)
In a February 2023 episode, Bob Zadek said he had done a show on Janus and on Rebecca Friedrichs and her fight in California. Philip K. Howard said there are seven million members of public employee unions in the country, that they collect about five billion dollars in dues a year, and that almost all that money goes directly or indirectly to political activity. He said the Guarantee Clause is in Article IV and says the United States shall guarantee to every State in this Union a Republican Form of Government. He argued that giving public employee unions collective bargaining powers gave away the power to govern and was clearly unconstitutional. Government by the Unions, of the Unions, for the Unions (2023)
The later episodes shift from Friedrichs’s individual case to the broader Janus aftermath and a constitutional argument about delegation of governing authority. Friedrichs’s own episode focuses on her fee-payer experience and the seniority dispute; the later episodes do not revisit her case in detail.
What the sources do not cover
The excerpts do not state the outcome of Friedrichs v. California Teachers Association or what the Supreme Court held. They do not state which amendment the case turned on beyond references to the First Amendment and free speech. They do not give the name of any bill, the city or state where Friedrichs taught, or the founding date of the Freedom Foundation. The excerpts also do not state Terry Pell’s full title beyond president of the Center for Individual Rights.