Unions: No fair play for personal information

Re: “Bill would ban disclosure of state worker birthdates,” (TNT, 1/29).

One crucial fact omitted from your article about Senate Bill 6079 is that while unions pretend to be concerned about employee privacy, they routinely obtain lists of employees from the state which include personal information — such as home addresses — without employee permission.

Since unions are private, non-governmental organizations just like the Freedom Foundation and the Allied Daily Newspapers of Washington, all such private organizations should have identical access (or non-access) to personal information.

The state has long colluded with unions to prevent employees from being given information about their right to work for their own state government without paying a private organization like a union for the privilege of doing so.

One example is the state’s continued refusal to notify Medicaid-compensated home healthcare workers of the Supreme Court decision Harris v. Quinn, which determined they don’t have to pay a union (in this case the SEIU) in order to be paid for the care they provide.

The Freedom Foundation is attempting to supply information that the state itself should provide if it were an honest employer.

Instead, Democratic legislators continue to try to block all avenues of non-union communication with bills such as SB6079.

This story was originally published February 8, 2018 at 4:45 PM with the headline "Unions: No fair play for personal information."