The Freedom Foundation and CEO Tom McCabe (pictured) are notorious for clogging our mailboxes with spam emails and unwanted junk mail. Even worse, the Foundation’s political operatives often brag about harassing public employees at our workplaces — and at our homes. (Here's how to protect yourself if they knock on your door.)

Putting the safety and privacy of school employees at further risk, the Foundation recently requested the birth dates for ALL public employees. In media reports, Foundation employees said they will use our private information to continue their harassment campaign against education employees.

WEA is fighting to protect our privacy and safety in the courts and the Legislature. Meanwhile, McCabe’s intentions are clear. He recently described WEA members as the “enemy” and vowed to “bankrupt” us and to “dramatically reduce” our ability to advocate for students. FF is trying undermine our public schools. They want to weaken WEA and our local unions so we have less of a united voice. 

They claim they’re on the side of school employees and public education, but in reality, they seek to take professional respect and bargaining rights from educators and turn over control of public education to CEOs and the corporate special interests who fund them. Before he was defeated, FF staffer Jami Lund served on the Centralia School Board and opposed negotiated pay raises for teachers.

FF receives funding from other foundations that also fund anti-LGBTQ, anti-immigrant and anti-Muslim groups.

The Freedom Foundation and other anti-union groups exist to weaken us, divide us and limit our ability to speak out for students and public education. The good news is that while their tactics are annoying and intrusive, WEA members are more united than ever — especially as more and more educators learn about the Freedom Foundation’s real agenda.

Click here for a partial list of the Freedom Foundation's extremist funders.

The Freedom Foundation is harassing educators and other public workers, including home health care workers, state employees and childcare providers – the people who provide the social and health services our students and their families rely on.

Here are some of their controversial tactics:

• Sending spam emails & letters to WEA members’ homes and schools urging them to quit WEA and their local association.
• Misusing workers’ personal information. The FF has requested employee names, birthdates and work emails for thousands of public employees, including educators. With names and birthdates, the FF can find home addresses and other personal information. “State workers are raising deep concern after learning a prominent anti-union group is seeking their personal information, including their birth dates, worrying it could lead to widespread privacy violations and identity theft,” KIRO radio reported.
• Confronting workers at home by knocking on their doors and pressuring them to quit the union. “A conservative group, the Freedom Foundation, has dispatched activists to visit the homes of more than 10,000 childcare and home-care workers in Washington and Oregon…’ The Guardian newspaper reported recently.
• Contacting local presidents and urging them to disband their local associations.
• Purchasing newspaper ads attacking local union presidents by name.
• Posting the salaries of individual educators online.
• Showing up at worksites and arguing with public employees about their union membership.

These anti-worker groups also push court cases designed to weaken our ability to stand up for students and public education, including the Janus case. FF's frivolous legal attacks on WEA date back to the 1990s. 

The Freedom Foundation promotes policies that benefit its rich benefactors, while it actively opposes our efforts to provide the resources students and educators need to be successful.

The Freedom Foundation:

• Opposes higher pay for educators
• Opposes smaller class sizes
• Opposes local collective bargaining and other worker rights
• Opposes fair evaluations
• Opposes educators having a voice in education policy decisions
• Opposes increased funding for public schools
• Represents extremist out-of-state political groups and corporate foundations

This video explains the foundation's radicial politics and motives. The FF even opposes the minimum wage for education support professionals and other workers.

FF CEO Tom McCabe, in a campaign to raise funds for their attacks, said, "We have to defeat and dismantle the union political machine once and for all..."

Betsy DeVos raised $1 million for the Washington Policy Center, which promotes vouchers and the privatization of public education. Controversial former Wisconsin Gov. Scott Walker was the keynote speaker at a Policy Center political meeting in Spokane, where he encouraged participants to pursue his divisive agenda here in Washington. According to this report, Wisconsin "teachers have received far lower compensation; turnover rates have increased; and teacher experience has dropped significantly" because of Walker's policies.

The Washington Policy Center worked against the best interests of our students by actively opposing local school levy legislation during the 2019 legislative session, and they oppose the simple majority for school construction bonds.

Read this community letter about the WPC's divisive political agenda. 

And here's a recent newspaper ad about WPC.

The Washington Policy Center:

• Opposes the freedom to negotiate fair pay and other worker rights
• Opposes educator job security & protections
• Opposes increased funding for public schools
• Opposes smaller class sizes for students
• Promotes vouchers & privatization
• Promotes merit pay based on test scores
• Loves Betsy DeVos
• Represents extremist out-of-state political groups and corporate “dark money”

The Freedom Foundation, the Washington Policy Center and other anti-union, anti-public education groups want to take away our right to union representation and the freedom to collectively bargain -- and to make Washington an anti-worker state. WEA members who have worked in those states know what's at stake in this fight.

“I taught in Wisconsin until 2014. I moved to Washington after Gov. Scott Walker and the Wisconsin legislature decimated the collective bargaining and union representation rights of educators and other public workers. Educators lost their professional autonomy and their collective voice, and students stopped getting the resources they needed.” 

— Angela Bina, teacher and Spokane Education Association member 

"Being a part of a union is all new to me since I have spent my career in Texas, where there is no such thing. When I think back to my early career in Texas compared to now,  I can’t believe how much better my professional and personal life have benefitted from being a part of the union! 

"The huge difference in salary, benefits and professional support have made a real difference for my family as well as my students!  I give WEA an A+ and many thanks for all of the hard work that makes a real difference!" 

— Lori Cowan, teacher and Granite Falls Education Association member

Katie Coder, a second-grade teacher and Oak Harbor EA member, says that she had no voice in the charter school where she worked in Florida. They just told you what to do and you just followed what they said, she says.

Becoming involved in her union has been very empowering. She really appreciates that her school administrators respect the union. “I belong,” Katie says, “because the union gives us a voice to advocate for our students and for ourselves.”

“(After moving from Colorado), I landed in Washington state. It was so different. Teachers here have a voice. There they didn’t. You don’t realize the power of collective voice until you have it. The WEA continues to help me become a better teacher.” 

— Eileen Rae Ethridge, Kent EA member and former Colorado teacher