Parents Alert: Media Literacy APRA Request Template

?Attention Parents! Your Voice Matters! Are you concerned about transparency and accountability within our school district? Do you want to ensure that the operations and activities of our schools are fully understood by the public? Here’s your chance to take action! Click here now or on the button below to fill out the form!

We urge all parents to fill out the following form letter and send it to our school district administration. By doing so, you are requesting important documents under the Rhode Island Access Public Records Act (APRA) that pertain to the organizations Ad Fontes Media and Media Literacy Now. These documents will shed light on the communications and activities involving these entities within our schools.

 

Have Teacher Unions in Rhode Island Been Unlawfully Collecting Dues for Years?

 

Government officials take an oath of office to preserve the constitutional rights of their constituents. However, in Rhode Island, school board officials who approved agreements with special-interest public employee unions have effectively hidden those rights from their employees via unconstitutional collective bargaining provisions that are in direct defiance of the Supreme Court Of the United States (SCOTUS).

In 2018, the highest court in America ruled that public employees must retain power over their own paychecks. Yet, since then, many government unions in Rhode Island may have unlawfully collected dues from employees by propagating misleading language that overtly shields them from knowledge of their rights.

The landmark June 2018 US Supreme Court decision in the Janus v AFSCME case opened the door to worker freedom in America. But some of the old political machines were taken aback, especially government employee unions at the state and local level. SCOTUS ruled that no longer could a public employee be mandated to pay union “dues”, “Association fees”, “agency fees”, or “shop fees” as a condition of their employment.

Under the weight of this ruling, most public employee unions across the country, reluctantly realizing the great financial and legal risk of non-compliance, immediately amended their policies and subsequent contract agreements to comply with the new law … such that any dues payments could only be collected once the employee affirmatively provided clear authorization … but not so for many unions in Rhode Island.

According to the Mackinac Center in Michigan, one of nation’s top legal and public policy experts when it comes to government unions, Rhode Island’s rate of non-compliance with the Janus ruling looks to be among the highest in the country. The extent to which blatantly anti-Janus-constitutional provisions still exist in many teacher union Collective Bargaining Agreements (CBA) is alarming.

An initial review of about three dozen collective bargaining agreements with local school districts in Rhode Island reveals an alarming number – eleven (more than 1 in 4) – that were signed or put into effect after the Janus ruling, contained dues or fees mandate provisions that clearly defy the Supreme Court’s ruling … provisions that are legally unenforceable.

Types of language clearly violating the Janus Supreme Court ruling that were found in the eleven Rhode Island CBAs with local chapters of the NEA, AFT, AFL-CIO, and AFSCME … unlawful provisions that remained in effect for years after 2018 … can be summarized as including passages that:

  • Require automatic deduction of dues or fees from employee paychecks without their expressed consent
  • Require payment of dues or fees as a condition of employment
  • Limit the union opt-out time-window for employees

The table below summarizes the unlawful language of offending school districts (supporting details appear as an Appendix at the end of this report:)

As an example of what a properly worded CBA should look like, post-Janus, we look to provisions in the agreement between the Glocester K-5 school district and the Glocester Teachers’ Association for the time period July 2019 to June 2022:

The Glocester school district maintained the above Articles 20 and 21, post-Janus, but appropriately REMOVED the following provision that appeared in the district’s pre-Janus CBA:

As national examples of how post-Janus federal court cases compelled government unions to appropriately modify their dues/fees collection policies, what follows is language from two related US Third Circuit cases:

LaSpina v. SEIU Pennsylvania State Council, 985 F.3d 278, 282 (3rd Cir. 2021). After the Supreme Court decided Janus, the Union abandoned its agency-fee setup. The day the Court issued its decision, Steve Catanese, president of SEIU Local 668, wrote to Jack Finnerty of the Scranton Public Library “that the Supreme Court has ruled in Janus” and has “held public-sector employers may no longer deduct agency fees from non-consenting employees.” Supp. App. 69. Catanese’s letter instructed Finnerty to, “effective immediately, please discontinue fair-share fee deductions.” Id. (emphasis in original).

“Therefore, under Janus I, Pennsylvania’s public sector agency shop law was no longer constitutional.” Diamond v. Pennsylvania Educ. Ass’n, 972 F.3d 262, 268 (3rd Cir. 2020). Circuit law directly on point.

Other Supreme Court precedent illustrates what must be done to demonstrate employee consent. The Court has ruled that, to demonstrate consent to a waiver of constitutional rights, there must be evidence that the waiver is a “knowing, intelligent act … done with sufficient awareness of the relevant circumstances and likely consequences.” Brady v United States, 397 U.S. 742, 748 (1970). “It must also be done with “a full awareness of both the nature of the right being abandoned and the consequences of the decision to abandon it.” Moran v. Burbine, 475 U.S. 421,421 (1986) …

Per the SCOTUS ruling, before employees can consent to financially supporting a public sector union, they must know both what their rights are and the consequences of waiving those rights.

Yet, not every school district in Rhode Island was as careful to follow the law as was Glocester, as many districts continued to allow overtly unconstitutional language to remain in their post-Janus CBAs, without providing employees with the required notification of their rights.

One of the most blatant examples of such an unconstitutional provision appears in the September 2018 Westerly Teachers’ Association CBA:

How did this happen? Elected school committee members were either complicit with teacher unions in allowing such “unlawful” language to remain, or they were unwitting victims of malfeasance or ill-advice by their school committee solicitors, who are highly paid to provide accurate legal guidance.

The fact is, that for over three years, many teachers and other school district staff in Rhode Island may have been fraudulently deceived into paying union dues or association fees because of the unconstitutional language in their respective CBAs. These employees likely had dues automatically deducted from their paychecks without ever understanding that their First Amendment rights – that they could not be forced to pay part of their paycheck to their union – had been restored in 2018.

Indeed, as compared with opt-out rates nationally, Rhode Island teachers and other public employees are choosing to “opt-out” of paying union dues at rates far lower than their counterparts in other states. While states like California, Pennsylvania, New Jersey, and Massachusetts are seeing more than 15% of workers opt out of paying money to their unions, we estimate that less than 5% of Rhode Island union members have opted out. Now, we may know why.

In the majority Supreme Court decision in 2018, Justice Alito was noted that billions of dollars were likely collected by government unions nationwide in recent decades. Much of this money came from employees who never wanted to pay union dues in the first place but were forced to, because of prior legal precedent.

However, over the past three and a half years, Rhode Island unions may have similarly, yet unlawfully, collected millions of dollars in dues from employees who may have chosen to opt-out … had they not been deceived by clearly unconstitutional language.

Obvious questions must be asked, including:

  • How many teachers and school staff would not have paid union dues if they had been appropriately advised of their rights? How much money was fraudulently collected by unions?
  • Why do so man teacher union CBAs in Rhode Island contain such unconstitutional language? 
  • Why did Rhode Island school committees and teacher unions engage in such non-compliance so much more than any other state?
  • Did school committee members knowingly turn a blind eye towards this malfeasance, or were they completely ignorant of these obvious violations?
  • How can high-paid school committee solicitors allow such obviously unconstitutional language to be included in recent CBAs?
  • Is anything comparable to this level of unconstitutionality occurring in non-teacher public employee CBA contracts in Rhode Island?

Why in some cases, does the AFSCME CBA have proper language regarding dues and fees, while the teacher contract over the same period in the same school district has unconstitutional language?

The main question this report raises … is whether or not certain public teacher unions in Rhode Island conspired to illicitly collect union dues from unwitting teachers and staff?

This is not the first time that a government entity in Rhode Island has exhibited such blatant defiance of the US Supreme Court’s Janus decision. In 2018, our Center’s MyPayMySayRI.com campaign triggered a public letter of warning from then Attorney General Peter Kilmartin, after our outreach initiative sought to educate government workers about their restored Janus rights. The letter from Rhode Island’s highest law enforcement official contained numerous unsubstantiated, unspecified, and false assertions of “misinformation” being put forth by our RI Center for Freedom & Prosperity, such as the bogus claim that we were mis-informing public employees of their rights not to join or pay union dues or fees.

Then, as now, the pattern of government officials in Rhode Island conducting the bidding of public sector unions – at both the state and local level – even to the extent of seeking to obfuscate the constitutional rights of its members … runs directly contrary to the public oaths they took upon entering office.

A review of non-school district CBAs will soon be conducted by the Center.

The following Appendix lists images the actual passages from post-Janus teacher-union CBAs in Rhode Island that contain language that does not comply with the US Supreme Court’s Janus ruling.


APPENDIX

Rhode Island School Districts with Unconstitutional Collective Bargaining Provisions

 

Burrillville: NEA Contract Period: September 2021-2024

Page-40: https://docs.google.com/viewer?a=v&pid=sites&srcid=YnNkLXJpLm5ldHxob21lfGd4Ojc1NTMwZjU2M2U5MDhiMQ

Page-5: https://core-docs.s3.amazonaws.com/documents/asset/uploaded_file/236104/CF_CBA_18-21_FINAL_FORM.pdf 

Foster-Glocester: NEA Contract Period 2020-2023

Page-29: http://www.fg.k12.ri.us/common/pages/DisplayFile.aspx?itemId=9841126

Johnston: AFL-CIO Local 808 Contract period 2017-2020, extended in 2020 by the school district

Pages 4-5: https://www.johnstonschools.org/common/pages/DisplayFile.aspx?itemId=20171014

June 2020 Johnston School District Minutes

 

Lincoln: AFSCME Contract Period September 2018-2021

Page-4: https://www.lincolnps.org/cms/lib/RI50000681/Centricity/Domain/44/L2671-contract-2018-2021-02-07-19-FINAL.pdf

New Shoreham: AFSCME Contract Period 2019-2022

Page-2: https://4.files.edl.io/4ef8/11/15/19/153226-ac2437cb-2ef2-43d3-8fb7-ab0bbf4cb0cf.pdf

North Smithfield: NEA Contract Period 2021-24

Page-6: NSTA Collective Bargaining Agreement

Portsmouth: AFSCME Contract Period September 2018-2021
Page-2:

https://core-docs.s3.amazonaws.com/documents/asset/uploaded_file/1355692/Council_94_Contract_7.1.18_-_7.30.21.pdf

Tiverton: NEA Contract Period; 2019 –

Page-9: http://www.tivertonschools.org/common/pages/DisplayFile.aspx?itemId=8558123

Westerly: NEA Contract Period September 2018-2021

Page-5: https://drive.google.com/file/d/1V6e4ChNvhLkp6-Y0zqPUdieauxOzAMvm/view

West Warwick: AFT Contract Period September 2018-2023

Page-21: https://drive.google.com/file/d/1NdyhtJYJb0SibVVm0BXmthzTkehxDtjU/view

Analysis of research data performed by Dr. Andrew Bostom Natural Immunity Should be Included as a Vaccine Exemption.

Ashish Jha’s Improper Comparison of Pediatric Polio and Covid-19 Vaccinations

by Andrew Bostom, M.D., M.S., and Michelle Cretella, M.D.

Within 10 days of the 11/2/21 Advisory Committee on Immunization Practices (ACIP) interim recommendation for use of Pfizer’s covid-19 mRNA vaccine in children aged 5-11 years old, Dean of the Brown University School of Public Health, Dr. Ashish Jha claimed in an 11/11/21 Washington Post oped.

  • “If today’s misinformation, politicization and anti-vaccine sentiment existed in the United States in the 1950s, would the polio vaccine have received the same level of uptake?”

Hard data on childhood polio versus covid-19 disease severity, and direct juxtaposition of the polio and covid-19 vaccine trials, reveals a very different reality.

A 1957 JAMA publication analyzed polio mortality between 1915 and 1954 in U.S. children aged up to 14 years old, prior to mass polio vaccination efforts. Despite a steady decline due to the expanding development of natural immunity, the average polio death rate among these children, including the major outbreaks, was an alarming 5.7%. Rhode Island, through October 31st in 1953, alone, recorded 289 clinical pediatric polio cases, with 15 deaths, a 5.2% fatality rate.

These data stand in stark contrast to the near zero childhood covid-19 mortality, overall, and perhaps literally zero, among children free of chronic comorbidity. Rhode Island has had zero primary cause pediatric covid-19 deaths, and the American Academy of Pediatrics, per its recording system, maintains, “In states reporting, 0.00%-0.03% of all child COVID-19 cases resulted in death.” An elegant study from a national database in Germany reported concordant findings, noting,

  • “The lowest risk was observed in children aged 5-11 without comorbidities. In this group, the ICU admission rate was 0.2 per 10,000 (2 per 100,000) and case fatality could not be calculated, due to an absence of cases”

Dr. Vinay Prasad’s pellucid commentary on the German analysis, referenced these additional salient data:

  • For healthy kids, the risk of death is 3 per 1,000,000 with no deaths reported in kids older than 5.
  • Kids 5 to 11 have a risk of going to the ICU of 2 in 100,000; 0 died.
  • Among kids who died of COVID-19, 38% were already on palliative/ hospice care.

Juxtaposing the polio and covid-19 pediatric vaccine trials highlights consistent, equally glaring discordances.

The controlled (both placebo and observational controls) 1954 polio vaccine field trial recruited ~1.83 million total children, with ~1.35 million in the paralytic polio analysis. Pfizer’s Covid-19 mRNA vaccine randomized, controlled trial in 5 to 11 year-olds enrolled ~2300.

516 total cases of paralytic polio accumulated in the 1954 polio field trial, and vaccination reduced its incidence by 71.1% and 62.4%, relative to the placebo and observational-control groups, respectively. The Pfizer covid-19 vaccine randomized, placebo-controlled trial in 5 to 11 year-olds recorded zero cases of severe covid-19, despite recruiting ~20% with comorbidities. Covid-19 vaccination did reduce mildly symptomatic, covid-19 by “90.7%,” based on “3 cases in the BNT162b2 group and 16 cases in the placebo group (noting the 2:1 randomization of vaccine: placebo)”. Additionally, “No cases of COVID-19 were observed in either the vaccine group or the placebo group in participants with evidence of prior SARS-CoV-2 infection.”

 In summary, the 1954 polio vaccine trial for an order of magnitude more lethal, and crippling childhood disease than covid-19, assessed ~650-fold the number of children evaluated in Pfizer’s covid-19 vaccine trial. Polio vaccination in the 1954 trial prevented 374 cases of paralytic polio. Covid-19 vaccination in Pfizer’s trial prevented 13 cases equivalent to self-limited colds. Moreover, notwithstanding overwrought concerns about pediatric “long covid,” a December, 2021 Pediatric Infectious Diseases Journal review of 14 studies of this ostensible syndrome, concluded,

  • Evidence for long COVID in children and adolescents is limited, and all studies to date have substantial limitations or do not show a difference between children who had been infected by SARS-CoV-2 and those who were not.

 Dr. Jha’s comparison equating pediatric polio and covid-19 vaccination does not pass muster. Informed, dissenting medical opinions leery of mass, indiscriminate childhood covid-19 vaccination campaigns, should not be vilified.

Andrew Bostom, M.D. MS, is an adjunct scholar to the RI Center for Freedom & Prosperity. He is an academic clinical trialist and epidemiologist, who is currently a Research Physician at the Brown University Center For Primary Care and Prevention of Kent-Memorial Hospital in Rhode Island.

Michelle Cretella, M.D., is Executive Director of the American College of Pediatricians. She is a Rhode Islander who practiced pediatrics with a special interest in behavioral health for 15 years. 

Union transparency

Center submits federal “official comment” in support of union transparency rule

Official Comment on Federally Proposed Union Reporting Rule

Union members and the public have right to increased transparency

Providence, RI – The RI Center for Freedom & Prosperity today submitted an official comment to the US Department of Labor (DOL) in support of its proposed rule, “Labor Organization Annual Financial reports; LM Form Revisions.” 

The Center believes the proposed DOL changes are important updates to union reporting and will, as a result, provide union members with the information they need to hold their unions to account and ensure their dues are spent as they intend.

According to the Center’s CEO, Mike Stenhouse, “The rule promotes increased transparency and benefits American workers.” Informing public employees of their legal rights and of the activities of their unions is an important component of the Center’s ongoing MyPayMySayRI.com initiative. 

The Center argues that these rule changes are urgently needed so that union members have a better ability to see and understand how their dues are being spent. Increased transparency would help the DOL and local officials to root out corruption. Importantly, it also would empower union workers to make more informed decisions relating to their participation in unions and to monitor union activities so that they can better-protect their hard-earned dollars.

Also, because detailed public reporting of union spending is not always required, bad actors sometime see a loophole to try to game the system to their personal advantage. The Center’s official comment cites three examples of recent union corruption in Rhode Island that have led to criminal convictions involving wire-fraud and embezzlement. Also, in its comment, the Center suggested modifications to the proposed rule. 

The official comment period closes at midnight tonight. Federal action to enact, or not, the proposed rule could occur in 2021.

Union Political Spending

NEW REPORT: Union Political Spending – a Web of Corruption

Report Exposes Hyper-partisanship and Radical Agenda Funded by Government Union Political Spending

Providence, RI – Not every teacher, first-responder, clerk, or other public servant considers themselves to be Democrats or part of the “progressive-left” movement in Rhode Island. Yet every employee who is member of a government union in our state is paying dues that directly support this extreme political agenda … along with the corrupt quid quo pro that comes with union political spending.

A new report released today by the RI Center for Freedom & Prosperity – RI Political Spending: A Web of Corruption – lays out research of union political spending in Rhode Island in the 2018 election and since 2000. The report also provides multiple examples of what it calls a “web of corruption” where quid pro quo political favors coincided with union political cash.

“Most people don’t realize that the partnership between the progressive-left, government unions, and the Democratic party, which has created an iron triangle of cronyism and insider politics, is actually funded by each and every taxpayer in the state of Rhode Island,” commented Mike Stenhouse, the Center’s CEO. “This money merry-go-round is destroying our state: Taxes paid by residents fund the salaries of government employees, whose dues fund union activities, which in turn are contributed almost exclusively to one political party and to support just one, radical political ideology, who then work together to advance more pro-labor policies.”

Over $411,000 was spent by public employee unions to influence the 2018 elections :

  • 97% of government union campaign contributions went to Democrats
  • SEIU contributed about $150,000 to Democrats, who that year gave the union a major legislative victory that opened the door for the unionization of home care workers
  • 96% of recipients of NEARI PACE donations were Democrats
  • 95% of recipients of AFT (RI) donations were Democrats
  • 99% of recipients of the RI Brotherhood of Correctional Officers donations were Democrats
  • 98% of recipient of the RI Association of Firefighters donations were Democrats
  • 96% of recipients of the RI AFL-CIO PAC donations were Democrats
  • Over a half-million dollars was spent by unions on lobbying and related legislative outreach.

Nationally, and in addition to direct political contributions, for example, the National Education Association of Rhode Island’s (NEARI’s) parent organization, the NEA, alone gave out grants exceeding $100 million to far-left advocacy groups across.

Other specific examples of union-money corruption and cronyism are detailed in the report, including features about union executive and State Senator, Valerie Lawson, and union head, George Nee

The full nine-page report can be viewed here.

Center Applauds US Supreme Court Ruling on Educational Freedom

Center’s Policy Idea Enhanced by SCOTUS Ruling
See the Catch-Up ESAs Policy Brief here

Providence, RI – The RI Center for Freedom & Prosperity applauds yesterday’s decision by the US Supreme Court that empowers school choice families to be able to freely select faith-based private schools for their children’s education. 

The Court’s ruling is a major win for educational, parental, and religious freedom … in that government can no longer place restrictions on a child’s future just because of a school’s religiosity.


The SCOTUS ruling would apply to the the Catch-up ESAs, proposed in a policy brief last week by the Center. These one-time Educational Savings Accounts would be available to all qualified students in the state and would immediately fill major gaps in the five-year Providence schools reform plan by addressing current student needs. 


These ESAs, which would tap unspent federal CARES Act funding in Rhode Island, have earned support the of prominent minority advocate, Ray Rickman, during a recently taped episode of In The Dugout with Mike Stenhouse, a new video interview series by the Center. Rickman heads Stages of Freedom, a nonprofit that works with hundreds of minority families.

With about one-billion dollars in anticipated revenue shortfalls for RI, the Center publishes a new report with proven budget strategy.

DECISION OF THE CENTURY: New Report Lays Out a 2021 Budget Strategy for Prosperity

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE: May 29, 2020

A 2021 Budget Strategy For Long-Term Prosperity
Legislative Leaders Not Understanding the New Reality?

Providence, RI – With about one-billion dollars in anticipated revenue shortfalls, and with recent statements from leading Rhode Island lawmakers indicating a general feeling of helplessness, the RI Center for Freedom & Prosperity today published a new report with proven budget strategies that can help put the state on a long-term trajectory towards prosperity. 

Virtually all recent comments from public officials indicate an undue reliance on federal bailout funds in the hope that status quo spending levels might be maintained. This is not a budget strategy. 

Compiled after numerous discussions with colleagues in other states, as well as with state budget experts with national organizations, the Center’s report, Decision of the Century, is premised on the understanding that the decisions soon to be made by lawmakers in dealing with the pandemic-caused revenue losses, will set the near and long term trajectory for the Rhode Island economy; whether our state will experience a “V”, “U”, or “L” shaped recovery and what our Ocean State’s business climate will look like in the years and decades ahead. 

“The budget problems we face did not come down from the heavens; they were government-made and they can be reversed. Lawmakers should not feel helpless, nor should they rely on the federal government. Many states are taking proactive steps to prepare their state economies for rapid recovery … and we must do the same,” advised Mike Stenhouse, the Center’s CEO. “Lawmakers have to understand that they can no longer hide from the responsibilities and difficult decisions they were elected take on. The status quo budget approach – tax, spend, and borrow – will not work in response to this pandemic crisis.”

Similar to what the state of Washington adopted years ago, the report, co-authored by professor Dennis Sheehan and research director Justin Katz, highlights proven budget strategies that are flexible enough to navigate the unpredictable and massive deficits that lay ahead, while allowing the freedom for economic growth. The three key components of this strategy are:

  1. Establishing “Core Principles of Government” – to ensure that the most-vital functions of government are clearly defined as guidelines for the budget process
  2. Adopting a “Revenue-Constrained Spending” philosophy – committing the state to spending only those moneys that are actually taken in, at current tax and fee rates
  3. Setting “Priority Based Spending” targets – such that specific spending categories or programs are pre-prioritized and will be funded only as actual revenue receipts are realized

The primary decision for lawmakers will be to determine what budget strategy path Rhode Island’s financial recovery will take. Will it go down the road of a centrally “planned economy”, with lawmakers arbitrarily making political tax and spending decisions that impose more government control over our lives? Or, will the “invisible hand” of the free-enterprise system be allowed to work, increasing prosperity and paving the way for more rapid economic, jobs, and income growth?

This critical decision will determine whether the Ocean State is to become a more or less hospitable place to raise a family and build a career; and whether families, graduates, retirees, and investors will continue to flee our state. 

“In these unique times, a reality-based budget strategy is required. There is no time to pretend that the same old budget approach … one that has created the worst state business climate in the nation … can work for us now,” concluded Stenhouse.

More information and budget posts from the past years can be viewed at RIFreedom.org/Budget.

Jobs & Opportunity Index (JOI), December 2019: Signs of Growth Foretell a Revision

The final report for 2019 of the RI Center for Freedom & Prosperity’s Jobs & Opportunity Index (JOI) found Rhode Island still with its overall ranking of 47th in the country. Data for all 12 datapoints of the index except federal taxes were updated for this iteration, and the only negatives, compared with September, were a slight increase in marginally attached workers and a more-significant increase in state and local taxes.

Employment and labor force were up about 0.7% and 0.6%, respectively, since the first-reported numbers for September, and RI-based jobs increased 0.5%. With the national economy continuing to improve, Medicaid enrollment fell 3.2%, while TANF (cash welfare) rolls shrank by 24.0%. SNAP enrollment was down 0.3%. The Ocean State had 16.5% fewer residents who counted as long-term unemployed and 7.8% fewer who were working only part time because more work was not available. However, the number counting as marginally attached increased 2.1%.

When it comes to money, personal income was up a modest 0.3% on an annualized basis, which amounted to $161 million more income. However, state and local taxation increased 1.4%, or $50 million, resulting not only from the increased income, but also increases in taxation after recent legislative sessions.

The first chart shows RI remaining last in New England on JOI, at 47th. New Hampshire held the 1st spot, nationally. Maine improved its standing two spots, to 17th, while Vermont continued to slip, to 21st. Massachusetts moved up a step to 36th, and Connecticut advanced to 37th. The second chart shows the gaps between RI and New England and the United States on JOI, and the third chart shows the gaps in the official unemployment rate.

Results for the three underlying JOI factors were:

  • Job Outlook Factor (optimism that adequate work is available): RI advanced five spots, to 27th.
  • Freedom Factor (the level of work against reliance on welfare programs): RI remained 41st.
  • Prosperity Factor (the financial motivation of income versus taxes): RI remained 47th.

Click here for the corresponding employment post on the Ocean State Current.

Rhode Island still held its overall ranking of 47th in the country on the September 2019 third quater Jobs & Opportunity Index.

Jobs & Opportunity Index (JOI), September 2019: Hanging on While the Country Advances

As the third quarter of 2019 came to a close, Rhode Island still held its overall ranking of 47th in the country on the Rhode Island Center for Freedom & Prosperity’s Jobs & Opportunity Index (JOI) but was basically tied with 48th place Louisiana. Data for all 12 datapoints of the index except federal taxes were updated for this iteration, and RI benefited by the fact that it was finally able to report data for SNAP (foodstamps), which it had not done for two-and-a-half years thanks to the UHIP debacle.

Compared with June, RI improved on most measures. Employment and labor force were up about 0.6% since the first-reported numbers for June, with RI-based jobs increasing a more-modest 0.3%. Correspondingly, Medicaid enrollment fell 0.8%, while TANF (cash welfare) rolls shrank by 8.0%. SNAP enrollment was down 4.0%, although that is from the number as reported ever since February 2017. The Ocean State had 2.3% fewer residents who counted as long-term unemployed and 3.8% fewer who were working only part time because more work was not available. However, the number counting as marginally attached increased 23.7%.

The picture is also mixed when it comes to money. Personal income was up 3.9% on an annualized basis, which amounted to $1.8 billion more income. However, state and local taxation increased 10.5%, or $349 million, resulting not only from the increased income, but also expansive changes to tax policy.

The first chart shows RI remaining last in New England on JOI, at 47th for September 2019. New Hampshire returned to 1st nationally. Vermont and Maine slipped, to 14th and 19th, respectively. Massachusetts remained 37th. However, Connecticut advanced to 38th.

Rhode Island still held its overall ranking of 47th in the country on the September 2019 third quater Jobs & Opportunity Index.

The second chart shows the gaps between RI and New England and the United States on JOI for September 2019, and the third chart shows the gaps in the official unemployment rate.

Rhode Island still held its overall ranking of 47th in the country on the September 2019 third quater Jobs & Opportunity Index.
Rhode Island still held its overall ranking of 47th in the country on the September 2019 third quater Jobs & Opportunity Index.

Results for the three underlying Jobs & Opportunity Index factors were:

  • Job Outlook Factor (optimism that adequate work is available): RI fell three spots, to 32nd.
  • Freedom Factor (the level of work against reliance on welfare programs): RI advanced two, to 41st.
  • Prosperity Factor (the financial motivation of income versus taxes): RI remained 47th.

Click here for the corresponding employment post on the Ocean State Current.

alaska-opt-in-form-recommended

Center Recommends Alaska-type Opt-in Form for Public Employees. 1900 Already Opted-out?

R.I. Should Follow Alaska’s Lead With a Clear Union Opt-in Form Process

Center’s My Pay-My Say Campaign Has Already Produced up to 1900 Rhode Island Union Opt-outs

Providence, RI – The RI Center for Freedom & Prosperity recommends that all state and municipal employers in Rhode Island follow Alaska’s lead to protect the rights of public employees by achieving full compliance with the 2018 US Supreme Court Janus v AFSCME decision.

The Center recommends that the various state and local departments should create a new form and related procedures to verify employees’ identity, explain their full rights, and document their clear intent. Not doing so puts government employers in danger of being in violation of workers’ first amendment rights.

“According to the highest court in the land, no public servant should have union dues automatically deducted from their paycheck unless they provide clear affirmative consent with full understanding of their Janus rights,” advised Mike Stenhouse, CEO for the Center. “Without a union opt-in process that fully complies with Janus, governments and unions may be at risk of legal action by employees who may have been misinformed.”

In the summer of 2018 the Center initiated its MyPayMySayRI.com campaign, which seeks to advise public employees of their newly restored first amendment rights under Janus

Since then, based actual responses to dozens of records-requests, it can be documented that there are 811 more government workers in 2019 who chose not to pay expensive government union dues than in 2018. This means more than 4% of workers opted-out of their unions. Extrapolated across the entire state, it is estimated that there are now 1900 fewer dues- or fee-paying union members than last year.

In late September, Alaska Governor Michael J. Dunleavy, backed by an opinion from the state’s Attorney General, announced the implementation of an administrative order to protect the first amendment rights of State employees by bringing State government into compliance with the 2018 court ruling. Per Dunleavy’s press release:

“In Janus, the Supreme Court held that 1) government employees cannot be required to pay dues or fees to a public sector union as a condition of employment, and 2) no money can be deducted by employers for public sector unions “unless the employee affirmatively consents to pay.” Public employers, such as the State, cannot according to the court, deduct union dues or fees from an employee’s wages unless the employer has “clear and compelling evidence” that the employee has authorized such deductions. The administrative order only applies to State of Alaska employees currently represented by a union.

The administrative order directs the Alaska Department of Administration to create an initial opt-in program where unionized State employees decide, online or in written form, if they want union dues deducted from their paychecks, which would be revocable at any time.”