#perschoiceact

Union Protesters Disrupt Event Leave In Handcuffs. The Thursday night event, co-sponsored by the Portland, Ore.-based Cascade Policy Institute and the Olympia, Wa.-based Freedom Foundation, featured labor policy expect Vinnie Vernuccio from Michigan’s Makinac Center for Public Policy. At some point during the meeting, the protesters, carrying signs and shouting pro-union slogans, disrupted the event.

As a civil rights advocate who grew up in a racially segregated town, I'm always up for a good debate, but I do appreciate factual accuracy and logical consistency. It isn't entirely clear that the governor has even read the measure. The Public Employee Choice Act explicitly states that any public worker in Oregon is free to join a union if he or she chooses. By the same token, it says that any public worker in Oregon is free to not join a union if he or she chooses -- and, if the latter is his or her choice, he or she isn't required to make compulsory payments to the union. It's that simple. IP9 is about individual freedom and a public employee's right to choose. By Jill Gibson Odell http://www.oregonlive.com/opinion/index.ssf/2013/09/paying_dues_should_be_a_worker.html