SCOTUS plantiff: 'I dared to stand against union politics'
When the Supreme Court announced in June that it would hear the case of Friedrichs v. California Teacher Association, it sent shockwaves through organized labor. The case involves whether the nine justices should overturn a 1977 precedent called Abood v. Detroit Board of Education that allows public sector employees to be forced to support a union as a condition of employment. About half of the 14 million people in unions nationally are public sector employees. Overturning Abood could result in millions of them dropping their membership. Lead plaintiff Rebecca Friedrichs spoke with theWashington Examiner about her involvement in the case.
Washington Examiner: So what is your background? How did you get into teaching?
Friedrichs: I started dreaming of being a teacher when I was a kid. I just always loved working with little kids, so that's what got me into teaching. It has been a very rewarding career. I've enjoyed it very much.
Examiner: Why California? Why not somewhere else?
Examiner: You had to know when you were accepting a teaching position that it was a unionized workplace. How did you feel about that at the time?
Friedrichs: Actually, I didn't know that until I was student-teaching. I had no Idea. When I went into college and decided to become a teacher nobody ever mentioned it. I had no idea I would be entering a unionized workplace. Once I had finished my bachelor's degree and was working in student teaching, it was my master teacher who educated me about teachers' unions.
The reason she told me was because … next door to us there was a teacher who was, in my estimation, abusive towards her students. She was very impatient and would yell at them all of the time. She would grab them and look at them in the face and scream at them. They were little 6-year-olds and I was terrified of her, and I was 22 at the time. So I asked my master teacher, "what can we do about this horrible situation? Can't we talk to the principal about this?" That's when she sat me down and talked to me about unions and teacher tenure and how difficult they made it for districts to rid themselves of teachers who have become ineffective or, in this case, abusive. So that was my first time learning SCOTUS plantiff: 'I dared to stand against union politics' | Washington Examiner:
