* Interesting…

Don't want people showing up at your door telling you to drop your union membership? IEA members can sign up for free window clings and stop the anti-union groups in their tracks. #Imstickingwithmyunion #IEAstronger

Click here to get yours: https://t.co/Uc10JnAh2T pic.twitter.com/vwLSZQMx1q

— IEANEA (@ieanea) September 4, 2018

* Has the Illinois Policy Institute started knocking on union members’ doors to convince them to drop their memberships? I asked the IEA’s spokesperson to explain…

So far we have no confirmed reports from our members, but we are expecting they’ll be hearing from IPI soon. We know that some of our locals have been hit with not one but two mailers from IPI encouraging them to drop their union memberships. We are arming our members with window clings to deter door knockers from IPI and other anti-union organizations.

* I asked the Illinois Policy Institute if it had any plans for a door-to-door canvass. A spokesperson issued a one-word response: “No.”

That makes sense. Teachers aren’t confined to one precinct, after all. It would be very difficult to canvass them one-by-one.

* I assume the IEA is just ginning up the base. It’s tweeted out some responses by members to Policy Institute mailers…

Get an IPI mailer? Planning to send it back with a personal message? Or find another creative use for it? We’d love to see it. Here’s one from a member in Naperville. #imstickingwithmyunion #IEAstronger #notinterested #returntosender pic.twitter.com/LwVaET3sKv

— IEANEA (@ieanea) September 5, 2018

* The Chicago Teachers Union is doing the same…

CTU has responded by urging its teachers to Tweet pictures of their IPI mailers in defiance with the hashtag #solidarity. Erika Wozniak, a CTU member and a candidate for 46th Ward alderman in Chicago, tweeted that the IPI flier had actually prompted her and her husband to increase their contribution to the union’s Political Action Committee.

The union’s Acting President Jesse Sharkey added a statement Thursday, saying, “Bruce Rauner’s front group is asking CTU members to walk away from our power, and our members have an answer: no way, not now, not ever.”

Charging that the IPI “serves the union-busting agenda of this failed governor,” Sharkey said, “It won’t work. Our members are too smart, organized, and committed to fall for this toxic ploy to undermine our rights and our dignity.”

*** UPDATE *** Bridget Shanahan with the IEA…

Our state affiliates out west have been targeted by anti-union, State Policy Network affiliate groups going door to door. Those groups have also said they’ve hired additional staff just for the purpose of going to door to door.

In a subsequent e-mail, she pointed me to this June 27th Bloomberg story…

Following a U.S. Supreme Court decision that millions of public sector workers can stop paying union fees, a group tied to Republican billionaires long opposed to organized labor and its support of the Democratic Party has pledged to build on the landmark ruling to further marginalize employee representation.

The conservative nonprofit Freedom Foundation said that starting Wednesday, it will deploy 80 people to a trio of West Coast union bastions: California, Oregon and its home state of Washington. The canvassers were hired in March and trained this month, according to internal documents reviewed by Bloomberg News. The goal of the multi-pronged campaign is to shrink union ranks in the three states by 127,000 members—and to offer an example for similar efforts targeting unions around the country.