I am heartend by the initial response and comments about our web site. We are starting to gain members and we receive donations every day, some as small as $3.47, some as large as $250. Every small check helps, I got about 40 of them which helped pay for my trip to Sacramento.
I attended a special meeting at the Public Employment Relations Board (PERB). The purpose of this meeting was to discuss a union proposal to get rid of the PERB regulations that protect the agency fee payers. Perhaps the unions have the juice to push their proposal through. This presents us with a problem because if the union violates what used to be a regulation under PERB, we cannot file an unfair Practice Charge with PERB over this. However, it also provides us with an opportunity. PERB has been rather unkind to us in both procedural issues and rulings. The only advantage of PERB is that filing of charges is extremely simple. But that doesn't do us any good if they mostly always rule in favor of the unions.
We will then have the opportunity to file in a real court. Now this process is a bit more difficult but I've filed in Superior court before and Federal Court filings aren't much harder. The real courts are not as a whole, filled with former union officials and their friends. The PERB Board was, until recently, comprised of three former union officials. I'll leave it to you to figure out why we didn't win many cases. The courts will then have to deal with hundreds of lawsuits over $400. This will not go over well with them but we will explain that the California Public Employement Relations Board, at the behest of the unions, eliminated the regulations that we used to file under with PERB. I'll be sure to let the judges know. Of course, I won't be able to represent you but I have the feeling that I can find a bar certified attorney who will.I also made two new friends at the meeting. They may be of help to the organization in the future.