What Your Union Doesn't Tell You Until You Try to Leave
Imagine a gym membership you can't quit.
You cancel. They keep charging you. The fine print you signed at orientation — the one nobody explained — says that's the deal.
That's how David Osborne describes public-sector union dues for a lot of teachers, firefighters, police, and municipal workers.
Osborne is the former CEO of Americans for Fair Treatment. He helped start the Fairness Center, a public-interest law firm representing those workers against their own unions. This episode is a throwback to Episode 233 from April 2021 — with a five-year scorecard on what he got right and what he missed.
Listen to the full episode (TBNS 1091): https://www.briannicholsshow.com/what-your-union-doesnt-tell-you-until-you-try-to-leave-tbns-1091/
The Playbook Nobody Hands You
Inside this conversation you'll hear the uncensored breakdown of:
- The union resignation window
- - The restrictive membership forms nobody reads at orientation
- - The clause that makes public employees pay dues regardless of membership status
This is the playbook nobody hands you when you take a government job.
And here's the part that should bother you: the union never had to win. They just had to make leaving expensive enough that you stopped trying.
What happens to your paycheck when the organization that's supposed to protect you is the one you need protection from?
The Teacher They Wouldn't Let Give
At one point in the tape: a Pennsylvania teacher whose own union blocked where her money could go — even after they agreed she'd never pay them a dime.
That's not solidarity. That's control.
Osborne's cases and the Fairness Center's work — including fights like Ladley v. PSEA and Misja v. PSEA — exist because workers kept discovering the exit was a maze. Opt-out windows. Buried forms. Rules designed for the convenience of the dues collector, not the employee.
The gym-membership analogy still hits in sixty seconds: quitting should be as easy as joining. If it isn't, somebody likes the trap.
One Person Against the Machine
Leaving can feel like one person against an institutional machine.
Osborne walks through the free ways out that nobody mentions at orientation — and the specific request he made to the Supreme Court in April 2021.
Eight weeks later, he got his answer.
We score that prediction five years on. What landed. What missed. Because this show doesn't only take victory laps. We call the misses too.
If you're a public employee reading this and realizing you never actually consented the way you thought you did, start with the resources: Americans for Fair Treatment (https://americansforfairtreatment.org), The Fairness Center (https://www.fairnesscenter.org), and Commonwealth Foundation's state grades in The Battle for Worker Freedom.
David's current work is at the Commonwealth Foundation: https://commonwealthfoundation.org/st
Quit the Union. Keep Paying Dues.
That's the chapter title that should make every public employee sit up.
You can resign membership and still watch dues leave your paycheck because of how the forms were written — and when you were allowed to revoke them. Orientation day is busy. Nobody reads every clause. The machine counts on that.
Osborne's Fairness Center work and Americans for Fair Treatment advocacy exist because "just leave" was never a real sentence for a lot of workers. The free way out nobody mentions is exactly why these episodes matter: information asymmetry is the product.
Five years after Episode 233, the scorecard isn't "we won everything." It's "here's what the Court did and didn't do with the ask" — and here's how state grades still look in Commonwealth Foundation research on public-sector labor law and political spending. If your union can fund politics with money you can't easily stop sending, you're not in a voluntary association. You're in a collection system with better branding.
The Bottom Line
Public-sector unions sell protection. Too often, the fine print sells captivity.
David Osborne's warning from 2021 still applies: resignation windows, restrictive forms, and dues that outlast membership aren't bugs. They're features of a system that profits when ex
Watch the episode. Check your state's grade. If you're trapped in the gym you can't quit, find counsel that works for you — not the machine.
Educated. Enlightened. Informed.
Listen to the Full Episode
What Your Union DOESN'T Tell You (Until You Try To Leave!) | TBNS 1091: https://www.briannicholsshow.com/what-your-union-doesnt-tell-you-until-you-try-to-leave-tbns-1091/
Guest: David Osborne — Commonwealth Foundation; formerly Americans for Fair Treatment / Fairness Center
Original Episode 233 (April 2021): https://www.briannicholsshow.com/videos/233-david-osborne-ceo-of-americans-for-fair-treatment/
Follow Brian: @BNicholsLiberty on X, Facebook, and Instagram
Show site: https://briannicholsshow.com
Sponsor note: Cardio Miracle — 15% off with code TBNS at https://cardiomiracle.com/TBNS
Host
I'm Brian Nichols... and I spent years watching the liberty movement lose arguments it should've won.
Not because the ideas were wrong. Because nobody knew how to sell them. That's where I come in.
I come from the world of sales and marketing - helping businesses communicate better, close more deals, and actually solve real problems. Somewhere along the way, I realized those same skills translate directly to politics, policy, and culture. So that's what TBNS is.
Sales. Business. Politics. Health. Taught like a real human talks. No partisan cosplay. No debating obscure philosophy. Just practical conversations about what actually works - one episode at a time.
1,100+ episodes in. Still going.
Also: unapologetic Cowboys fan. We don't need to talk about it.
