unions

Well, they aren't lying. It's true that I'd still get all my union benefits if I stopped paying into it.* I'm sure I work with people who don't pay, and they probably feel like they're smarter than the rest of us. The mailers just conveniently leave out the context that what I pay into the union has been returned tenfold by their actions, and to hurt the union is to ultimately hurt myself.

* the reason this is true is because a law exists that says that unions cannot require represented employees to pay into them, but the contracts agreed to by the union affect positions, not people, so they still benefit.