Pro-Union

Pouring in out-of-state cash

2008-06-22T15:00:00.000-04:00

Organizers build political clout in dues-poor territory

North Carolina is the Norma Rae of states. You remember "Norma Rae," the 1979 movie starring Sally Field, about how a textile worker disturbed about Dickensian working conditions organized a successful union vote despite fierce company opposition.

Norma Rae was based on Crystal Lee Sutton, a $2.65 per hour towel folder at the J.P. Stevens Plant in Roanoke Rapids. Sutton ended up losing her job and working at a fast-food restaurant.

North Carolina is the least unionized state in the country, with 3 percent of the work force belonging to unions in 2007, according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics. To put this in perspective, Mississippi has double the unionization rate of North Carolina, Alabama triple the rate. The national average is 12.1 percent.

As you might expect, the current drive in the legislature to allow public employees to engage in collective bargaining appears to be going nowhere fast this session.

The House Democratic caucus took up the matter last week.

"At this point, I doubt it has the votes to pass," said House Majority Leader Hugh Holliman, a Democrat from Lexington.

North Carolina has one of the most restrictive laws against collective bargaining by public employees in the country.

But a labor coalition is making a concerted effort to change that.

Leading the drive is the 2 million-member Service Employees International Union, the nation's fastest-growing union. This spring, the State Employees Association of North Carolina -- the major advocacy group for state workers -- voted to affiliate with the SEIU.

Also pushing to change the collective bargaining law are the N.C. Association of Educators, the AFL-CIO and the Teamsters and the American Federation of Teachers.

To gain clout in the legislature, the SEIU has been plowing money into Tar Heel political campaigns.

But the drive also has powerful opposition. Business groups fear it will lead to a more powerful labor movement in the state. State and local government officials warn it will lead to work disruptions, drawn-out negotiations, time-consuming grievance procedures and higher taxes.

History would suggest you bet on the opponents.

There are a lot of reasons why unions have found North Carolina such barren ground.

Part of it is cultural. When North Carolina was industrialized in the 20th century, the mills were manned by fiercely independent hill-country farmers, not by European immigrants as elsewhere. The factories were in small, rural mill towns, often controlled by the mill owners, rather than in big cities where organizing was easier.

North Carolina -- a once poor rural state trying to attract Northern industry -- has been openly hostile to its workers' organizing.

During the 1920s, the government used bullets and billy clubs to put down the union movement. There is still a plaque in state AFL-CIO headquarters commemorating six striking textile workers shot dead in the back by deputy sheriffs in McDowell County.

The crushing of the labor movement has had a profound impact on North Carolina politics. There is no countervailing political force to business in North Carolina as there is in most states. Consequently, business interests usually get what they want in the legislature.

The clout of business and the weakness of labor also mean that any effort to persuade the legislature to give public employees collective bargaining rights will be a tough sell.

(tmcnet.com)

Barack Obama in Organized Labor's pocket

2008-05-25T20:00:00.000-04:00

Obama - The Unionizer-in-Chief

Noted economist and University of Maryland scholar John Lott says the election of Barack Obama as president would benefit labor unions even more than eight years of a Bill Clinton White House did.

As senior research scientist at the University of Maryland, Lott is examining the pro-union policies supported by Democratic presidential frontrunner Barack Obama, the junior senator from Illinois. "Even Bill Clinton wasn't near this strongly in the unions' pocket, so to speak, as you have with Barack Obama," the economist contends.

Lott notes Obama's opposition to education vouchers, votes against trade deals with U.S. allies, and desire to renegotiate NAFTA (the North American Free Trade Agreement). But the best evidence, Lott says, of Obama's hyper-union stance is his support for the questionably-named "Employee Free Choice Act" - a proposal that would eliminate secret ballots by employees when unions are trying to enter a workplace.

"I think if you were going to go and tell people that we were going to stop having secret ballots, they would think you were joking," he suggests. "And that's because we think that there are very strong reasons to have secret ballots. Many people may wear lapel buttons for their candidate or put up yard signs, but a lot of people feel uncomfortable being public and outspoken about that. You may have issues of intimidation. You may also have issues of vote-buying," Lott explains.

Unions project they could add millions of members if they could eliminate secret ballots. But Lott believes many employees, out of fear, may reluctantly sign a public statement calling for a union.

"Right now, a worker may feel pressure from others to go and vote for the union, but not believe that it's in his interest to do it. [But with a secret ballot option] he can go and sign the public statement saying that he's for a union vote, but then vote differently once he's in the safety of the voting booth. That would no longer be an option for people because how they would vote would be public knowledge," Lott points out.

Currently, according to Lott, a union election is called for when more than 50 percent of employees sign a public petition supporting the idea. He says many workers realize that the higher wages that unions demand come at the expense of employees who lose their jobs as employers move to reduce their costs.

(onenewsnow.com)

Media silence on Stern weakens labor's cause

2008-04-27T10:00:00.001-04:00

When News Hits heard about the melee at the recent Labor Notes conference in Dearborn, all we could hear in our heads was the union anthem "Solidarity Forever."

Here's the first verse, as sung to the tune of "Battle Hymn of the Republic":

There can be no power greater anywhere beneath the sun;
Yet what force on earth is weaker than the feeble strength of one,
But the union makes us strong.

Unfortunately, it's the song's irony we've taken notice of — what happened at the event was anything but strengthening for labor's cause. News about the incident was hard to come by locally — neither of the dailies said boo about it. But it was a big deal in the national world of labor politics.

Here's a summary of what happened:

The Labor Notes conference was going at the Dearborn Hyatt, April 11-13, with about 1,000 union members from at least 50 different groups from all over the country learning how to organize and mobilize grassroots forces. Labor Notes is a nonprofit organization that produces a monthly magazine of labor news, creates other printed materials and hosts the biennial conference to support grassroots union efforts. The spunky newsletter founded with the organization in 1979 has a reputation for in-your-face criticism of the labor movement.

During the Saturday evening banquet, members or sympathizers of the Service Employees International Union showed up in buses — the exact numbers of people and vehicles are in dispute — to demonstrate against the planned keynote speaker, Rose Ann DeMoro.

De Moro, as executive director of the California Nurses Association — which is a huge proponent of single-payer health care — was supposed to speak about that issue, but canceled her appearance. Apparently that didn't matter to SEIU members and supporters. The 1.9 million-member union was interested in making a very public statement about De Moro, her West Coast-based nurses group and its organizing work that competes with SEIU.

It seems the SEIU folks also have a burr in their britches over the role the National Nurses Organizing Committee, an affiliate of the CNA, has played in a health care workers dispute taking place in Ohio.

SEIU accuses the Committee/CNA of spreading false information and derailing an election to certify 8,000 employees with the Catholic Health Care Partners system. CNA says SEIU cuts deals with employers at the expense of the workers and stepped into the Buckeye State business, in part, because it learned the employer had asked for the union certification election — that's unheard of, nurses union folks say.

Incidentally, the CNA-SEIU friction goes back years in California, where the groups have clashed over nursing home employment, patient care and quality issues. Just last week — a few days after the Michigan incident — CNA obtained a temporary restraining order against SEIU in California.

Anyway, back to Michigan and that little ditty in our heads:

Is there anything left to us but to organize and fight?
For the union makes us strong.

So when somewhere between 300 and 800 people (it depends on who's counting) showed up to demonstrate at the Dearborn hotel, the doors were locked.

But some SEIU members attending the conference — under false names, organizers say — pushed the doors open after chanting and banging on them, says Chris Kutalik, Labor Notes editor.

With Labor Notes attendees linking arms to keep them out, SEIUers pushed forward and into the banquet room.

What happened next depends, again, on who's talking.

"They knocked people down," Kutalik says.

"It was a peaceful protest," says Zac Altefogt, spokesman for SEIU Healthcare Michigan.

Regardless, Dearborn police showed up, though no one was arrested. A 68-year-old woman was injured. Labor, as a cause, was damaged.

"I just find it really inexplicable what they hoped to gain by this," Kutalik says. "We don't want to damage their union, but we certainly think the leadership just seems to be on a disaster course at this point."

And lost among the melee was the main message of the conference, which came at a time when union membership is down and union leadership is losing clout in national and local politics:

We can bring to birth a new world from the ashes of the old
For the union makes us strong.

(metrotimes.com)

Barack to UFCW, April 24

2008-04-25T14:00:00.000-04:00

Barack sets pro-union labor agenda

2008-04-25T08:00:00.000-04:00

Barack Obama spent Tuesday courting union workers and veterans, both important constituencies in Pennsylvania, which holds its Democratic primary next Tuesday.

Obama, addressing the Building Trades National Legislative Conference in Washington, said, "Your voices will be heard." The Illinois senator promised that if he's elected he'll support union measures not backed by the Bush administration: the Employee Free Choice Act, giving unions more power to organize; federal government use of "project labor agreements"; and tax policies to discourage sending jobs overseas and reward the creation of U.S. jobs.

He said federal infrastructure projects should use union laborers who were paid prevailing wages and good benefits. "It's time we had a president who didn't choke saying the word 'union,'" he told a crowd that roared in agreement. "It's not that hard: union. See? It won't hurt you. We need to strengthen our unions, not weaken them, not tear them down. We need to build them up."

At a meeting with veterans and military families later in Washington, Pa., Obama repeated promises to improve mental-health care and brain-injury treatment for veterans.

He voiced veterans advocacy groups' criticism that the Bush administration has restricted definitions of casualties compared with past wars so that the numbers being reported are "tens of thousands" short. He said he'd change that so as "to honor the full measure of sacrifice of our troops, and to prepare for the cost of their care."

His rival Hillary Clinton on Tuesday laid out an ambitious agenda for the first 100 days of her presidency, if she's elected, that includes signing legislation that President Bush vetoed, seeking a moratorium on home foreclosures and beginning the process of withdrawing U.S. troops from Iraq.

Speaking at an American Society of Newspaper Editors luncheon in Washington, Clinton said that she'd ask Congress to eliminate some of Bush's tax cuts -- replacing them with reductions targeting the middle class -- and press Canada and Mexico to renegotiate parts of the North American Free Trade Agreement. "In short, starting from Day One, the Bush-Cheney era will be over in name and practice," the New York senator said.

Clinton said she'd start with bills that Bush had vetoed, beginning with measures to expand the State Children's Health Insurance Program and the use of embryonic stem cells for research.

"We will provide health insurance for millions more of our children as a down payment on achieving health care for all Americans with no exceptions," she said.

Clinton told the editors that she'd convene a meeting of mortgage lenders, banks, community organizations and regulators to negotiate an immediate freeze on foreclosures. "So many Americans are hurting, the projection is that more than 2 million American families will be foreclosed on this year."

She vowed to restore "fiscal sanity" to Washington by cutting taxes for middle-class families by $100 billion a year and ending tax breaks for oil companies, drug companies, insurance companies and Wall Street firms, saving $55 billion annually.

On climate change, Clinton said she'd convene a summit within her first 100 days to negotiate an international climate-change treaty to replace the Kyoto accords and include China, India and other rapidly developing greenhouse gas-emitting nations.

On Iraq, she vowed to convene a meeting of the Joint Chiefs of Staff and other Pentagon officials to begin drawing up plans to withdraw troops "responsibly and carefully" starting within 60 days of her inauguration.

She also promised to close the detention center at the U.S. naval base at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba.

(kentucky.com)

GOP describes progressive labor agenda

2008-04-17T10:00:00.000-04:00

Picture this scenario: A market bubble is created by easy-money policy and speculative investment followed by a collapse in market values. Our economy teeters on recession.

Politicians reward big labor with new powers at the workplace. Large government programs are proposed to create taxpayer-funded jobs. Entitlement programs for seniors and the poor are initiated. Temporary "stimulus" packages are passed to placate seniors, farm workers, unions and the unemployed.

Presidential candidates and congressional leaders attack free trade, vow to instate an estate tax on the rich and increase taxes on corporations, individual taxpayers and stockholders. Foreign countries' economies grow at accelerated rates while American jobs disappear.

Regulations are imposed to crack down on Wall Street, while state and federal governments bring lawsuits against demonized corporations for various offenses. Private companies are more heavily regulated to "protect" the public.

Next, the Democratic governor of New York condemns the "increasing concentration of wealth and power." Outcries against excessive executive salaries on Wall Street become widespread.

Sound familiar? Although it sounds like America in 2008, this scenario describes 1929 through 1935.

In her brilliant description of the Great Depression, The Forgotten Man, Amity Shlaes explains how excessive taxes and regulations, along with an attack on free trade, turned a temporary stock-market correction -- which probably would have lasted a year or two -- into an 11-year Great Depression. In 1930, President Herbert Hoover signed huge tax increases on investment and income taxes, as well as the Smoot-Hawley bill that attacked free trade. President Franklin Delano Roosevelt's New Deal enlarged and transformed every aspect of the federal government into a Big Brother that stifled the private sector, job growth and freedom itself.

Most of these programs and government intrusions were popular, and FDR was elected a record four times. But populism cannot reverse the laws of economics. Ireland, Singapore, Hong Kong and even China are growing faster and creating jobs faster than the United States today because their economies are becoming freer (all but China rank freer than us in the Heritage Foundation 2008 Index on Economic Freedom). Even the European Union has a significantly lower corporate tax rate than the United States.

As I write, Democrats in Congress are taking a page from Hoover's handbook. They have voted for the largest tax increase in history -- an average of $3,040 for every hard-working taxpayer in Florida, according to the Heritage Foundation. Both parties have dramatically increased federal spending and entitlement programs. Sens. Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton compete to see who can more quickly destroy trade partnerships. And every day the Democratic majority in Congress proposes huge new government programs and expenditures. New oil and gas exploration and petroleum refineries are prohibited while taxes on energy companies are increased as gasoline prices soar. Proposals to allow unions to organize workers without an open democratic vote have passed the House. To add to an already out-of-control tort system, numerous punitive and excessive regulations on business have been proposed and many have passed. Sarbanes-Oxley alone has driven many companies private or overseas, at a cost to America of $1.4 trillion a year according to one study.

As investors flee Democrats' proposed tax increases and regulatory assaults, job creation is declining. You cannot create jobs by destroying incentives for small business owners, investors and capitalists -- nor can you tax and regulate your way to prosperity. The Soviet Union tried and died. Ireland and China, however, have learned this lesson. Populist demagoguery may win this election, but it cannot revive economic growth and prosperity.

"Less government, less taxes, and more freedom" is not just an outdated slogan, but rather a universal and timeless recipe for economic growth.

- U.S. Rep. Tom Feeney, an Ovideo Republican, represents District 24.

(orlandosentinel.com)

Spotlight: The Newspaper Guild

2008-04-01T07:00:00.000-04:00

Union members write most news stories.

The nation's print news sector is aging but remains politically-influential. It is also highly unionized - a tradition held-over from the Progressive Era a century ago.

Even on the internet, most "news stories" are penned by dues-paying member-scribes of The Newspaper Guild. Here are some recent stories about The Newspaper Guild from The Union News blog:

• Editor: Journalists dump neutrality for ideology
• Big Print blames News Union for woes
• Left-wing Big Print bleeds red ink
• News Guild journalism pimps for gov't-unions
• Uncertain future for left-wing News Union
• News Guild reporters OK leftist power-grabs
• News Guild influence shines glory on unions
• Pro-union journalism fails democracy

Labor unions lead Progressive pack

2008-03-20T08:00:00.000-04:00

A group of labor unions and activist organizations said they will spend more than $400 million to help elect Democratic candidates to the White House and Congress this fall. The separate efforts will focus on identifying and registering Democratic voters and getting them to the polls. The AFL-CIO and other large national labor unions will spend a total of about $300 million, according to the organizations, which announced their plans yesterday.

The liberal group MoveOn.org said it would spend $30 million, and several smaller organizations said they would spend tens of millions of dollars registering minority, low-income and younger voters, who tend to vote disproportionately for Democratic candidates.

Dozens of other organizations and their subsidiaries plan to spend at least an additional $100 million combined. Those groups include abortion-rights organizations such as NARAL Pro-Choice America, Emily's List and Planned Parenthood Action Fund, as well as environmental-protection advocates such as the Sierra Club, Defenders of Wildlife and the League of Conservation Voters.

Spending on elections by outside political organizations is on the rise. In all, groups on both sides of the aisle are expected to spend more than $1 billion to influence the 2008 presidential and congressional elections, according to a Wall Street Journal analysis performed earlier this year. That is more money than ever.

Overall, the 2008 presidential and congressional campaigns could cost more than $6 billion. Most of the spending in the election will come from the candidates themselves and the national political parties.

Arizona Republican Sen. John McCain has raised far less money than either of his two potential Democratic rivals, Illinois Sen. Barack Obama and New York Sen. Hillary Clinton. But the Republican National Committee is expected to spend millions of dollars on Sen. McCain's behalf, as will several outside groups that support Republican candidates.

Exact figures for spending by outside groups are impossible to determine because much of the spending doesn't have to be disclosed. Certain nonprofit groups, for example, don't have to disclose spending on activities that aren't considered partisan. Labor unions are required to disclose only a portion of the money spent on elections.

With a $54 million budget, the AFL-CIO is likely to spend more than any organization outside the presidential campaigns and the political parties. The AFL-CIO spent $49 million on the 2004 election. Other labor unions affiliated with the AFL-CIO will spend an additional $150 million.

A separate set of labor unions not affiliated with the AFL-CIO plans to spend $100 million to promote Democratic candidates. Those unions, called "Change to Win," include the Service Employees International Union and several unions that left the AFL-CIO umbrella of labor unions a few years ago.

Ilyse Hogue, the communications director for MoveOn.org, said it hopes to help Democrats reach 60 seats in the Senate, giving them enough power to prevent Republicans from launching filibusters against legislation.

There are 49 Democrats in the Senate, plus two independent senators who tend to vote with Democrats. Democrats need to win eight more seats in the November elections. Seats held by Sens. Obama and Clinton aren't considered vulnerable to Republican takeover if either is elected president and has to leave the Senate.

(online.wsj.com)

$200 million pledged to economic leftism

2008-03-14T08:59:00.005-04:00

The AFL-CIO's leaders have found a presidential candidate they can agree to focus on: Sen. John McCain. The nation's largest labor federation announced at its executive council meeting in San Diego March 5 that it would continue to remain neutral in the Democratic race between Sens. Hillary Rodham Clinton and Barack Obama, but would begin training its political resources on McCain, the presumptive GOP nominee.

Political director Karen Ackerman said the opening salvo will be to link McCain to President Bush, who endorsed the Arizona senator on Wednesday.

McCain "voted for every free trade deal that exports jobs, he voted against S-CHIP, he votes for national right to work bill, he voted against raising minimum wage," she said. "There is no jobs programs, his health care program is one that's based on individual health accounts and not in any way universal health care. So on every single measure on economic issues that working families care about, McCain really stands with the Bush administration policies over and over and over again."

Last year, Congress twice failed to override Bush vetoes of bills to increase federal spending on S-CHIP, the State Children's Health Insurance Program.

The AFL-CIO and its 56 unions expect to spend an estimated $200 million on the 2008 presidential and congressional elections.

"There was a lot of discussion at the executive council meeting among the presidents on the importance of really reaching out to union families, union members first and foremost but their families as well, to tell the real story of who John McCain is and what he stands for," Ackerman said.

The AFL-CIO eventually will endorse a Democrat for president, but neither Clinton nor Obama has enough support for that to happen. A candidate must have support from two-thirds of the union's 10 million members to win the labor federation's formal backing.

"I would say that Hillary Clinton has majority support, but at this moment not 66 and two-thirds," said Gerald McEntee, president of the American Federation of State, County and Municipal Employees and chair of the AFL-CIO's political committee.

McEntee's union endorsed the New York senator last year. He said he and other Clinton supporters would continue to press AFL-CIO unions to support her, but Ackerman said not to expect an endorsement anytime soon.

"We'll see how the Democratic primary plays out over the next month or so," she said.

The AFL-CIO allows its 56 member unions to make individual endorsements, and 12 are backing Clinton. She also has been endorsed by the United Farm Workers, one union from the rival Change to Win labor organization.

Obama has been endorsed by Change to Win and four of its unions: the Service Employees International Union, the Teamsters, UNITE HERE and the United Food and Commercial Workers, as well as five AFL-CIO unions.

Pennsylvania, on April 22, is the next big battleground in the Democratic race. The state has the fourth-largest number of union workers in the nation, according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics,

(newsmax.com)

Biggest union to infiltrate GOP

2008-03-12T07:00:00.004-04:00

The National Education Association (NEA) has revamped its political department and is planning the most ambitious election efforts in its history. The nation’s largest teachers’ union, with 3.2 million members, is looking to the 2008 races with a more ambitious scope.

It plans to spend $40 million to $50 million on presidential, gubernatorial, congressional and Senate races this year, and is already considering attacks against the presumptive GOP presidential nominee.

“We plan to be very aggressive,” said Reg Weaver, the NEA’s president. The group is targeting between 25 and 40 House races and nine Senate races, and will not always be supporting Democratic candidates. More than a third of the group’s members are Republicans, and Weaver said it will sometimes be supporting GOP candidates this fall.

“I made it very clear that we cannot afford to be in the pocket of one party anymore,” Weaver said.

The NEA, which calls itself the nation’s largest professional employee organization, has always been a power politically. That’s reflected in its daily contact with the Democratic presidential contenders, who both want the group’s endorsement. But its efforts had sometimes been simplistic, and Weaver said the group is working to strengthen its political impact to ensure a greater role in the 2008 elections.

In an interview with The Hill, Weaver said the teachers’ union felt like it needed to revamp its political wing to get more involved than it had been in the past. The first step was bringing in Karen White to head the group’s new Campaigns and Elections division, he said.

White, the longtime political director for EMILY’s List, an influential group that raises funds for female candidates, brought a new level of sophistication to the NEA’s political efforts, Weaver said.

Before her arrival, he said, the NEA was unaware that its previous efforts were not as aggressive or as developed as those of other groups.

“We’ve kind of overhauled our operation here,” Weaver said. “A lot of times you don’t know what you don’t know and you don’t know what you’re not getting until someone points it out to you.”

Techniques such as microtargeting were foreign to the group, Weaver said.

“There may have been such a thing, but we didn’t know about it,” he said.

But last year, the group used microtargeting in support of Kentucky Democrat Steve Beshear’s successful campaign to unseat then-Gov. Ernie Fletcher. In the end, 83 percent of the state’s NEA members showed up at the polls to vote for Beshear.

The group spent about $15 million in races last year in Kentucky, Washington and Utah, joining forces in some instances with other labor unions like the AFL-CIO.

The issue that has most energized the group’s membership and drawn alliances with other unions is No Child Left Behind, an anathema to the teachers’ union.

“That sucker has galvanized our members,” Weaver said.

In key battleground states, the group has conducted polling on the issue and found that opposing No Child Left Behind is a winner for its side. In Ohio, for example, 76 percent of the state’s NEA members are “strongly against” the education law, the NEA said.

That battleground focus on one of President Bush’s signature issues indicates that the group also plans to be actively involved with the presidential race.

Weaver said the group, which has not endorsed a candidate, met with Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton (D-N.Y.) Monday and plans to meet with Sen. Barack Obama (D-Ill.) next week.

Weaver said Clinton talked mostly issues, but she did ask about the union’s endorsement process and told Weaver she would like to have the group’s support.

Weaver said he is holding off before he makes a recommendation to the group about an endorsement.

“I’m going to hold off until I have what I need,” Weaver said.

But Weaver said his staff is in almost daily contact with the two campaigns.

The group has not met with the presumptive Republican nominee, Sen. John McCain (Ariz.), and Weaver said he would be surprised if the senator approached them about a meeting.

Weaver said he doesn’t think McCain wants to be perceived as having a relationship with a group that was once referred to by Rod Paige, former secretary of education for Bush, as a “terrorist organization.”

On top of that, Weaver said McCain’s perceived support for school vouchers, merit-based teacher pay and No Child Left Behind would leave him at odds with the organization.

If and when the group does endorse one of the Democratic candidates in the general election, Weaver promised that it would run aggressive contrast campaigns against McCain in key states.

Danny Diaz, a spokesman for the Republican National Committee, said the NEA’s efforts targeting the presumptive Republican nominee were hardly a surprise.

“The fact that a liberal trade organization is going to attack the Republican nominee shouldn’t be news to anyone,” Diaz said.

(thehill.com)

Spotlight: The 28 labor-states

2008-03-07T06:00:00.002-05:00

The Unites States comprises 28 labor-states - so named because they conform to the objective of Progressive Era federal labor law - to promote private sector unionism and the welfare of labor organizations.

Labor-states are known in the law as "union shop" or "agency shop" states. They are also considered "compulsory or forced unionism states" because you must pay the union or you are not allowed to work.

Also, there are 22 states where legislatures have enacted laws opting out of this work arrangement. The so-called "Right to Work" states claim to offer worker-choice about unionism. Although voluntarism was a core, founding principle of unionism when the AFL (American Federation of Labor) incorporated in 1886, workers who choose not to pay the union are now called "free-riders."

Labor-states: Alaska, California, Colorado, Connecticut, Delaware, Hawaii, Illinois, Indiana, Kentucky, Maine, Maryland, Massachusetts, Michigan, Minnesota, Missouri, Montana, New Hampshire, New Jersey, New Mexico, New York, Ohio, Oregon, Pennsylvania, Rhode Island, Vermont, Washington, West Virginia, Wisconsin

Union buttons and logos

2008-03-02T06:00:00.002-05:00

Download some of the most popular labor union buttons and logos here ... just control-click on the image you want.

Coping with union money in federal politics

2008-02-29T06:00:00.000-05:00

Labor unions have a long tradition of making significant investments in federal, state and local politicians. It only makes sense because under our progressive system of social democracy, regulatory power pays back an unlimited return on political investments to regulated entities like labor unions.

Nowadays, large political donors - including wealthy collectivist billionaires and labor unions - are doing an end-run around campaign finance laws intended to provide for limits and disclosure. This current method of investing in politicians harkens to Teddy Roosevelt's Progressive Era 100 years ago - act now and let the law catch up with you later, if at all.

For many years, unions did make investments in federal politicians only according to Federal Election Commission rules that govern entities called Political Action Committees. Some investments are still made that way. As a result, there is a considerable disclosure history. Below are links to the Federal Election Commission database that result from disclosure by several large union PACs. Note: COPE is an acronym for Committee On Political Education.

AFL-CIO COPE

American Federation of State County & Municipal Employees - P E O P L E, QUALIFIED

American Federation of Teachers COPE

United Brotherhood of Carpenters and Joiners Legislative Improvement Committee

International Association of Firefighters Interested in Registration and Education PAC

International Brotherhood of Electrical Workers COPE

Laborers' International Union of North America Political League

NEA Fund for Children and Public Education

Service Employees International Union COPE

The International Brotherhood of Teamsters makes its political campaign investments via hundreds of union locals

UAW - V - CAP

UNITE HERE Tip Campagin Committee

United Food and Commercial Workers International Union Active Ballot Club

(fec.gov)

Use of Union Dues for Politics

2008-02-27T06:00:00.000-05:00

Every day, millions of union members have money taken from their paychecks to support some union presidents' political agenda. In 1996, Rutgers economics professor Leo Troy estimated that union political expenditures totaled about $500 million in each election cycle. More recently, the National Institute for Labor Relations Research estimated that total union political expenditures reached $925 million in the 2004 cycle. Over time, this has added up: According to The Center for Responsive Politics, eight of the top ten all-time political contributors are labor unions.

Labor leaders have made the use of employee money for political causes a popular practice — but it's far less popular among the public and the members themselves.

Union members who don't want their dues used for a political cause with which they disagree or consider offensive should learn more about their "Beck Rights" and how to kick out bad leadership.

To learn more about the political donations of a specific union,
click here.

Use of Member Money for Politics is Unpopular and Misunderstood

* Use of members' money for political goals was second only to corruption as the reasons Americans disapproved of unions, according to a 2004 Zogby poll.

* That poll also found that 63 percent of all employees, and 61 percent of unionized employees, agreed that union members shouldn't be forced to contribute.

* A McLaughlin & Associates poll indicated that 67 percent of workers were unaware of their right to withhold mandatory dues for politics (to see how to keep your dues, learn more about resigning your union membership).

Against Members' Politics

* CNN exit polls showed that 38 percent of union members voted for President Bush in the 2004 election, but more than 95 percent of union funds went to support Democratic presidential candidate Sen. John Kerry.

* A 1999 Zogby poll found a majority of union members—nearly 55 percent—thought people should be given a choice of investing their Social Security taxes in some form of personal retirement accounts. But union officials spent millions of dollars to oppose private accounts in the Social Security system.

* The San Francisco Chronicle reported: "California unions spent $88,000 (public employee unions' share was $68,000) in opposing Proposition 22, a 2000 ballot initiative that defined marriage as between a man and a woman"; a Los Angeles Times exit poll found that 58 percent of union households had voted yes on the measure. The Chronicle added: "California unions spent $32.7 million (public employee unions' share was $25.7 million) to oppose the recall of former Gov. Gray Davis, yet exit polls found half of union members voted for the recall and 56 percent voted for a Republican candidate to replace him—43 percent for Schwarzenegger and 13 percent for Tom McClintock."

* In 1992, the Teamsters reportedly gave a massive amount of political money to the presidential candidate it knew its membership did not support. According to author Duke Zeller, "As for the actual amount of Teamster money poured into the Clinton-Gore campaign, Gene Giacumbo, a former elected member of [former Teamsters president Ron] Carey's board, believes the total figure to be even higher. 'Carey himself bragged to me that the union gave $56 million to Clinton,' he confirmed, 'and this was after an independent, outside poll the union paid for showed the membership responses preferred Perot, then Bush, with Clinton in third place.'"

Do Teachers Have a Lot to Learn?

* Between 1990 and 2004, 94 percent of donations made by National Education Association political action committees and individual officers went to Democrats, according to OpenSecrets.org. According to the NEA's own "Status of the American Public School Teacher 2000-2001," only 45 percent of public school teachers are Democrats.

* A Wall Street Journal editorial revealed that the National Education Association -- the nation's largest teachers union -- "is spending the mandatory dues paid by members who are told their money will be used to gain better wages, benefits and working conditions. According to the latest filing, member dues accounted for $295 million of the NEA's $341 million in total receipts last year. But the union spent $25 million of that on 'political activities and lobbying' and another $65.5 million on 'contributions, gifts and grants' that seemed designed to further those hyper-liberal political goals."

* The Journal added that the NEA's financial disclosure forms "expose the union as a honey pot for left-wing political causes that have nothing to do with teachers, much less students."

For more information about the political donations of a specific union, click here.

Source: unionfacts.com