Corruption - Harassment - Politics - Forced Dues
Posted on June 30, 2008 at 10:59 am by WTH
From our pals over at http://www.unionfacts.com/
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Use of Dues for Politics
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 Rights or lack of Rights.
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.
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.
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.
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.’”
