Unions Trample on Workers Political Rights

Those were the prevailing sentiments of undecided and independent union voters who participated in focus group surveys last month in St. Louis and Philadelphia.

The focus groups were conducted by Lake Snell Perry and Associates, a Democratic opinion research firm, on behalf of the AFL-CIO, the nation's largest labor union.

The results bring back to the fore an issue that cries out for justice: The systematic disenfranchisement of millions of union members who happen to vote Republican.

Indeed, in the 2000 presidential election, Bush won 37 percent of the union vote, according to exit polls. Yet, of the more than $50 million the AFL-CIO spent that year on political activity, practically every dollar went to defeat Bush, to beat Republicans.

What that means is that the labor federation was using the dues of its politically dissenting members – the nearly four of 10 who supported Bush – to undermine their vote.

And the same thing is happening again this election year. Just this week, in fact, the AFL-CIO unleashed new television commercials that bash Bush for supposedly rewarding companies that outsource jobs overseas.

The attack ads, which are to air in nine states, follow an even larger, more expensive purchase two weeks ago in 14 states. They are meant to help elect Kerry, the Massachusetts liberal, the presumptive Democratic presidential nominee.

Of course, the labor federation has every right to support whichever candidates, whichever political party, its leaders see fit.

No matter that its focus groups found Bush blameless for the nation's economic downturn early in his presidency and the resultant unemployment. No matter that undecided and independent union voters thought well of the president's "nice family and good moral values."

But the AFL-CIO cannot lawfully compel its rank-and-file members to contribute to political activities to which they dissent – including the airing of television spots that attack a candidate those members support.

That legal dictate was set forth by the U.S. Supreme Court in Communications Workers v. Beck. In that landmark 1988 decision, the justices declared that union members can be required only to pay dues and fees that are directly related to the cost of collective bargaining and contract administration.

If a union member disagrees with his or her local or regional or national union's support for a candidate, or party, the dissenter is entitled, under Beck, to be refunded that portion of his or her dues that goes to political activities.

Union leaders attributed the Beck decision to conservatives on the high court, appointed by Republican presidents, hostile to organized labor. But the majority opinion actually was authored by William Brennan, a liberal justice who hardly could be characterized as a foe of labor unions.

Brennan and his fellow justices were guided by the words of Thomas Jefferson, who stated: "To compel a man to furnish contributions of money for the propagation of opinions which he disbelieves is sinful and tyrannical."

The leaders of the AFL-CIO and other labor unions have done all they can to keep their members in the dark about their Beck rights. In fact, a 1997 National Voter Survey found that two-thirds of union members knew nothing about Beck.

And that's the way union leaders aim to keep it. If the AFL-CIO and other unions were forced to remunerate politically dissenting members the portion of their dues and fees that goes to political activity, it would cost those unions tens of millions of dollars.

Indeed, organized labor spent more than $100 million on behalf of Democrats in the 2000 and 2002 elections. So the one-third of union members who voted Republican in those elections are entitled, under Beck, to at least $30 million worth of refunds.

By blowing off the Beck rights of rank-and-file dissenters, union leaders have proven themselves, in Jefferson's words, sinful and tyrannical. They may be Democratic Party loyalists, but they are not democrats.

If only the press would do its job by reporting more about those Beck rights, perhaps the union members wouldn't have to rely on the union bosses. But we all know the score: Both the press and the union bosses conspire against the interests of dissenting union members.

2 posted on 07/14/2004 7:48:23 PM PDT by Vision Thing (Hate is not a family value, it's a liberal democrat value.)

Ain't that the truth! Firefightersforbush.com is fighting back though...no one polled the dissenters to see if they wanted their union dues going to support Kerry or not!

My brother is one of those Firefighters for Bush.

I am going to e-mail this article to as many people as I can.
Going to tell them to mail it to every union worker they know.
A little grass roots effort.

I've been in unions of one kind or another for nearly twenty years.

Their original (and just) functions are long gone.

All that remains are the communists agitating on behalf of socialism.

My advice for all the unionists out there: grow a pair and f*ck them back.

Grass roots and a law suit for their money due back to them!!!!!

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