Politics: Labor's Last Stand
Norquist, Grover G.
"Politics: Labor's Last Stand" by Grover G. Norquist Labor's Last Stand Facing falling numbers and growing apathy,...
...c 61 The American Spectator . August 1996...
...Already, the Republican House leadership has introduced the "Worker Right to Know Act," its own effort to put teeth into Beck...
...Labor's major source of income is the 60 August 1996 • The American Spectator and the Passenger Vessel Act require that only American union-made ships manned by American unionized crews can ship goods and people between American ports...
...He cut that figure to $40 million...
...We have $u billion...
...The Jones Act one...
...Richard Bensinger, AFL-CIO organizing director, New York Times, October 25,1995 George Wallace claimed there wasn't a "dime's worth of difference" between the Republicans and Democrats, but AFL-CIO president John Sweeney knows better-he worries that a Dole victory, coupled with continued Republican control of Congress, will cost Big Labor billions...
...They also benefit from hidden subsidies throughout the federal budget...
...At a June 4 hearing chaired by Texas Rep...
...Even if, say, only ten percent of union members were brave enough to demand their refund rights, it would cost the labor bosses more than $400 million a year...
...A survey of the Federal Assistance Awards Data System found that between July 1993 and June 1994, the AFL-CIO alone received more than $2 million in taxpayer funds...
...In Beck the court ruled that 8o percent of the millionmember Communication Workers' dues went for non-allowable expenditures...
...1.7 million to the International Association of Machinists...
...They receive direct grants from the Depart ments of Labor and Edu cation...
...Another threat to labor is the GOP's commitment to reform or repeal a series of laws that grant labor unions monopoly concessions...
...Finally, labor depends on favorable decisions from the National Labor Relations Board...
...The Democrat won 51-49...
...Thirteen stations in eleven districts have already rejected labor ads as misleading and dishonest...
...Karen Kerrigan, president of the Small Business Survival Committee, says Bob Dole's appointments to the NLRB will be more important to the labor-small 44 Unions depend on government spending...
...Here's what Sweeney told a Rainbow Coalition Labor breakfast last March 1 about the fight against the Republican budget: We started out by getting an ironclad commitment from President Clinton to veto any bill that damaged Davis-Bacon or the Service Contract Act and he has lived up to that commitment...
...GROVER G. NORQUIST is president of Americans for Tax Reform...
...Sam Johnson, it was revealed that $11 million in Social Security trust funds has gone to 145 union officials on the Social Security Administration's full-time payroll and to i,8oo officials drawing parttime salaries...
...Meanwhile, union membership continues to decline-from one-third of workers in the 1950's to 23.2 percent in 1970 to 15.6 percent in 1990...
...This spring Americans for a Balanced Budget, headed by Tony Zagotta, commissioned a poll of union rank-and-file...
...In addition, he plans to redirect another $1o million of its funds to political activities...
...Other grants during that period included $148,ooo to the American Federation of State County and Municipal Employees (AFSCME...
...As noted by the Heritage Foundation's Ken Weinstein, they were the muscle behind the Stand for Children Rally in Washington, D.C.-as even the New York Times admitted in this headline: "Caravan of Buses Carries New Yorkers, Mostly From Unions...
...He said that in Oregon, unions made more than 230,000 phone calls and sent over 350,000 pieces of mail...
...more than $500 in compulsory annual dues the average worker pays in the twenty-nine states without "Right to Work" laws...
...for political activities was threatened by the Supreme Court's June 1988 ruling in Beck v. Communication Workers o f Amer ica, which prohibited the use of compulsory dues for political ends, limiting them to contract negotiations only...
...Sweeney is right to view this year's election as organized labor's Gettysburg, Stalingrad, and Waterloo all wrapped into...
...Under an eleventh-hour George Bush executive order, Beck was finally enforced as workplaces were required to inform workers of their rights to demand refunds, and unions were required to maintain public accountability as to what spending was allowable under Beck rules...
...We spent $7 million on television advertising in the districts of the radical, right-wing followers of Newt Gingrich...
...John Sweeney's AFL-CIO may be losing members and the loyalty of the members it still has, and it has to hide behind the activities of other issue groups...
...3.5 million to the Teamsters...
...In Mississippi, Republican Kirk Fordice won his race, but had to overcome an opponent with three full-time and ten part-time union staffers, 40,000 pieces of mail, and 20,000 phone calls...
...Without the veto power of Bill Clinton behind them, labor unions and their treasuries will begin to hemorrhage...
...The AFSCME has 1.2 million members...
...Those lower numbers obviously mean fewer dollars available...
...P O L i T 1 C S by Grover G. Norquist Labor's Last Stand Facing falling numbers and growing apathy...
...More bad news for Sweeney: Seventy-eight percent said they support the Republican $500 per child tax credit, 8z percent favor a balanced budget amendment, and 87 percent back the Republican welfare reform plan...
...As it happens, however, Coia provided a $ioo,ooo loan to the Clinton Inaugural Committee, contributed more than one million dollars to Democrat candidates in recent election cycles, served as co-host of a $1,5oo-a-plate fundraiser that netted the DNC more than $3.5 million, and even sent $1,ooo to the president's Legal Defense Fund-all of which might explain why the justice Department has decided to let Coia remain as the union's general president...
...965,000 to the American Nurses Association...
...Under Clinton this taxpayer subsidy has increased 8o percent...
...It may also require a Democratic victory to keep some union leaders out of jail...
...Two years ago, for instance, Arthur Coia, head of the Laborers International Union of North America, was named in a 212-page complaint by the Justice Department's Organized Crime Section that detailed his connections with organized crime...
...Unions are major contributors to feminist, environmental, minority, and abortion rights groups, and causes...
...The Davis-Bacon Act of 1931, originally passed to keep Southern blacks from underbidding unionized white workers for government contracts, continues to inflate the cost of federal construction of everything from roads to public housing-by as much as $1 billion a year...
...Since 1979, membership has fallen from 21 million to 16.4 million...
...Meanwhile, in the Kentucky governor's race, according to AFL-CIO News, labor paid for 83,000 phone calls and 158,ooo pieces of mail, and provided at least sixteen full-time political operatives...
...and $805,000 to the United Auto Workers...
...It has already spent $6oo,ooo in attack ads against Washington freshman Randy Tate, but such efforts are starting to backfire...
...Sweeney knows a Republican president could put an end to this underwriting...
...The media likes to focus on the $35 million figure labor intends to spend this year, but that's only the tip of the iceberg...
...The 2.2 million member National Education Association is the nation's largest union...
...As the National Right to Work Committee's director of public affairs Martin Fox told Congress on March 7, in 1994 labor unions spent more than $400 million in soft-money political spending-ten times more than the $41 million contributed directly by labor PACs that year...
...This on top of more than $i8o,ooo in union PAC contributions to Wyden's campaign, and the services of thirty-seven full-time union operatives (who do not show up in campaign finance reports...
...This is forcing the AFL, CIO to shift resources to field operatives and to direct mail and phone-bank operations, which do not have to be vetted...
...1 business struggle than his Supreme Court appointments...
...Presidents such as Roosevelt, Truman, Kennedy, Johnson, and Nixon have sneaked sundry privileges into federal law to benefit labor-all of which would be subject to reform if not repeal if Clinton loses...
...If every worker demanded the 8o percent dues refund allowed in Beck, labor would lose more than $4 billion...
...Labor is also threatened by the movement toward government budget restraint, particularly now that 4o percent of union members work for government at some level...
...On becoming Ronald Reagan's secretary of labor in 1981, for instance, Raymond Donovan found his office controlled some $6oo million that could go to unions for "studies" and other discretionary programs...
...They have $25 million...
...We poured direct mail into those same districts...
...Look at the Christian Coalition...
...Eighty-four percent want union leaders to disclose how they spend union dues, 6z percent oppose the AFL-CIO's plans to spend tens of millions on politics this year, 49 percent believe unions should be less involved in political campaigns, and 56 percent would likely ask for a refund of dues used for political campaigns...
...The unfettered use of union dues Big Labor plays big spender to stay in power...
...They also benefit from subsidies hidden throughout the federal budget...
...And we generated over 500,000 phone calls to members of Congress carrying our core message...
...multiplied by the 13 million workers who belong to affiliated unions, this adds $2 million a month to the AFL-CIO's war chest...
...The AFL-CIO is flying under false colors in many of its efforts...
...More than half of the Service Employees International Union members work for government...
...For one thing, unions depend on government spending...
...Bill Clinton immediately rescinded the Bush order, but a Dole presidency would likely restore it...
...This year, the AFL-CIO will target seventy-five House races, using paid activists and negative television and radio ads...
...That's why Sweeney has increased his followers' membership dues from 42 to 57 cents per worker per month...
...As an indication of what labor intends to pull off this fall, consider its successes in defeating balanced budget legislation in 1995, and in winning the Oregon Senate seat for Ron Wyden and off year's governor's races in Kentucky and Louisiana...
...This restriction increases the costs of goods sold in Puerto Rico alone by $6oo million annually...
...But it still has money, lots of it-and intends to spend it...
...They receive direct grants from the Departments of Labor and Education...
Vol. 29 • August 1996 • No. 8
