RIGHT TO WORK AND THE AND CITIZENS UNITED VS FEC

 

I know what you must think but there is a connection. In reading some of the headlines the other day I took an interest in an article that compared campaign contribution totals from different groups over the last twenty five years. Looking further into related articles I ended up reading a lot of historical pieces related to the Taft Hartley act and the political impact of organized labor in America. Several things stood out to me as significant in their impact on the economic and political circumstances we see unfolding in the headlines. I knew that the labor union participation numbers have been declining although I didn’t realize the extent of the decline as unions still seem to wield so much political clout. In 1945 one in three American workers belonged to an organized union, by 1979 the percentage had decreased to about 24%. Last year the percent of American workers belonging to labor unions had fallen to 11.3. To be sure the overall number of workers had been climbing over the same period but the trend is clearly away from organized labor.

The Supreme Court held in Citizens United VS the Federal Elections Commission that corporations and other associations could not be restricted from making political donations and the left leaning press about melted down in their objections. Labor Unions had long been aggressive in making campaign contributions while corporations and other businesses had been excluded. The Unions ability to extort wage and benefit concessions from employers by exercising their right to picket and strike along with forced union participation for all employees on union work sites was a powerful combination. The fact that labor and not business could work to effect elections pushed many businesses offshore or out of business. Even in light of this I believe the court erred in granting corporations the right to make political donations. I think that a better way of achieving a balance that would protect voters from big money buying elections would have been to restrict union contributions.

The media are waging an all out campaign against Charles and David Koch portraying them as villains for donating millions of dollars to conservative causes and campaigns. Significantly the media are silent on the same type of practice where labor unions are donating to liberal causes. I found a Federal report that listed campaign contribution totals for the last 25 years and it was a real eye opener. There are 18 different labor unions in the top 46 contributors whose donations total 34 times as much money as the 18 million donated by Koch Industries. That is over 638 million dollars spent to influence our political system. I wonder what the sentiment is in union halls about the millions of dollars of union funds gone forever having been used in this way. It is interesting to note that in states with right to work laws and employers with opt out clauses for union fees that go toward politics most employees are now choosing not to pay unions to represent them. Job creation in “right to work” states is out pacing the states without those laws. Right to work laws do not prevent workers from unionizing but they do prevent a majority vote from forcing everyone to join a union. In Wisconsin the “opt out” clause for public employees has drastically lowered union membership.

Federal and state worker protection laws largely eliminate the need for union representation and employees with a choice are tending to keep their money and not join organized labor unions. I view the huge expenditures on political action and wonder if it is also a factor in why so many working people have become disillusioned with labor unions.

I believe that we need a very simple tax code without any ability for legislators to sell special favors to special interest groups. I believe that the big money union and corporate interests should be excluded from campaign financing and that unused campaign funds should not belong to candidates after they leave public office. It is simple really, when there is a lot of money around there tend to be very few statesmen and a whole lot of corrupt politicians.