#312(9/5) - "Union Money in Elections"

[FYI #1 - My GENday is Sept. 19th. When is YOURS?]

PRAYER REQUEST: "Louisiana and Mississippi residents face dangerous heat conditions after Isaac"(September 03, 2012)

"More than 100,000 utility customers on the Gulf Coast remained without power almost a week after Isaac’s landfall, while about 2,800 were still in shelters in Louisiana and Mississippi because of flooding..."(Sources: CNN, Washington Post)

(from The "Presidential" Prayer Team)As the Lord leads, please pray:
•For families and businesses who have lost power, cooling and water.
•For those without homes or properties because of flooding.
•For safety and strength for the many rescuers, volunteers and first-aid providers.
•For the weather, that it will not further hamper the recovery and restoration work.

FYI #2 - Be sure to be REGISTERED TO VOTE. To get details of doing that in your state, go to > http://www.cbn.com/special/register-to-vote/

For a REVIEW OF THE CRITICAL ISSUES to consider in your voting, please go to > http://www.truthinaction.org/PDF/Final_Voters_Guide.pdf

ALSO,BEGIN PRAYING FOR THE UPCOMING ELECTIONS; Download a free prayer guide at > http://www.prayerconnect.net/resources/prayer-guides/2012-election-prayer-guide
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[NOTE: One thing you might notice in the following article is the lack of mention that the unions and the Democrats have for a long time been beholden to each other. In the Obama administration, we've had a record number of "former" union leaders in key positions. One union leader has even boasted of visiting the White House almost every day and meeting often with the President. Also, one of the biggest unions gave a whopping $60 million! to th Obama campaign in '08; amazing how none in the mainstream media has ever asked what influnce that bought them. Be sure to check out the link afterwards that tell of how the unions are not exactly excited in this election.- Stan]

- By Amy Payne On September 3, 2012

This election year, millions of Americans will donate to the political candidates and initiatives of their choice at the local, state, and federal levels. But for unionized workers, union dues come out of their paychecks and go to political causes—and they aren’t consulted on where that money will go.

In July, The Wall Street Journal’s Tom McGinty and Brody Mullins published an eye-opening report [1] that “Organized labor spends about four times as much on politics and lobbying as generally thought.” They broke down the unions’ political spending from 2005 to 2011: $1.1 billion “supporting federal candidates through their political-action committees, which are funded with voluntary contributions, and lobbying Washington, which is a cost borne by the unions’ own coffers.”

But that was only the beginning. Add to that another $3.3 billion for political activity from “polling fees, to money spent persuading union members to vote a certain way, to bratwursts to feed Wisconsin workers protesting at the state capitol last year.” Who pays for this? The workers, McGinty and Mullins report: “Much of this kind of spending comes not from members’ contributions to a PAC but directly from unions’ dues-funded coffers.”

Despite findings that 60 percent of union members object to their dues being spent on political causes, this practice continues. Why?
In the 27 states without right-to-work laws, many unions are able to put clauses in their contracts that allow them to fire workers who do not pay union dues. If a worker wants to work for a unionized firm, he or she is forced to join the union and pay the dues, which can run from several hundred to several thousand dollars a year.

In a new paper [2], Heritage’s James Sherk gives an example of this rule at work: “The United Auto Workers (UAW), which organized General Motors’ Michigan factories in 1937, is a case in point. Michigan does not have a right-to-work law, so union-represented workers must pay the union’s dues or get fired.” Notice the year there—1937. The workers coming on the job in 2012 are bound by a vote taken by their ancestors, essentially. “General Motors’ current employees never had the chance to vote [2] for or against the UAW. UAW representation was a non-negotiable condition of their employment.”

Sherk argues that these rules make no sense for today’s workers. Just 7 percent of private-sector union members voted for the union that represents them, and the vast majority of government unions organized at least 30years ago. The workers inherit the representation of yesteryear, which negotiates their terms of pay, promotion, layoff, and retirement.

Once organized, unions remain indefinitely. Naturally, that gives union leaders little reason to be accountable to their members in any way—they’re not going to have to stand for re-election.

To give unionized workers the freedom they deserve, Sherk says [2], this system should end. Congress and state legislatures should at the least require government and private-sector unions to stand for re-election. Re-election votes every two to four years would allow employees to regularly assess their union’s performance as their representative.…

An even better reform would be to give workers representative choice—allowing individual employees to choose who represents them, irrespective of who other employees select. This would remove the union’s monopoly over the workplace, allowing employees to negotiate contracts tailored to their needs.

Workers should have the freedom to choose whether they want union representation or not. And if they do want to join a union, they should be able to choose which union they join. This freedom would give them more say over paying union dues in the first place, and how those dues are used. It would also give them the opportunity to negotiate merit-based raises, which unions do not allow.

America’s unionized workers deserve the same freedoms as non-unionized workers—in an election year and every year.

[bold and italics emphasis mine]
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Article printed from The Foundry: Conservative Policy News Blog from The Heritage Foundation: http://blog.heritage.org; URL to article: http://blog.heritage.org/2012/09/03/morning-bell-union-money-in-elections/

URLs in this post:
[1] report: http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052702304782404577488584031850026.html
[2] new paper: http://www.heritage.org/research/reports/2012/08/unelected-unions-why-workers-should-be-allowed-to-choose-their-representatives

Copyright © 2011 The Heritage Foundation. All rights reserved.
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Union Bosses Keeping [Mostly] Low Profiles At DNC’s Union-Free Convention- By:LaborUnionReport; September 3rd
http://www.redstate.com/2012/09/03/union-bosses-keeping-mostly-low-profiles-at-dncs-union-free-convention/

"...The lack of union support (and money) at the convention is likely why the DNC is giving away free tickets to people from neighboring states to go and watch Obama’s acceptance speech on Thursday. Although about a dozen of the building trade unions, along with Machinists’ union boss Tom Buffenbarger (of course), are boycotting (and some plan to protest) the Democrats’ soiree, other union bosses are attending the convention. However, they are taking fewer members and a much lower profile than past conventions.."