Around the Horn
Over at Labor Notes, Jane Slaughter pitches the idea that Massachusetts union anger at their national affiliates and Obama led to Coakley’s defeat.
According to those on a January 14 conference call with AFL-CIO President Rich Trumka, Massachusetts state fed President Bobby Haynes exploded in anger, blaming top union leaders for a terrible health care bill and for losing the Massachusetts election—and thus the Dems’ 60th Senate seat, needed to ensure the health care bill’s passage (and the rest of labor’s agenda, labor law and immigration reform).
Evidently, some unions weren’t too thrilled with the excise tax deal either.
The deal announced by Trumka and his counterparts at Change to Win and the National Education Association would have exempted those in union-negotiated plans and state and local employees from the tax until 2018…. But in the end unions bought extra time for their members at the cost of making themselves look self-interested. The deal will create awkward moments for union health care activists who’ve spent years trying to build broad coalitions.
At the Wall Street Journal, Daniel Henninger discusses an overlooked aspect of the Kennedy legacy – public sector unionism.
In 1962, President John F. Kennedy planted the seeds that grew the modern Democratic Party. That year, JFK signed executive order 10988 allowing the unionization of the federal work force. This changed everything in the American political system. Kennedy’s order swung open the door for the inexorable rise of a unionized public work force in many states and cities.
This in turn led to the fantastic growth in membership of the public employee unions—The American Federation of State, County and Municipal Employees (AFSCME), the Service Employees International Union (SEIU) and the teachers’ National Education Association.
They broke the public’s bank. More than that, they entrenched a system of taking money from members’ dues and spending it on political campaigns. Over time, this transformed the Democratic Party into a public-sector dependency.
Henninger also adds this little factoid:
What an irony it is that in the same week the Kennedy labor legacy hit the wall in Massachusetts, the NEA approved a $1 million donation from the union’s contingency fund to the Edward M. Kennedy Institute for the United States Senate. It is this Kennedy legacy, the public union tax and spend machine, that drove blue Massachusetts into revolt Tuesday.
Where does the Wall Street Journal pick up these gems of information?
Meanwhile, NEA issued a statement congratulating Senator-elect Brown, saying, “We are hopeful that U.S. Senator-elect Brown will continue the tradition of the late Sen. Ted Kennedy of making support for public education a top priority.”
January 25th, 2010 at 17:10
Your quote from the Wall Street Journal article is factually incorrect. Mr. Henninger says, “More than that, they entrenched a system of taking money from members’ dues and spending it on political campaigns.”
The fact is that it is illegal for any union…including public employee unions…to do this. Any union that has done this has been fined and penalized by the courts.
Unions set up PACs to contribute to political campaigns, and the money contributed by members to these PACS is NOT dues money. I am quite sure you are aware, just as I am, of this error in fact. Yet, you let it go without a correction. One expects this cr*p from a Rupert Murdoch rag. You have a reputation of being a credible source on these matters and that credibility has been damaged by your quoting disinformation without a correction.
January 26th, 2010 at 06:58
Rich:
I find it hard to believe that someone with your experience doesn’t know that it’s only illegal for unions to spend dues money on candidate campaigns. Dues money funds issue campaigns, and that was the bulk of NEA’s $56.3 million in political spending last cycle. The PAC only raised $6 million.
I also need to add that in some states, like California, the state PAC contribution is a negative check-off. That is, it is deducted automatically from teachers’ paychecks unless they object in writing. The funds are segregated once they are collected, but as far as the teacher is concerned, the PAC contribution is indistinguishable from the dues contribution.
You’ll notice in my list of NEA’s advocacy expenditures (http://www.eiaonline.com/archives/20100111.htm) I have this sentence: “All of these were paid for with members’ dues money (the union’s federal PAC is a separate entity funded through voluntary means).”
I hope this restores my credibility.