Republicans Fume Over Labor's Political Spending

By Brooks Jackson/CNN

WASHINGTON (AllPolitics, April 18) -- Republicans are howling about $35 million in union dues that the AFL-CIO plans to spend this year to criticize the GOP agenda.

The opening round began last week, with TV and radio commercials blasting opponents of a minimum-wage increase, criticizing 27 Republican House members and only two Democrats, neither of them seeking re-election.

Republican leaders say it's a scandal.

"The part that grates us the most, of course, is that 40 percent of their members vote Republican," said Rep. John A. Boehner (R-Ohio), chairman of the Republican Conference. (66K WAV sound)

In fact, nearly two out of five union members do regularly vote Republican, according to exit polls dating back 20 years. In a CNN/TIME survey last year, nearly one in four union members said they were Republicans. They are people like Baltimore steelworker Dave Baker, who doesn't like the way his union dues money is spent.

"I'm not happy about it, but I know I can't change it," Baker said. "I don't understand it. You pay your dues because you don't have a choice."

Chuck Serio, another worker, quit the Communications Workers union but still must pay the union an agency fee for representation.

"I think that I should not be forced to fund the campaigns and the propagation of policies and ideas that I disagree with," he said.

He and other union dissidents testified at a House hearing today, staged by Republicans who say it's far too difficult for such dissenters to get partial refunds of their union fees. The are entitled to such refunds under an eight-year-old Supreme Court ruling known as the Beck decision.

Union leaders say their members who vote Republican do so out of ignorance. Declared AFL-CIO political director Steve Rosenthal: "When our members voted for some of these candidates in 1994, they did not know that they were voting for cuts in Medicare and Medicaid, they didn't know they were voting to gut the Occupational Safety and Health Administration."

The AFL-CIO even polled its members and says most support what they're calling their "educational" program. "Anything to defeat a Republican is fine with me," said one worker.

Another chimes in, "I was always working when a Democrat was elected. I'm a working man and Democrats are for the workin' man. So I don't see nothing wrong with that."

It's a bitter feud and likely to get more so. Says Rosenthal: "This Congress has waged the worst assault we've seen on working families in 75 years. Virtually every protection that working families have has come under attack by this group. We think that our goal is to help put a spotlight on that. And they're trying to stop us from doing that."

Counters Boehner: "If the unions and some of these other organizations had to follow the consumer protection laws and truth in advertising laws that the private sector has to follow, they'd all be in jail because of the dishonest campaign they're running."

For the record, that $35 million political program figures to less than $3 for each union member on the average. And union leaders say it will cause no increase in dues.

Labor On The Move -- April 1, 1996

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Republicans Fume Over Labor's Political Spending

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