Government unions aren’t about fightingfor public employees and workers any more — they’ve become political operations with agendas that harm both their members and taxpayers. Americans, and even union members themselves, increasingly realize that public-sector unions often do not serve the public interest.
As a consequence, several states — including Washington, Idaho, Utah, Michigan, and Wisconsin — have passed commonsense “paycheck protection” laws to protect employees and taxpayers from being abused by union bosses. Lawmakers in my home state of Pennsylvania are looking to follow their lead. The idea is so sensible that polling suggests the majority of members of Pennsylvania union households support it.
Paycheck protection is a simple reform that would prohibit
taxpayer-funded “automatic deduction” of dues and campaign contributions
from government-union members’ paychecks. Current law grants government
union leaders the unique privilege of using public resources (the
government payroll system) to collect their union dues and PAC money,
which they use for lobbying and political activity. Dues are mandatory
and can go to certain political purposes, while members can agree to
make extra donations to PACs — also collected by the state payroll
system — which can be spent on almost any political activity.
Like every politically privileged group, union leaders are fighting
tooth and nail to hold on to this unfair advantage. Recently,
Pennsylvania’s union bosses stormed our state capitol to protest
paycheck protection by ranting against “big corporations” and even
leading obscene chants. Yet union leaders danced around the core policy
issue: whether taxpayer resources should be used for politics.
Perhaps that’s because many bussed-in union protesters actually
supported the concept of paycheck protection. When Media Trackers asked protesters
why they thought the government should collect their union dues, union
members answered that government shouldn’t be involved. Ironically, this
is exactly what paycheck protection would mean.
In fact, this is the view of most union members. In a new survey
of union households in Pennsylvania, we found that a large majority
support paycheck-protection legislation. Nearly two-thirds agreed that
such a law would empower workers to have greater control over how their
money is spent on politics. Moreover, an overwhelming 80 percent of
union households said taxpayer resources should not be used to collect
campaign contributions.
Several Pennsylvania legislators have recently gone to prison for
using taxpayer resources for politics. Yet government unions are
permitted to essentially engage in this practice right under the capitol
dome and in public schools across our state.
Taxpayer-funded collection of government-union political money gives
union bosses an unfair political advantage. In Pennsylvania, government
unions reported spending nearly $5 million in dues on political activity
and lobbying in 2012, plus more than $2.6 million in campaign
contributions. All of that money was collected using public resources
and sent directly to union bosses.
Nationally, the numbers are even more astounding: Labor unions spent more than $1.6 billion on politics in 2011 and 2012.
While government-union bosses argue their political spending will
“protect the middle class,” the policies they support actually harm
middle-class families, including their own members.
Here in Pennsylvania, union politicking recently blocked pension
reform — resulting in higher taxes and teacher layoffs — and
liquor-store privatization, despite overwhelming public support for the
latter measure, even among union members. Union-funded ad campaigns
against charter schools prevented thousands of children from escaping
violent and failing schools. Government unions lobbied for Obamacare
too, to the detriment of school employees and taxpayers.
Matt Eason, a teacher in the Philadelphia suburbs, opposes his
union’s politics: “It’s going against, not only my beliefs and morals
and values,” he says. “It’s something I don’t want to support, but I
don’t have a choice.”
Because Pennsylvania is a compulsory union state (as opposed to a
right-to-work one), paycheck protection would empower teachers like Matt
to hold his union accountable. Instead of automatically deducting money
from his paycheck, union leaders would have to look Matt in the face
each pay period to explain how the union plans to spend his money, and
ask for his dues.
Paycheck protection doesn’t silence union voices in politics; nor
does it hinder unions’ ability to collectively bargain. It certainly
isn’t right to work. It simply means that government unions will have to
collect their own dues and political money just like every other
private political organization.
Paycheck protection would, however, do one thing that both sides of
the political aisle should agree on: Stop spending taxpayer money on
politics.
Matthew J. Brouillette, a former history
teacher, is the president and CEO of the Commonwealth Foundation,
Pennsylvania’s free-market think tank.
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