Labor & Employment Law

The Chamber?s False Claim on Union Political Funding

By Mike Hall

Magicians call it misdirection. Get the audience to focus somewhere else so they don?t see the obvious trickery in front of them.

The Chamber of Commerce, in the spotlight earlier this month for allegedly using contributions from foreign corporations and other overseas entities to fund its U.S. political activities, is trying to get the public to look the other way. They don?t want us to see the sneaky sleight of hand that?s controlling its $75 million election war chest. BTW, under federal election law, the Chamber does not have to reveal the sources that are filling that political war chest.

The Chamber, conservative columnists like George Will and right wing activists like Karl Rove claim it is the AFL-CIO that is funding its election activities from foreign sources. First, our one word response?Bunk.

Now, we?ll derail the Chamber?s absolutely false claim?also known in some circles as a flat-out lie?with more detail.

It seems the only basis the Chamber and its conservative and corporate cohorts are using to claim the AFL-CIO is using foreign funds to pay for this fall?s political mobilization is because some AFL-CIO unions have members in Canada.

Can?t dispute that. There are Canadian UAW members, United Steelworkers (USW), Machinists (IAM), Stage and Theatrical Workers and many others. But they are not AFL-CIO members.

All unions finance the AFL-CIO?s operations by paying a monthly fee that is calculated on the number of their American, not Canadian, members.  It is generally called a ?per capita tax,? and derives exclusively from the U.S.  members of those unions.  To repeat, Canadian union members are not AFL-CIO members.

The Chamber, extreme right-wing political action groups like Rove?s American Crossroads and Dick Armey?s Freedom Works all can hide behind the cloak of election law secrecy about who funds their big-time spending on extremist candidates. But the AFL-CIO is governed by very strict and thorough financial reporting rules.

The AFL-CIO, its union affiliates, and their thousands of state and local union affiliates annually file detailed public reports with the Department of Labor that itemize their receipts and payments.  Any source of funds for the AFL-CIO or a union, and any recipient of payments by the AFL-CIO or a union, that amounts to $5,000 over the course of a year is itemized by name, date and amount, and the spending is further itemized by purpose.

All this is required under the Labor-Management Reporting and Disclosure Act, which was enacted more than 50 years ago.  These reports are available on the Labor Department?s public website.  So, all sources of any significant amount of funds to any union must be revealed.

The Chamber and its friends are making a totallly untrue allegation–and even if it were true, AFL-CIO President Richard Trumka says:

It is absurd for the Chamber to equate an individual steelworker or clerk who lives and works in Canada and pays, say, $120 annual dues to his or her local union that is an affiliate of a U.S.-based international union with a foreign corporation that pays tens of thousands of dollars a year to belong to the Chamber and that has important commercial interests at stake in the outcome of the American elections.

For more on the Chamber and other groups pouring hundreds of millions of dollars into television commercials and other electioneering activities, click here for new report from American Rights at Work.

Full post as published by AFL-CIO NOW BLOG on October 14, 2010 (boomark / email).