Forced-dues continue to fill the coffers of unions, as well as, union presidents’  and politicians’ pockets according to this recent study by the Commonwealth Foundation:

Government Unions and Forced Dues

  • Almost half of government workers in Pennsylvania are union members, compared to 9.3 percent in the private sector.
    • Pennsylvania is a forced union state, meaning that workers can be forced to join a union or pay a [so-called] “fair share fee” just to keep their job.  Most government units in Pennsylvania are “agency shops,” with a specified union to which workers must pay a fee.
    • When state and local governments automatically deduct dues and fair share fees from government workers’ paychecks—as is the practice in Pennsylvania—employees have little or no say in how their money is used.

Union Bosses

  • Union bosses collect hefty salaries derived from member dues and fair share fees. In most cases, the salaries are several times the average union member’s annual pay.
    • While acknowledging that budgets were tight, AFSCME Council 13 President David Fillman got a 6 percent raise in 2010, making his salary higher than Gov. Tom Corbett’s.
  • Dues and fees often go towards expensive conferences, outings and junkets.  For example, in 2009-10 the Pennsylvania State Education Association—the state’s largest public sector union—spent:
    • More than $250,000 on a board of directors retreat in Gettysburg.
    • More than $89,000 for a “political institution meeting” at the Radisson Penn Harris in Camp Hill, Pa.
    • $20,000 for advertising in the Pittsburgh Steelers Yearbook.
    • Almost $5,900 at Kimberton Golf Club and more than $5,100 at Concord Country Club in Chadd’s Ford.

Political Activity and Lobbying (more…)

According to Fox News’ Joseph Abrams, the Service Employees International Union, Change to Win, the Communications Workers of America, the National Education Association, the Teamsters Union, the United Food & Commercial Workers Union and others are involved in this scheme.

A new Web site targeting the tea parties is a part of a complex network of money flowing from the mountainous coffers of the country’s biggest labor unions and trickling slowly into political slush funds for Democratic activists.

A seemingly grassroots organization that’s mounted an online campaign to counter the tea party movement is actually the front end of an elaborate scheme that funnels funds — including sizable labor union contributions — through the offices of a prominent Democratic party lawyer.

A Web site popped up in January dedicated to preventing the tea party’s “radical” and “dangerous” ideas from “gaining legislative traction,” targeting GOP candidates in Illinois for the firing squad.

“This movement is a fad,” proclaims TheTeaPartyIsOver.org, which was established by the American Public Policy Center (APPC), a D.C.-based campaign shop that few people have ever heard of.

But a close look reveals the APPC’s place in a complex network of money flowing from the mountainous coffers of the country’s biggest labor unions into political slush funds for Democratic activists.

The most recent backers of the Patriot Majority and Patriot Majority West, which helped fund the APPC and thus the Tea Party site, form a veritable Who’s Who of the country’s top labor unions: the Service Employees International Union, Change to Win, the Communications Workers of America, the National Education Association, the Teamsters Union, the United Food & Commercial Workers Union and others besides.

But by far the largest donations have come from a collection of unionized government workers, the American Federation of State, County and Municipal Employees (AFSCME) — which in 2008 alone donated $5.8 million to Patriot Majority and another $4.1 million to Patriot Majority Midwest.

Using this arrangement, Varoga and Rakis are managing what NPR called a “never-ending pot of union money” that they dispense among the 527s they run, which in turn pay for ads in hotly contested election districts.

That means that taxpayer dollars, sent up as union dues, have been going to fund a host of Democratic causes and help quash the tea party movement.

What’s more, Varoga and Rakis are not actually present in Suite 1102. That is the office of their lawyer, Joseph Sandler, a longtime general counsel to the Democratic National Committee.

Sandler, whose firm and trust account raked in over $500,000 in Democratic party money in 2009 alone, told Fox News that there was nothing irregular in their setup.

It is not clear whether TheTeaPartyIsOver.org is the start of a larger campaign run by Varoga and Rakis to target tea party activists. Additional attempts to reach Varoga at a California number were unsuccessful. A staffer answering the phone in Varoga’s Oakland office last week told FoxNews.com that he was unavailable for comment and hung up.

Big Labor's Ties to ACORNs

BigGovernment.com, the investigative website that uncovered corruption at the union funded ACORN group, has connected the dots between efforts to fund groups like ACORN with forced union dues and big labor’s efforts to deny disclosure of such grants to workers.  With news that big labor in New York gave the local ACORN chapter $500,000, it’s clear why the union bosses want workers in the dark.

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Posted in: ACORN, Labor Organizations, SEIU, UFCW

Union Boss Under Federal Scrutiny

Sean Harrigan, a union boss with the United Food and Commercial Workers, is under scrutiny by the Securities and Exchange Commission, ProPublica reports.  

In a nutshell, it appears that financial firms showered nearly $1 million in political cash on the United Food and Commercial Workers union in California while Harrigan sat on the boards of big public pension funds in the state.  Harrigan’s union pulled about a third of the $3 million it raised from 2001 to 2006 from players in the financial industry. About $500,000 came from donors who had business dealings with CalPERS, then the nation’s biggest pension fund. Campaign contributions have figured in a wide-ranging investigation of pension fund kickbacks in New York, where Attorney General Andrew Cuomo issued an indictment naming several prominent investment firms that allegedly took part in a vast pay-to-play scheme.

Card Check Scam Targets Workers at Home

Amanda Carpenter has noticed a flyer from the United Food and Commercial Workers International Union that promises to “start organizing campaigns, develop worker committees and conduct house calls to workers.”

As Carpenter notes:

House calls to workers? Notice it doesn’t say “to members.” It says workers. That means these union advocates, also known as “thugs” in many locales, are going to be showing up on your doorstep to talk about card check, whether you want to talk about it or not. They’re going to be looking up home addresses and sending people out. Pulling in your driveway and knocking on your door.

Don’t tell me that’s not intimidation.

It sounds a little Michael Corleone-ish to me. “Where my family sleeps…where my children play with their toys….”

You can rest assured that if the Card Check Scam Bill is enacted into law, workers will be getting plenty of house calls from union organizers pressuring workers to sign their cards.