THE SMITH CENTER

for Private Enterprise Studies

The Tip of the Iceberg

PACs & The Forced-dues Base of

Big Labor's Political Machine

Executive Summary

The debate over campaign finance reform centers on the large contributions to candidates and the belief that such spending amounts to the "buying" of our government by elite private organizations. The author contends that this view, based solely on the contributions of Political Action Committees (PACs) and so-called "soft money," completely ignores the most corrupt aspect of the current climate of campaign finance.

As the following report shows, organized labor spends far more on electoral campaigns than the contributions to candidates and "soft money" contributions to political parties they are required to report to the federal government. And while the sources of PAC funds must also be reported, there is no legal obligation for union officials to report the amount of their "in-kind" political activities-canvasses, phone banks, voter registration and voter turnout drives.

The source of in-kind expenses can only be the "local treasury money" of state and local unions across the country. The true scandal and offense to a free society is that in 29 states, the ultimate source of union treasuries is union dues confiscated from unwilling employees as a condition of employment.

Election spending reforms that cover only union PAC and soft money contributions falsely assume that union politics is limited to the writing of a check to a candidate or political party. In light of the numerous news reports cited here, that assumption is unquestionably wrong. Any reform limited to PAC spending and soft money addresses only the tip of the union political activities iceberg. Unless reform also covers the overwhelming bulk of the iceberg, it will be phony.

Introduction

AFL-CIO political director Steve Rosenthal told the Washington Post's Frank Swoboda in February 1999 that the federation hierarchy would spend some $40,000,000 on such "in-kind" activities as door-to-door canvasses and get-out-the-vote drives. As of September 1, 2000, the AFL-CIO's political action committee (PAC) reported about $400,000 in total contributions to federal candidates, according to the Federal Election Commission (FEC).

Why the enormous disparity? PACs need only report direct expenses in support of candidates and political parties. The "issue education and get-out-the-vote efforts" that Rosenthal referred to represent the iceberg under the tip of union political spending disclosed to the FEC.

Rosenthal even admitted that the AFL-CIO's $40 million "does not include money and manpower spent by individual unions on education and get-out-the-vote efforts." And those unions, such as the Teamsters and United Auto Workers, have revenues more than 20 times the AFL-CIO's.

If the 25 largest affiliates of the AFL-CIO spend the same 13% of their receipts as Rosenthal promised from the AFL-CIO, that $40 million could add up to $900 million in total union political spending over the two-year election cycle.

That would almost certainly be a record for Big Labor's political spending. But in the first 18 months of the 2000 election cycle, total reported union PAC contributions shot up by 33% over the 1996 cycle. In 1996, union PACs contributed $48 million directly to federal campaigns. If the 1/3 increase in the first 18 months of the 2000 cycle holds up, union PACs will have contributed nearly $65 million to federal candidates in the 2000 campaign. A similar pattern exists for soft money contributions. While the FEC's records are not final for 2000, organized labor's $30.2 million in soft money gifts dwarfs the $9.5 million it spent in 1996, according to the Center for Responsive Politics.

Ultimately, however, the real issue is not how the money will be spent, but how it is being collected.

Citizens of a free country are free to spend their own money on the political causes and candidates they wish to support. But in the 60 years since the enactment of the National Labor Relations Act, union officials have extracted hundreds of billions of dues dollars as a condition of employment from the paychecks of America's working people. No religious, trade, or any other private association, has the same power to confiscate the earnings of unwilling individuals. That power, which feeds the vast majority of Big Labor's political machine, should be the target of legislative action, not the PAC and soft money tip of the iceberg.

Forced Dues by Federal Fiat

Federal labor law provides that once union officials win a majority, however small, of those voting employees in a given workplace, the federal government grants that union monopoly bargaining status. The union hierarchy is then able to impose terms and conditions of employment on all the employees, including those who do not want union representation.

At the same time, the employer is compelled by law to bargain with union officials over a wide range of issues, including the requirement that all employees pay dues to the union or be fired. Refusing to negotiate over the employees' freedom to join or not join the union subjects the employer to a costly "unfair labor practice" charge under the NLRA.

Only employees in Right to Work states who are covered by the NLRA are protected from being fired for non-payment of union dues. If an employer finds it in his interest to agree to a compulsory unionism provision -- either because the union has offered attractive concessions in exchange, or possibly because he believes his business would be destroyed by resisting the union demand -- he then becomes the enforcer of the union's compulsory dues requirement.

According to estimates by the U.S. Department of Labor and the Bureau of National Affairs going back more than a decade, at least 80% of all private sector workers covered by a union contract are required to pay union dues as a condition of employment.

As of 2000, that 80% added up to at least 7.8 million working men and women forced by contract to pay union dues. Among all private associations, including churches, trade and civic groups, such a base of financial support is unique to labor unions.

Union Political Power & Forced Dues

How can organized labor continue to wield such power "out of all proportion to our numbers," as former Communications Workers union chief Glen Watts put it? In just five letters, the most important answer is money, and the hired manpower and organization it can buy. This supposedly weak and impotent union movement continues to rake in more and more money each year. The total income of private sector unions alone is now about $14 billion a year, some $5 billion of which comes from employees who will be fired if they refuse to pay those dues.

How much of their $14 billion do union officials actually spend on political activities? Because they must report the expenses of their political action committees (PACs) to the Federal Election Commission, union officials admit to having spent at least $105 million on contributions and expenses in 1996.

But as Leo Troy, professor of Economics at Rutgers, told the House Oversight Committee on March 21, 1996, "I estimate that 'in-kind' expenditures could reasonably be a multiple of 3 to 5 times that amount." In other words, organized labor actually spent from $315 million to $515 million on political activities in 1996.

It is reasonable to ask at this point how these hundreds of millions of dollars show up. Surely, it's impossible to hide political spending of a third of a billion dollars a year. Where does it go?

A few years ago, the Steelworkers union, in its official publication, gave us a surprisingly honest answer to that question:

Use local treasury money (emphasis added). It can't go for direct political contributions, but it can do a lot. Mailings, supporting or opposing candidates, phone banks, precinct visits, voter registration and get-out-the vote drives. Contributions to national, state or local COPEs [Committees on Political Education] . And it can be used to raise voluntary funds for the Steelworkers PAC.

The huge scope of this forced-dues federal political machine can be gleaned from just a few snapshots of Big Labor's "in-kind" campaigning from past elections.

Tip of the Iceberg: 30 Years & Counting

Professor Troy's multiplier estimate of 3 to 5 is simply the latest confirmation that organized labor's political activities cost American workers far more than union officials admit. For 30 years, various experts on unions have confirmed, and even union officials themselves have admitted that their political expenses far exceed what is reported to federal authorities.

Victor Riesel, Douglas Caddy, First Pull Back the Veil

Until his retirement in 1990, Victor Riesel was probably the nation's best-known labor columnist. According to his obituary in the January 5, 1995, New York Times, Riesel, raised in a union household, "never stopped inveighing against gangster infiltration and other corruption in labor unions that had stirred his emotions since his youth." Indeed, for exposing corruption in a Long Island local of the International Union of Operating Engineers, Riesel was blinded by an acid attack in 1956.

Based on his in-depth knowledge of union finances, Riesel estimated that in addition to Organized Labor's direct contributions of around $1 million to federal candidates in 1968 and 1972, union officials actually spent $60 million in '68 and $50 million in '72.

When Alexander Barkan, director of the AFL-CIO COPE, complained that these were gross overestimates, Riesel replied in the Orlando Sentinel-Star on November 3, 1973:

If you apply cost accounting to what the unions do in a political way . . . you will find that the noncash contributions consist of staff time - meaning union officials who are assigned to campaigns for months on end - printing costs, postage, telephone and various other support services financed entirely with compulsory union dues and fees.

[D]uring the recent Democratic telethon, the Communications Workers of America furnished 10,000 telephone operators to take calls. They were supposed to be volunteers, but were they? Who paid their carfare?

How do you 'cost out' the value of 72,000 house-to-house canvassersin the 1968 election, or the 95,000 election day car pool drivers and baby sitters?

There were 600 political organizers from the Steelworkers, a similar number from the Auto Workers. In 638 localities throughout the country there were 8,000 telephone banks manned by a total of 25,000 persons. There were 94,000 distributors of material.

It is time and services, not just cash contributions alone, which I consider in making my estimates. I know my estimates are right. I know they spent the time and money. Let them open their books if they say they didn't.

Citing Riesel's comments, the distinguished Washington attorney, Douglas Caddy, called this political machine, in his book of the same title, "The Hundred Million Dollar Payoff."

Caddy's book, an in-depth examination of the Machinist union's political operations from the 1968 through the 1972 campaigns, is itself highly revealing. On the use of regular dues-supported union programs, Caddy concluded:

Much of IAM's political activity is conducted through approximately 48 state councils and conferences

Despite the obviously political nature of their activities, the councils and conferences are supported by per capita taxes levied on affiliated district and local lodges. This results in compulsory tax-freed dues money being used to finance the partisan political activities of the councils and conferences

In many instances the candidates themselves directly approach the union to request that manpower be assigned to their campaigns.

As for "non-partisan" voter registration and get-out-the-vote drives, Caddy concluded that regular "treasury" funds were used to pay for the "cars, drivers, sound trucks, and telephone banks," along with the "salaries, employee benefits, and expenses of union personnel assigned to voter-registration and voter-turnout projects."

One anecdote, which Caddy found in the September 25, 1972, Wall Street Journal, is especially revealing. Senator Lee Metcalf (D-MT) asked AFL-CIO political director Al Barkan to assist John Melcher in his campaign for a seat in the House of Representatives:

Mr. Barkan delivered. A little while later, when Sen. Metcalf drove by Melcher headquarters in Montana, he saw 'a whole line of cars out front with Arkansas and Oklahoma license plates.' The out-of-state labor support was so obvious the Senator feared Mr. Melcher's opponent would make it an issue. The Senator had to call Mr. Barkan and ask him to get some of the cars off the street.

In 1976, Riesel reported, organized labor spent more than $100 million on their political operations - more than 10 times the $10 million in PAC contributions which union officials reported to the Federal Election Commission (FEC). What non-PAC expenses could there have been for Riesel to draw such a conclusion?

® In the last month of the general campaign, the Machinists union assigned all of its 1,000-man national staff to work with the AFL-CIO's COPE.

® When Robert Georgine took over as head of the AFL-CIO's Building and Construction Trades Department (BCTD), he ordered a halt to "all proceedings within the department to settle disputes over which union would represent workers on disputed jobs. That freed 652 union employees to do nothing but political action."

In 1980, the AFL-CIO COPE's activities received much of the news media's attention. But occasionally, parts of the iceberg would be glimpsed:

® In early October, Pennsylvania officials of various AFL-CIO unions, as well as the Teamsters, United Auto Workers, United Mine Workers and Pennsylvania State Education Association "were assigned to work in every race where the outcome was in doubt. These officials will work full time until Election Day."

® Reporting on a phone bank at the Cleveland office of the Amalgamated Clothing and Textile Workers Union, syndicated columnist Joseph Kraft also wrote that, "Warren Smith, the secretary-treasurer of the Ohio AFL-CIO, has set up similar phone banks in every industrial center in the state."

In 1975, California Governor Jerry Brown signed the Agricultural Labor Relations Act, which allowed union bosses such as United Farm Workers chief Cesar Chavez to force farmworkers to pay full union dues to keep their jobs. By 1982, such forced-dues support gave Chavez leeway to pledge that he would "close down the union" the in the final days of the 1982 campaign and "bus hundreds of farmworkers into East Los Angeles to work precincts."

That same year, Ohio Republican congressman Ed Weber received twice as much in direct contributions as his opponent, Marcy Kaptur. But according to the October 22 Wall Street Journal, "Miss Kaptur is banking on another resource-active labor support. Among the in-kind support which made up for Weber's edge in campaign contributions were phone banks in the Toledo AFL-CIO office where workers were paid the then-minimum wage of $3.35 an hour. The minimum wage for such "volunteers" has gone up 65% to $5.15 today.

Big Labor Pumps Up In-Kind Machine for Mondale & Dukakis

As the AFL-CIO geared up to endorse Walter Mondale in 1983, their hierarchy "bragged that they can probably muster 100,00 volunteers, provide thousands of free phones [to Mondale] from local headquarters, and give the endorsed candidate the benefit of free mailings from some of the most up-to-date computerized lists of registered voters available."

Even The Washington Post, reporting on this planned effort, conceded that "all of this can be financed from union dues, not voluntary contributions, because it is directed at union members and their families and thus comes in the category of internal communications."

In November of 1983, 37 AFL-CIO employees received manuals entitled, "Organizing for Delegate Selection." As Howell Raines wrote in the November 8 New York Times, "With the distribution of these manuals, [the AFL-CIO] began training almost its entire field staff of professional union organizers to operate as political organizers in behalf of [Mondale]."

In the Iowa caucus campaign, jobless workers were paid to work the AFL-CIO's phone banks. In Sioux City, these workers were paid $3.50 an hour.

Even more helpful to the Mondale campaign in Iowa were the phones they got in their Davenport headquarters, deposit-free, in addition to a "cut-rate $125 a month rent for his modest headquarters-half the normal rent." Picking up the tab for the phones and building was the United Food and Commercial Workers (UFCW) union, while the other Democrat candidates were forced to pay deposits ranging from $60 to $400 for each phone.

No one summed up the vastness and covert nature of this forced-dues federal political machine better than CBS news anchorman Dan Rather, who, in his coverage of the Democrats' 1984 Iowa caucuses campaign, observed: "[Walter] Mondale has an edge -- a big edge. There's another whole campaign being waged on Mondale's behalf. A campaign with a legally unlimited budget -- and no outside fiscal accountability. That campaign is being fought by organized labor."

In 1988, organized labor's in-kind campaign was highlighted by "the largest single distribution of campaign literature ever conducted at America's union workplaces" to that point. On the Friday before the election, union activists, following up on an earlier effort, fanned out to unionized job sites nationwide to hand out millions of leaflets featuring favorable comparisons of Michael Dukakis to George Bush.

® On October 11, 1988, the Washington Post reported, "For organized labor, the past five weeks have been a warm up. Armed with nearly $40 million in cash, an army of volunteers, organized labor is moving into the critical get-out-the-vote phase of its campaign to elect Democratic Presidential nominee Michael Dukakis.

...The CWA...has ordered every one of its 200-member field staff not actively engaged in contract negotiations to spend full time on the election.

® The Wall Street Journal, on September 20, 1988, reported: "The AFL-CIO plasters its newspapers with the Dukakis message and followed with videos and millions of flyers. It expects to field 500,000 volunteers. The American Federation of Teachers sent 16 videos to 100 locals. The United Auto Workers taps union publications and the mail. The Communications Workers turns to phone banks to get out Democratic votes

Between presidential campaigns, Big Labor saw an opportunity to demonstrate its power in a special Senate election in Pennsylvania, in which Harris Wofford upset Dick Thornburgh. In the Oct. 12, 1991, Los Angeles Times, pro-union columnist Harry Bernstein revealed that the United Steel Workers union "put 52 union people to work full time for [Wofford] and they were joined by activists from other unions."

Teacher Union Pickpockets Caught in Act

When a tax revolt began to catch fire in Massachusetts in 1990, National Education Association (NEA) union officials in the commonwealth were deeply troubled.

"This is the most important campaign in MTA (Massachusetts Teacher Association) history," began a trainer's manual for unionists who would be working against a ballot initiative, which, if approved by Bay state voters would give nearly $6 billion back to the taxpayers of Massachusetts over a three-year period.

That wouldn't do for the MTA union hierarchy. The initiative, known as Question 3, had to be beaten. As attorneys with the National Right to Work Legal Defense Foundation later discovered, MTA union officials were willing to steamroll anything that might hinder their campaign, even the First Amendment right of teachers not to pay for a union's political activities.

In the course of their defense of hundreds of teachers forced to pay union dues, Foundation attorneys discovered that MTA officials funneled millions of dollars in compulsory fees into their campaign to defeat Question 3.

In 1977 the U.S. Supreme Court ruled in Abood v. Detroit Federation of Teachers, another Foundation case, that the First Amendment's free speech clause barred government union officials from forcing workers for a union' s "political or ideological" activities. In the Massachusetts case, Foundation attorneys discovered that as far as the MTA hierarchy was concerned, collective bargaining and political operations were one and the same.

The trainer's manual to be used to get teachers in line on Question 3, for example, was distributed with an August 9 memorandum by Robert Bonazzi, director of affiliate services. This was the opening salvo in "Operation Reveille," a campaign to mobilize opposition to lower taxes in every community in the state. This entire campaign, from phone banks to door-to-door canvasses, to the get-out-the-vote drives in every community, would be charged to teachers asserting their right not to pay for union political activities as an "affiliate service."

Soon, the affiliate services director was drafting the NEA's UniServ consultants into the campaign. Created in 1970 as a means of "unifying" local affiliates to the NEA' s Washington, D.C. headquarters, UniServ has over 1,500 agents nationwide, with at least one in every congressional district to make sure that the local and state affiliates march in step with the NEA, especially in politics.

On August 20, 1990, affiliate services director Bonazzi ordered all UniServ agents to lean on those local presidents not in line against Question 3. At the end of a special memorandum, Bonazzi told the UniServ agents: "You should act as a liaison between the Reveille Coordinator and the Local President."

As Election day neared, Bonazzi distributed cards containing the names of all MTA members on record as opposing Question 3, with orders that local union staff call and urge them to vote. Leaving nothing to chance, the MTA's Affiliate Serviced Department also made sure that the union had tables set up outside polling locations across Massachusetts. Just after Question 3 had gone down to defeat, Bonazzi took great pride in the fact that only 24 cites and towns voted for the tax rollback.

When MTA union officials released a summary of their 1990 expenses, they claimed that only 2% of their Affiliate Services Division's expenses were political.

Clinton Rides Big Labor Caravan in 1992

During the 1992 Democratic National Convention, Dennis Rivera, chief of the Health Care Employees union's New York City local, told CBS reporter Paula Zahn that Organized Labor "put $47 million into the candidates for the Democratic Party," with the nationwide fall campaign still to come.

When Rivera made that comment on July 15, only $10 million in union PAC contributions had been reported to the FEC. Thus, by a union boss's own admission, total union political spending at this stage was nearly five times their reported PAC contributions.

® According to Education Week on October 14, 1992: "Every state affiliate now has a Clinton-Gore campaign coordinator, many of whom are provided by the national office, and a team of up to seven people to turn out union voters." In the same article, American Federation of Teachers political director Rachelle Horowitz admitted that 10 of the union's organizers were doing nothing but political work.

® Taking due credit for its role in the election of Bill Clinton, the December 1992 IUE News revealed that the electrical workers union "produced over 100,000 pieces of campaign literature for the campaign. [IUE president William] Bywater and Secretary-Treasurer Ed Fire made numerous appearances across the country promoting Clinton to members and non-members alike while district IUE leaders were doing the same." Now, who besides local forced-dues payers paid for those district officials' trips? Nobody.

® According to the Cleveland Plain Dealer from September 30, 1992, "The Teamsters plan to register 100,000 new voters and distribute 5 million pieces of literature on Clinton's behalf before the Nov. 3 election. The Teamsters will sponsor a bus caravan through the Midwest in mid-October, rallying votes for the Democratic ticket in a dozen cities, including Cleveland and Columbus."

® In 1992, the November 2 Washington Post reported that, "[Judy] Nichols is running one state AFL-CIO bank of 43 phones from the Michigan Education Association building...in East Lansing. That phone bank, which pays callers $4.25 an hour, targeted 75,000 union members in key precincts a month ago."

This case is particularly revealing in light of the AFL-CIO's claim to have fielded over 50,000 so-called "volunteers" in all 435 congressional districts in 1996.

AFL-CIO's "Special Assessment" Overshadowed by In-Kind Operations

® In its February 6, 1996 newsletter, the AFL-CIO bragged of its role in the election of Ron Wyden to the U.S. Senate from Oregon early this year. The AFL-CIO "sent Deputy Political Director Richard Walsh and 12 staff members to Oregon, supplemented by 25 staff members from affiliates," including, "the AFT [American Federation of Teachers], Boilermakers, Bricklayers, Government Employees, Laborers, Letter Carriers, Postal Workers, Roofers, Sheet Metal Workers, Transportation Communications Union and Teamsters."

In addition to this national effort, that so-called "local treasury money" referred to by the Steelworkers came in handy with "more than 50 affiliates and locals mail[ing] thousands of additional pieces to their members."

In all, the AFL-CIO placed nearly a quarter of a million phone calls and sent over 350,000 pieces of mail -- an expense well over the $183,000 in union PAC money that went to Wyden.

® In 1995 the AFL-CIO went all-out to elect Paul Patton Governor of Kentucky. According to the November 20 AFL-CIO News, seven staffers were transferred from the federation's Washington, D.C. headquarters to Kentucky, where they "directed the work of nine activists released for the campaign by the Steelworkers, Teamsters, Operating Engineers, Musicians, Food and Commercial Workers and the Communications Workers."

The November 16 Louisville Courier-Journal reported that local union bosses "used buses and vans to haul voters to the polls."

It cannot be emphasized enough that these mailings, phone calls, loaned staffers and get-out-the-vote drives were in addition to direct PAC expenditures, and that any of the "local treasury money" used to pay for these activities came from the pockets of Oregon and Kentucky workers who lacked a Right to Work law to protect them from being forced to pay union dues.

It was with great fanfare that AFL-CIO president John Sweeney announced on March 25, 1996, his grand plan to deliver the U.S. House of Representatives back into Democratic hands.

To retake the House, Sweeney pledged $35 million to be spent on television and radio commercials, newspaper ads, mailings and phone banks. According to Sweeney, much of the $35 million will come from a $.15 a month assessment being made for each member in the 78 AFL-CIO affiliated unions. However, it is not possible that all of the political advertising undertaken by organized labor in 1996 could have been paid for solely out of the special assessment. For example:

® In Ohio's 10th district, the AFL-CIO told The New York Times on October 11 that it spent $385,000 on television advertising between April and September. But an ad-tracking agency informed the Republican Congressional Committee that the AFL-CIO actually spent $1.2 million on TV ads in that same time period against Republican Congressman Martin Hoke.

As the Times noted, "By any standard, it is a lot of money, especially when [Hoke's opponent, Dennis] Kucinich estimates he will spend only $300,000 on his campaign . . . And it

is only part" of the union effort in the 10th district, the Times continued: "David Lauridsen at AFL-CIO headquarters detailed other activities, from phone banks making 'persuasion calls' to union members and retirees, to door-to-door canvassing in the heavily pro-labor precincts, to recruiting" union members to help in Kucinich's campaign.

® In Arizona's 6th district, the Times also reported on October 11, the AFL-CIO paid to run ads against freshman congressman J.D. Hayworth "as many as 300 times a week . . . up to 50 times a day." The cost? At least $1 million, according to the Times.

® In Michigan's 8th district, the AFL-CIO told the Times on October 31 that it had spent about $400,000 in advertising to unseat Dick Chrysler. But the GOP Congressional Committee insisted that its ad tracking showed at least $600,000 in spending by the AFL-CIO.

In that same article, Dr. Anthony Corrado, a political science professor at Colby College in Waterville, Maine, described those estimates of the union ad spending as "very good" because of new technology making it possible to track such spending.

Indeed, the Times reported, "In Maine's First District, where [organized] labor has been pummeling representative James B. Longley, Jr., [Corrado] said, the [GOP Congressional Committee's] figure of $901,703 was more believable than the Federation's estimate of $450,000." All of which added credibility to then-Congressman Bill Paxon's statement that, all in all, the union hierarchy spent some $100 million in advertising alone.

® In 1996, the AFL-CIO claimed to have targeted only 32 House districts. Yet, The New York Times reported on October 31 that "organizers paid by the national AFL-CIO are active in 96 House districts" putting together "the greatest get-out-the-vote effort unions have mounted in many years."

As the Times pointed out, these were political operatives from the national AFL-CIO headquarters in Washington, D.C., only. According to the disclosure forms submitted by all private-sector unions, local, state and national, their total payroll expenses were approximately $2.25 billion a year, adjusted for inflation. If only 10 percent of that time was spent on the '96 election -- a low estimate -- that alone added up to $225 million in unreported political activities.

And finally

® Before the September 3rd Florida state primary, Michael Fletcher of the Tampa Tribune reported that the local firefighters union made 11,000 phone calls on behalf of State Senate candidate Phyllis Busansky. While Fletcher estimated the cost of such a large-scale "telemarketing service" to be from$5,500 to $8,000, the Brusansky campaign paid the union only $502.

Big Labor Goes All Out for Al Gore

For the 2000 campaign, the public is in a much better position to be informed about organized labor's in-kind politicking, thanks to David B. Magleby of the Center for the Study of Elections and Democracy at Brigham Young University. The study he edited, Getting Inside the Outside Campaign, provides a rare, ground view of the kind of electioneering that doesn't usually show up in the unions' PAC documents.

® During the Iowa caucus campaign, AFL-CIO political director Steve Rosenthal admitted that the federation and the American Federation of State, County and Municipal Employees (AFSCME) "alone sent thirty-five full-time organizers to Iowa. The AFL-CIO and other affiliated unions also "brought a tractor-trailer to Iowa City and parked it outside the Gore headquarters just off Interstate 80." Armed with this war room of "computer systems, telephones, and a sophisticated phone-banking plan," union activists spent the last two weeks of the campaign making "thousands of calls from this trailer to union households throughout the state."

® In the final days of the New Hampshire primary campaign, union families received numerous telephone calls urging a Gore vote, backed by an intensive get-out-the-vote effort. Rosenthal told Magleby that The AFL-CIO's "own professional staff coordinated the mobilization effort. In addition, the union made phone banks available for Gore's campaign, charging them a fee per call for use." (emphasis added)

® In California, much of Big Labor's politicking consisted of "unreported 'member education' activities conducted at work sites and through membership newsletters." Particularly effective were "worksite blitzes" in which shop stewards and union organizers propagandized at the employees' workplaces.

The California Labor Federation (CLF) trained more than 100 activists for these blitzes, and they, in turn, helped train people at local unions to do the same. At least half a million fliers contrasting Gore's positions to Bill Bradley's and, in some cases, to Bush's, were handed out at work sites. "For example, in Alameda County, at least 15,000 to 20,000 addition pieces of literature comparing Gore favorably to the other candidates were distributed through such a worksite network."

® In the Sept. 22, 2000, Washington Post, Columnist E.J. Dionne revealed that in Pennsylvania, the Service Employees International Union is paying the salaries of 80 workers taking leave from their regular jobs to work full-time on the SEIU's political operations.

® On October 23, subscribers to the AFL-CIO's weekly newsletter, Work in Progress, were warned that the newsletter staff was hitting the road for "volunteer" politics. "As a result, the next two editions of WiP will be abbreviated (one-pagers) and will be available on the Web and via e-mail only. There will be no fax edition for those two weeks."

® The Washington state AFL-CIO planned to distribute 200,000 "voter guides" the weekend before the election. The guides do not "endorse" candidates, thus they don't count as "contributions" to them. But according to news reports, "they offer a side-by-side comparison that almost always favors Democrats."

® In another reported example of non-PAC union staff being diverted to political operations, Painters and Allied Trade President Michael Monroe told the Wall Street Journal that he had "freed nearly 600 of his full-time union employees to work on the presidential campaign."

® On October 29, the Detroit Federation of Teachers, in partnership with the local AFL-CIO, began "daily shuttles for voters wanting to submit absentee ballots, then provide Election Day rides to the polls."

As the campaign continued well past November 7, there was no let-up in Big Labor's pro-Gore politicking.

® In Palm Beach County, some 100 "organizers" shifted gears from getting out the vote to "recounting" the votes. Setting up shop in the local headquarters of the International Brotherhood of Electrical Workers and the Plumbers & Pipefitters, they instructed recount "observers." A week later, the AFL-CIO added more manpower to the operation, shaking the trees for voter complaints with phone banks and door-to-door canvassings.

In an abandoned shoe store, these unionized observers were instructed, "if you see any kind of mark-a scratch, a dent, a pinprick in Al Gore's column-that you challenge." When asked about indents for Bush, the instructor said, "Keep your lips sealed."

As the campaign shifted to the courts in December, AFL-CIO chief John Sweeney and AFSCME boss Gerald McEntee began planning protests with the Florida AFL-CIO. Working to increase turnout at these demonstrations, local union activists set up a phone bank in Miami in a local union hall. Florida AFL-CIO head Marilyn Lenard told The Wall Street Journal on December 4 that she "worked 'throughout the weekend' sending 'blast faxes' to union members, hosting conference calls and holding meetings."

High Court Compromise Fails to Protect Workers

Faced with the plain First Amendment violation of workers forced to pay union fees for political causes with which they disagree, the U.S. Supreme Court has spent more than 30 years trying to forge a compromise. Union officials have been allowed to force employees to pay union dues as a condition of employment, but not to bankroll political and other non-bargaining activities. This compromise was reached in 1988, with the Court's decision in Communications Workers v. Beck.

However, Supreme Court precedents are not self-enforcing, and so long as union officials are allowed to thrust their hands into employees' pockets, it is impossible for any employee or group of employees effectively to ensure that they are not subsidizing a union's political agenda.

To begin with, most unions, with the approval of the National Labor Relations Board (NLRB) and the Supreme Court, still negotiate contracts that require "membership in good standing"-in other words, join the union and pay full membership dues or be fired.

Thus, while exit polling showed that nearly 40% of union "represented" workers did not vote to reelect Bill Clinton in 1996, nearly three-quarters of unionized workers do not know of their right not to pay forced dues for politics.

Even when employees do discover this right, they must still attempt to negotiate with union officials over how much the officials get to seize from their paychecks. There is perhaps no greater authority on the misuse of forced dues for politics than the telephone lineman whose 12-year legal battle which won for most private-sector employees the right not to pay for union politics, Harry Beck.

As Beck wrote in the Wall Street Journal on November 1, 1996, his fight really began in the 1960s when, as an organizer for the Communications Workers of America (CWA), he "noticed that the CWA brass paid little attention to the needs of the rank and file, concentrating instead on supporting Democratic political campaigns and liberal social causes." Yet, when he resigned his formal membership in the CWA, the union hierarchy slapped him with compulsory "agency fees" equal to full membership dues.

With free legal assistance from the National Right to Work Legal Defense Foundation, Beck filed suit against the CWA in 1976, and was finally vindicated by the U.S. Supreme Court on June 29, 1988. But with union bosses continuing to lie to employees about their rights, the NLRB continuing to sanction the lies, and the Clinton Administration willing to tear down all workplace notices about employees' rights, Beck himself concluded:

[U]ntil Congress repeals or the High Court overturns the federal sanction of compulsory dues, workers will not have their full freedoms.

Conclusion

How much does organized labor spend in forced dues on political activities beyond PAC and soft money contributions? Since these activities are almost never reported to any legal authorities, exact calculations are not possible.

But the ratios of PAC to in-kind spending cited in this report are staggering, perhaps as high as 60:1. And any reform efforts aimed only at those activities fully covered by federal election law will hit only the lower end of that ratio.

In truth, the principle that should guide any reform of campaign finance is voluntarism. In a free society, individuals should be free to contribute to any political cause they wish, either on their own or with any organization to which they freely choose to belong. That is the only basis by which efforts at reform in this area should be evaluated.