The Attempt to silence working families

Initiatives to limit the role of working families and their unions have only one purpose, and that is to further skew the political balance of power in America toward corporations.

• The California initiative is being disguised as “campaign finance reform.” It’s not. In fact, the rightwing millionaire supporters of the initiative have written a giant loophole into the measure that would allow for UNLIMITED corporate spending on political campaigns.

• The California initiative will silence working people’s voices by prohibiting ANY voluntary political contributions from union members collected via payroll deduction. That means that if you contribute to the Teamsters’ DRIVE program, you’d have to write a check every week—an inconvenience that would no doubt reduce the amount of money DRIVE collects.

• In the political process, corporations already outspend unions more than 19-to-1. In 2010, corporate interests spent more than $1 billion in political contributions, 19 times more than unions spent. In addition, conservative groups spent more than $300 million in independent expenditures and electioneering communications. And in 2010, corporations and special interests spent more than $2 billion on lobbying. New restrictions on unions’ participation in the political and legislative process would only tilt the balance of power even further in favor of corporations. (Center for Responsive Politics, 12/1/10)

• The minority of workers who disagree with union political activities can choose not to belong to the union. In states where they still pay a fee to cover the union’s representation, they are not required to pay the amount that goes for political and legislative activities. Corporations, by contrast, don’t give shareholders, employees or customers any say in their political activities.