Through the end of July this year, unions have contributed over $40 million to PACs [1] for federal candidates (91% to democrats) and over $34 million to 527s [2] (and guess which party will benefit from that money). But that is just the tip of the iceberg. SEIU (public employees paid out of our tax dollars) alone has pledged $85 million for this election.
There is a reason they are spending the big bucks. They want to take away the workers right to secret ballots. That in turn should make it easier to get more union members whether they really want to join the union or if they are just afraid ‘Vito’ will come visit if they vote the wrong way.
But while the unions are paying out the big bucks, they aren’t taking care of their members [3].
Yet in 2006, the SEIU National Industry Pension Plan, a plan for the rank-and-file members, covering 100,787 workers, was 75% funded. That is, it had three-fourths of the money it needed to pay benefit obligations of workers and retirees.
In contrast, a separate fund for the union’s own employees, numbering 1,305, participants was 91% funded. Even better, the pension fund for SEIU officers and employees, which had 6,595 members, was 103% funded.
Such disparity was not always the case. In 1996, the SEIU National Industry Pension Fund had close to 110% of the funds it would need to pay all promised pensions to its workers.
Now the unions don’t fund the rank and file pension plans directly. They are funded by the employers as part of the collective bargaining. But the SEIU officers are also funded out of those collective bargaining agreements. All three pensions funds are managed by the same trust. The only difference is how the contributions are constructed.
The republicans have an opportunity in this. They need to recognize that the unions per se are not going to shower funds down on the GOP, so playing nice isn’t going to help them. But the union members can be peeled off from the union management. In 2004 [4], Bush got 38% of the union member votes and 40% of the union member household votes. Much better than the union political contributions. But what if, in addition to hitting the democrats on their’ head in the sand’ response to drilling, the GOP introduced legislation that union officers pensions can only be funded if the rank and file pensions are fully funded. Further, unions can not make any political contributions unless their rank and file pension plans are fully funded. Now the union members have a personal reason to break with the union leadership. And the union leadership has to explain why they are fat and making the democratic war chest fat while the union members get to look forward to an Alpo ragout for dinner during their golden years.