Posts tagged campaign contributions
Op-ed: A GOP-Teamsters Alliance Makes No Sense
August 24, 2025 // Republicans getting on board with these ideas aren’t just awkward—they’re incoherent. There’s little evidence that endorsements from Teamsters executives move the needle in general elections, for parties or for candidates. Can Republicans credibly argue that filling the Teamsters’ coffers (and campaign-donation kitty) will result in the sort of political realignment some hope for, or even a lasting political windfall? The only guaranteed outcome is more power for the Teamsters and other unions over U.S. labor relations. If these overtures to the Teamsters backfire, Republicans can’t say they weren’t warned. As one GOP politician running for Missouri attorney general tweeted in 2015, after labor-aligned Republicans derailed state right-to-work legislation, “time for an end to union-backed candidates in GOP.”
A Taft-Hartley Roundup of Recent Labor News
June 25, 2025 // For just shy of 80 years, conservative Americans and the Republican Party that provides their imperfect electoral vehicle have sought to advance a policy consensus on labor relations based on three principles: ensuring union membership and participation is voluntary, scrutinizing unions’ operations in exchange for their government-granted powers, and protecting the public from the fallout from labor disputes. As America sits by the pool at the beginning of what might prove to be a long, hot summer, what news is there about the Taft-Hartley consensus?
Union hit with fine for failing to report $430K in WA campaign contributions on time
June 3, 2025 // A powerful statewide labor union was fined $6,000 on Thursday for failing to report more than $430,000 in contributions to candidates and political committees days ahead of the 2024 election. The state Public Disclosure Commission levied the civil penalty on Service Employees International Union Healthcare 1199NW following a short hearing in which the union did not contest the punishment. SEIU represents more than 30,000 nurses, health care workers, and behavioral health workers in Washington. Under a stipulated agreement, SEIU 1199NW will pay $3,000 within 30 days of the signing of the final order. The remaining amount is suspended if the union complies with campaign finance laws without significant violations for four years.
Walberg, Allen Seek Feedback on Path to Give Rank-And-File Workers a Bigger Voice in Unions
May 28, 2025 // “Too often, rank‑and‑file workers lack the timely information and meaningful voice they need to hold elected leaders accountable for both fiscal and political decisions. Recent misconduct cases, ranging from embezzlement to unauthorized political expenditures, underscore the need for a modernized framework that prioritizes the rights of individual members to hold union leadership accountable and that provides individual union members with more control over how labor organizations operate.”
Philadelphia labor union powerbroker gets 6 years for bribery and theft
July 18, 2024 // Dougherty was a longtime power broker in Democratic politics, steering tens of millions in union campaign contributions to candidates for office, including his brother, who was elected to the state's high court in 2015. Federal prosecutors said Dougherty also used the union’s money to buy groceries, restaurant meals, tickets to concerts and sporting events, and other personal items. He paid contractors with union funds for work on his house, his relatives' houses and a neighborhood bar he owned, and arranged for friends and family members to be on the union payroll, according to the indictment. A co-defendant in last year's trial, former union president Brian Burrows, was sentenced last month to four years in prison. Dougherty also was convicted of bribing Philadelphia council member Bobby Henon. Prosecutors said Dougherty gave Henon a no-show union job.
Starbucks proxy war shows Big Labor’s new tactic
February 23, 2024 // Crucially, the new SEC rule allows the SOC to push for huge changes to the Starbucks board with comparatively little skin in the game. Starbucks has a market capitalization of $105 billion. The SOC owns 161 shares of Starbucks, a stake worth approximately $16,000. Thanks to the universal proxy rule, the SOC can use Starbucks’s own proxy materials to promote its hostile takeover attempt without bearing the costs of its own solicitation. The Starbucks proxy fight is one part of SOC’s broader scheme to impose Big Labor’s agenda on every publicly traded American company. The SOC’s coalition includes some of the most militant and disruptive unions in the country: the Service Employees International Union, Communications Workers of America, and the United Farmworkers of America. These unions regularly engage in strikes, protests, boycotts, litigation, and other tactics to bend workers and employers alike to their will.
Ex-Illinois lawmaker abruptly pleads guilty to fraud and money laundering, halting federal trial
February 16, 2024 // A state senator from 2011 to 2019, McCann formed the Conservative Party of Illinois to campaign for governor in 2018. A criminal indictment in 2021 outlined numerous schemes McCann employed to convert contributions from his campaign committees to buy vehicles, pay an overdue loan, two mortgages, credit card bills and fund a family vacation, entertainment and other purchases. For his unsuccessful run for governor, he collected more than $3 million dollars from Local 150 of the International Union of Operating Engineers alone. Despite being questioned four times by FBI and IRS agents in summer 2018 about alleged improper spending, he tore through $340,000 in leftover campaign funds for personal expenses in the year after the election.
Despite arrest, corruption charge, Miami police union still all in on Diaz de la Portilla
October 19, 2023 // A month after Miami Commissioner Alex Diaz de la Portilla was arrested on charges of trading a vote for hundreds of thousands of dollars in political donations and gifts, it hasn’t cost him the support of Miami’s men and women in blue. In June, Miami’s Fraternal Order of Police announced it was putting its considerable political heft behind Diaz de la Portilla, a former state representative who was once chosen politician of the year by the union. And Monday — a month after Diaz de la Portilla’s Sept. 14 arrest — the union’s president made it clear that as far as he was concerned, nothing had changed. “There are two kinds of people that are always presumed guilty before innocent, cops and politicians,” said FOP President Felix Del Rosario.
Opinion: Union Leaders Aren’t Fooling Anyone on Labor Day
September 6, 2023 // the Service Employees International Union (SEIU) has formed a so called “Lavender Caucus” to advocate on its behalf for pro-LGBTQ legislation; the American Federation of State, County and Municipal Employees (AFSCME) issued a resolution demanding stricter gun control laws; the National Education Association (NEA) quietly published a gender ideology resource guide, “Schools in Transition,” in 2015 that laid the groundwork for some of the craziest positions on gendered bathrooms, high school sports and pronoun usage confounding parents and teachers across the country; NEA President Becky Pringle in 2022 issued a statement on behalf of her union excoriating the U.S. Supreme Court for its ruling in Dobbs v. Jackson overturning Roe v. Wade and sending the abortion question back to the state; and, United Teachers of Los Angeles (UTLA) President Cecily Myart-Cruz in 2021 asks her union to issue a resolution condemning the state of Israel for its “war crimes” against the Palestinians.
Michigan’s Repeal of Right-to-Work Law Helps Democrats, Not Workers | Opinion
April 5, 2023 // More importantly, preventing right-to-work protections ensures a steady flow of funds into the coffers of a union movement that has been bleeding members for decades. That's been true, even in Michigan, where the UAW—the auto workers' union that has now expanded to other industries—formed the activist heart of the movement, providing organizers, foot soldiers, and a bottomless well of campaign contributions for the Democratic Party. But after a sweeping victory in last year's midterm elections, Democrats found themselves back in control of both houses of the state legislature as well as the governor's office, where Gretchen Whitmer survived the blowback from her heavy-handed COVID regulations to win reelection. Among the first items on Michigan Democrats' agenda was to reward their loyal union supporters by repealing the state's right-to-work law. Helping ensure the cash flow to their union donors makes sense and might even be good politics in Michigan—which remains bluer than many pundits assumed during the Trump era. But the notion that repealing right-to-work laws is the path to bringing working-class voters back to the Democrats is a mistake.