Posts tagged representational activities
LLINOIS: 15,600 IFT members don’t exist, according to a union filing
April 16, 2026 // In a required annual report, the union’s own words reveal that: It has 15,600 fewer members than it claims on its website. Less than 28% of its spending is on representing teachers — what should be its main focus. The union spent over $1 million on politics in 2025. Nearly half of the IFT’s officers and employees made over $100,000 last year.
US Department of Labor launches data visualization tool for union reporting forms, providing valuable insight on union spending
March 19, 2026 // The data visualization tool release follows the department’s launch of a modern open data portal at data.dol.gov that is providing more transparency and efficiency for users to access data related to the American workforce. Both updates help bring the department into alignment with the Federal Data Strategy established during President Trump’s first administration.
National Education Association spends on politics over teachers
December 23, 2025 // The National Education Association admitted the following in its recent filing with the U.S. Department of Labor: Just 10% of its spending was on representing teachers in 2025. It spent nearly 4X more on politics and “contributions” than it did on representing teachers. Hundreds of NEA’s own officers and staff pull in six-figure salaries. NEA spent millions on hotels, airlines and other expenses for unspecified purposes.
Chicago Teachers Union spent $173K on poolside recording studio, won’t show audit to members
October 29, 2025 // CTU’s filing shows it spent $173,000 on a “recording studio” in New Mexico with no helpful context on its purpose. But it did have a pool. If CTU released its annual audits to members, as required in its internal rules, spending on a “recording studio” in New Mexico might have an explanation. But since it hasn’t released those audits since September 2020, members can only guess.
Union Hypocrisy Alert: SEIU-UHW Says “Do as We Say, Not as We Do”
October 13, 2025 // One union spokeswoman defended the measure by saying it would ensure that funding goes to “the core mission”of the organization rather than to overhead. That’s a standard that SEIU-UHW is nowhere close to following itself. The core mission of a labor union is representing its members. Fortunately for the public, labor unions file publicly-available documents detailing exactly how much they spend on “representational activities” every year. In 2024, SEIU-UHW spent just over a third of its revenue on “representational activities” – the union’s “core mission.”
Nation’s 2 largest teachers unions funneled nearly $50M to left-wing groups, watchdog report says
August 25, 2025 // Left-wing philanthropic behemoths like the Tides Network, New Venture Fund, Sixteen-Thirty Fund and Future Forward, the last of which was the main Super PAC supporting Kamla Harris' 2024 presidential run after former President Joe Biden dropped out, all received a combined nearly $1.5 million from the unions, according to the report. The unions also forked over significant amounts of cash for groups that focus on supporting left-wing candidates for public office, such as the Democratic Governors Association, Democrat's House Majority and Senate Majority PACs. Other groups they have donated to include major left-wing think tanks like the Center for American Progress and its 501(c)(4) arm, which received close to a million dollars since 2022 from the two unions.
SEIU Illinois spends just 3% of members’ money representing workers
May 13, 2025 // The Illinois state affiliate of the Service Employees International Union collected over $3 million in dues from members in 2024. It spent just $57,000 of that representing them. Politics and overhead were the union’s priorities.
American Federation of Teachers spends little on teachers, lots on staff
December 4, 2024 // The American Federation of Teachers’ recent federal filing showed just 36% of the national union’s spending was on representing teachers. More than two-thirds of its own employees made six-figure salaries.
Journalists are hyping up a supposed golden age for unions while ignoring their corruption and declining popularity.
September 12, 2024 // The mainstream media’s coverage of Big Labor clearly misses the mark. Beyond recent labor reporting centering on hot-button events such as organization efforts at Starbucks and Amazon amid 2023’s “hot labor summer,” coverage of unions creates a false sense of reality. Headlines such as “Unions targeting Big Business: Disney, Mercedes-Benz, CVS face organizing campaigns,” for example, suggest sweeping unionization efforts across the private sector. But in the pharmacy industry, just 30 CVS pharmacists in Rhode Island and Las Vegas voted to join the Pharmacy Guild, a fraction of the 30,000 employed by the drugstore giant.
CHICAGO TEACHERS UNION SPENDING ON TEACHERS DOWN, POLITICS UP IN 2023
September 29, 2023 // Just 17% of the money spent by the Chicago Teachers Union in 2023 thus far was spent on representing teachers. Meanwhile, they tripled their political spending since 2022. Teachers unions don't represent students, and now they barely represent teachers.