Date: 1998-04-29
Speaker: BOB SCHAFFER (republican)
Chamber: H
State: Colorado

Mr. Speaker. the use of compulsory union dues for political purposes violates the basic principle of voluntary political participation embodied in our Nations Constitution. In 1994. by way of example. 40 percent of union members voted for Republicans. for my party. Yet in 1996. less than 10 percent of labor PAC dollars went to Republican candidates. Now. think about that. Forty percent of union members are voting for one particular party. yet 10 percent of those unions political PAC contributions are going to the same party. That means about 30 percent of the members who are working hard. paying the bills. and making all this political gamesmanship possible are not represented. Their hardearned cash is siphoned off away from their paychecks and spent on political campaigns that they do not. in fact. support. In Washington State. where 72 percent of the voters approved a paycheck protection initiative in 1992. over 40.000 union workers had the shackles of involuntary political participation broken. In other words. the people of Washington State enacted a paycheck protection mechanism that protected the paychecks of wageearners that essentially said that union dues are off limits. that wages are off limits for political purposes unless you have the consent of the wageearner. Well. here is what happened in the State of Washington. Originally there were 48.000 members of the Washington Education Association. and they were forced to fund political activities against their will until this initiative passed. and again with the backing of 72 percent of the voters in the State of Washington. Well. the interesting answer to a very obvious question is. what happened? The answer is that after passage. only 8.000 people voluntarily succumbed to the unions political activities. Let me go back and restate those numbers. Before the paycheck protection act in the State of Washington was enacted. 48.000 union members were forced. not just one union. this is the Washington Education Association. were forced to contribute to political activities against their will. After passage. only 8.000 voluntarily paid for unions political activities. Well. Congress can send that same message to these labor bosses that are reminiscent to the messages sent by the colonists to King George. "No taxes without representation." Now. I characterize this activity as taxes for the following reason. because labor unions have been given a tremendous amount of authority under Federal and State laws to organize on union sites and on work sites and to go forward on collective bargaining and agency representation. And that is fine. That is a good thing. Those of us who support paycheck protection are not opposed to unions organizing. We are not opposed to unions being engaged in collective bargaining. We are not opposed to unions providing agency representation to people who work on a particular work site. In fact. we are not even opposed to labor unions being involved in political activities. I think a unions political action committee. political expenditures are fine. Under the first amendment and the whole concept of free speech and industrial democracy. union activity in politics is a good and healthy thing. I wish to encourage that. not discourage that. But the real fundamental question comes down to how those dollars are raised. When you have these organizations that raise funds without the consent of those who are paying. I believe that it constitutes the full definition of a criminal activity. an activity that ought to be ended. The debate really is not over here in Congress. As many of us know and have followed. the efforts to move campaign finance reform to the floor again for the second time are being met and warmly received by our Speaker and others in our leadership. There will be another attempt at trying to pass meaningful campaign finance reform in a few months. When that bill comes to the floor. we ought to insist and demand that paycheck protection be a part of those debates and those discussions. Fortunately for the 80 percent of the individuals who support paycheck protection. we are receiving very favorable indications from our leadership that that will be the case. that we will have an open floor scenario where amendments by Members will be able to be offered. including the Paycheck Protection Act. that the Paycheck Protection Act may in fact be folded into the base bill that comes to the floor for campaign finance reform. But more importantly. I think it is important for this Congress to utilize its opportunity for national leadership to speak out to the American people and to talk about the real travesty that exists and takes place every single day. Mr. Speaker. most people really do not believe or do not understand that it is possible in America to have a portion of an individuals wages being siphoned off and spent on political causes without their knowledge and without their consent. If we can say that over and over and over again and allow people to understand really how sick politics has become at this particular level. I think that will give us the added impetus and the added incentive here in Washington to put the voice of the people ahead of the voices of those small special interests who use these political funds to their political advantage. Oh. and it pays off. There is no question about that. Once again. I refer my colleagues to. this chart. When you have 80 percent of the American people in every column. again. average voters in this column. union households in this column. 84 percent of teacher union households. 80 percent of nonunion households. when you have those kinds of numbers of individuals who tell us that they want paycheck protection and yet the 16 percent of voters. the 16 percent of union members. the 13 percent of teacher union members and the 16 percent of nonunion members who tell us that they do not want paycheck protection. and you realize that it is the small minority who wins the day here in Congress. We can see very clearly that the political dollars that are spent to advance the causes of labor unions is paying off for labor unions. It is paying off for the 16 percent. But I am confident that throughout the country as more and more States begin to evaluate the question of labor union dues and paycheck protection. that we will see State after State after State siding on behalf of rank and file families. rank and file workers and union members in the end who would rather have their union dollars going toward union activities that are legitimate and on the work site. perhaps toward supporting their pensions. If you are a member of the Teamsters Union. you realize that you are going to have to raise more money for your pension funds because of the theft that took place and the money laundering that took place to. in fact. drain the pension plan of the Teamsters Union at the national level. again which has resulted in the indictment of many highranking Teamsters officials and in the end resulted in past Teamsters President Ron Carey being invalidated and prohibited from seeking reelection to the post. essentially clearing the way for James Hoffa. Jr. to become President of the Teamsters Union. When you see these kinds of scandals. if you are a member of the Teamsters Union. you realize that maybe you would rather have a greater portion of your union dues going toward repaying many of the expenses and costs associated with these internal crimes rather than seeing them going toward subsidizing campaigns and political organizations that they may not support. Let me tell you about one of the individuals who testified before the Subcommittee on Employer and Employee Relations just last year. a man named Kerry Gipe. a union member who testified. He said. quote. I was told that joining the union was a mandatory part of working for the company and absolutely no money was allowed to be used from our union dues for political purposes. Unfortunately for Mr. Gipe and millions of other American workers. labor bosses continue to use compulsory dues for political purposes. According to some estimates. unions spent as much as $200 million in the 1996 election. All that the Paycheck Protection Act that was proposed here in Congress did was empower the individual worker. It was. in all candor. at the expense of the small number of union bosses who benefit from the funds of their members. Employees would decide under such a piece of legislation whether and to whom they contribute their hardearned wages and that they could revoke that authorization at any time. Mr. Speaker. this is a topic that we will discuss again and bring to the floor at other occasions over the course of the next several months. It is a topic that will be discussed across the country in various States that are considering paycheck protection. Once again I am convinced that once we just lay out the very basic facts of this particular political scandal and evidence of corruption that exists in the country. that eventually we are going to answer properly and correctly and those 80 percent of individuals will finally have their voices heard.