February 22, 2011
On the Washington Post opinion pages you can make up anything you like as long as you are using it in an argument against working people. Therefore we get columnist Michael Gerson telling readers that:
“public employee unions have the unique power to help pick pliant negotiating partners – by using compulsory dues to elect friendly politicians.”
Nope, that is not true in this country. Unions are prohibited from using dues to pay for campaign contributions. (If Mr. Gerson knows of any violations of the law, I’m sure that there are many ambitious prosecutors who would be happy to hear his evidence.) Unions do make contributions to political campaigns, but these are from voluntary contributions that workers make to their union’s PAC. They are not from their union dues.
As Barry Goldwater once said, “making things up in the service of the wealthy is no vice,” or something like that.
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