It’s a conservative three-fer. Cut into financial support for Democrats. Lower the pay for state government workers. Encounter less resistance when you attack “government schools.” All by weakening the power of public employee unions.
That’s why a case currently in front of the U.S. Supreme Court, Janus vs. Afscme, is such a big deal, and why conservatives have been funding the cause behind the case for years.
Janus vs. Afscme would take away the ability of public employee unions to make non-union members pay a “fair share” fee. Twenty-two states currently have that requirement, which makes their public employee unions strong as a bargaining force for state employees and a political force during election time. The rest, like Arizona, don’t have “fair share,” making the unions weaker on both fronts. I don’t plan to discuss the merits of the case, though like most people whose politics lean left, I very much hope the Supreme Court rules against Janus. The discussion here is about money in politics, specifically the money of one Richard Uihlein.
I had never heard of Uihlein until I read an article a few days ago saying he was one of the largest donors behind the current effort to get rid of the “fair share” fee. So I did a google search on the guy. One article I found calls him “The Koch of conservative politics in Illinois.” Another wants you to “Meet the Illinoisan Trying to Buy a Wisconsin Senate Seat.” Another article lists “10 super-rich people [who] dominate giving to super PACs active in midterm elections for Congress.” For the 2018 elections, Uihlein is at the top of the list with $19.5 million so far, and we’re at the beginning of the funding cycle.
The Koch brothers and their donor network are the 800 pound gorilla in the political room — more appropriately, a troop of 800 pound gorillas lording over the political jungle. But they have lots of right wing, deep pocket allies. Some names I know, like Sheldon Adelson, Robert Mercer, Betsy and Richard DeVos, Peter Friess, Peter Thiel, Paul Singer. But there are lots of other hundred-millionaires and billionaires like Richard Uihlein spread across the country working at the state and local level, and reaching into their wallets to contribute to national conservative candidates along with causes like destroying labor unions.
Here’s an incomplete list of Uihlein’s contributions over the years to give an idea of their magnitude. $3 million to Club for Growth. $1.8 million to Restoration PAC. $5 million to Wisconsin Governor Scott Walker’s Unintimidated PAC. $1 million to Trusted Leadership PAC for Ted Cruz’s presidential campaign. Another $1 million to Cruz’s Keep the Promise PAC. $5 million to Liberty Principles PAC. $1 million to the Federalist Society. $2.5 million to Illinois Governor Bruce Rauner’s campaign. $3.5 million supporting Kevin Nicholson for a 2018 U.S. Senate seat.
That’s a whole lot of money from one guy I, and I’m guessing most of you, have never heard of.
This article appears in Feb 22-28, 2018.
Unions are not people and they should not be able to force members to finance their partisan goals, as it robs the workers of their votes.
Without unions, the American worker would make 30-50% less, there would be no such thing as a ‘weekend’, no employer health-dental insurance, no overtime, no 40 hour week, no work safety laws, child labor laws, paid vacations, unemployment insurance, 8 hour work day, pensions, Social Security, military leave, ending sweatshops and so on. Hate unions? Give up every one of those things I just listed, and the dozens of others I didn’t even get to. Thousands were killed and maimed to get those things for the American worker, it’s ignorance to throw it all away.
Ken Solar – You’re forgetting that many countries, some states, and famously Henry Ford, instituted higher wages, maximum work hours, and a long list of other benefits totally without unions. Some unions actually worked to create rules that worsened working situations many employees enjoyed. Today it’s no secret unions have been an important factor in our horrible public education & the loss of industries & jobs to other countries.
MMP, I see your problem, you simply don’t understand the issue or the history. Henry Ford is famous for raising wages on his own because he was such an outlier, most killed or beat half to death employees who asked for raises or safe working conditions. Here’s a short history of unions in the US for you. . .http://www.socialstudieshelp.com/eco_unionization.htm
Unions are good for American workers. We are all supposed to pay taxes and fees that are really taxes. Workers, judges, retired generals,, elected officials, all Americans benefit from unions.
David, where did this man make his millions, and is he still making them? Sounds like another good target for a boycott.
And re:unions and idiotic comments above–first of all even WITH the “fair share” law non-unionized members who expect to get raises and improvements in their working conditions for free do not pay the full uni on dues. They do not pay for partisan work (or campaign contributions). And MMP, our “horrible public education” actually looks really good if you factor in our truly horrible poverty rates in order to be able to actually compare us to our European brothers and sisters through standardized measures. And what would help us to overcome that truly horrible poverty rate? More unions, not less.
If Janus is such a libertarian, i.e. if he is so opposed to helping others by paying for the common good, then he and others like him should live by their own creed. They should not get covered by any of the items in the union contract that is negotiated without their financial contribution. Getting something for nothing, or better yet, through OPM (other people’s money) certainly sounds honorable, doesn’t it? Just the values that millionaires and those who want to be them espouse I guess.
So ironic how illiberal liberals really are. They want people to be forced to buy into collective bargaining groups that may or may not actually support their best interests, like local teachers and the TEA, Betts Putnam Hidalgo. Does your board watching confirm or deny the effectiveness of that union in advocating for things like appropriate application of 301 funds in teacher bonuses and good working conditions for teachers? Yet the liberal position is teachers should be forced to pay some of their criminally low salaries into that ineffective mess of an organization? Just like parents whose kids are in schools where classrooms are manned by uncredentialed long term subs and discipline is out of control should not be allowed to remove per pupil funding derived from their tax dollars from a district that is failing to educate their children.
Some unions are effective, some not. Some school districts work well, others dont. Locking people into the bad ones doesnt improve them, it just damages the constituents they underserve.
At least youre consistent in your insistence that workers and families be coerced into paying for things that are not in many cases in their own best interest or in the broader communitys best interest.
FYI, common good is not a term that should be considered to be the property of your tribe. Yall dont often end up serving it, just the particular good of a certain secularist, intolerant faction that thinks its values are universal and would like to impose them on everyone in this admirably pluralistic, diverse country.
We can see how effective money is in this age of the internet. Hillary and her allies outspent Trump by $600 million. $600 million. $600 million. What did it buy her? Nothing but an accurate image of complete corruption.
Even congregations ask for tithe or donations!
Republican conservatives, since this country was formed have been trying to deny or take away any form of human dignity that the poor and working class have attained. After the Great Depression, (a result of having 3 Republican presidents in a row), a savior, President Franklin D. Roosevelt,( known as Satan to the conservatives), established programs to lift the poor and unemployed out of the economic depths of hell while being fought every step of the way by Republicans in congress. Social Security , Minimum Wages, Child Labor Laws, Medicare, and Medicaid are programs brought to you by the DEMOCRATS in congress. Whenever a Republican conservative brags that they are going to do something wonderful for you, my best advice is run to another country!!
Democrats brought us slavery and in one form or another they refuse to let go of it.
I notice there is not one mention of the IBM anti union pay model. To true for most of you?
Even religious congregations ask for tithe or donations. Without Court interference
Betts, from Richard Uihlein’s Wikipedia bio:
“Uihlein lives in Lake Forest, Illinois and is a descendant of the Milwaukee brewers beer brand Schlitz.”
“Until 1980, Uihlein worked in international sales for General Binding Corp, a company co-founded by his father, Edgar Uihlein. That year, Uihlein and his wife founded Uline, a shipping supplies company headquartered in Wisconsin, which he and his wife continue to own. Uihlein’s family also owns EAU Holdings, a resort in northern Wisconsin.”
Doesn’t sound like the kind of businesses most of us have any direct relationship with.
On a side note: so many of the rugged individualist conservative billionaires who advocate against government programs which somehow sap people’s initiative are heirs to family fortunes. They didn’t just start on third and think they hit a triple. They’re half way to home plate already after their fathers and grandfathers hit the ball out of the park.
Well yeah I had a friend at IBM work four hours or so every Wednesday overtime. Easily paid for college tuition for his daughter out of state university (the point is the courts didnt interfere)
“Today it’s no secret unions have been an important factor in our horrible public education & the loss of industries & jobs to other countries.”
Our jobs have been outsourced as we have become more neoliberal and have lifted barriers that protected jobs in the past. Don’t like outsourcing? Blame capitalism. Globalism is capitalism, and protectionism is not capitalism.
That is an admirable impulse, David Safier, to point out what the actual economic resources are connected with people advocating various policy positions. If we did it uniformly for all players and commenters, there might be many surprises.
A note to “Perhaps all policy advocates resources should be known.” You have exactly the same resources that I do: the media, google searches, time spent researching. You’ll find plenty of information about money on both sides, on all sides, if you look. Please, if you pull something comprehensive together, share it with the rest of us.
One problem you’ll run into, by the way. In the era of dark money, people’s contributions can’t be traced easily, so any names and numbers you come up with are approximate.
Clever the alteration in the meaning of “resources” between the first (quoted) sentence and second sentence in your comment, David. I meant economic resources, and you shifted discussion to research resources. I have no interest in engaging in (or reporting on) research about policy pundits’ economic backgrounds, but in evaluating policy opinions, in general, I like to know where a policy pundit stands in relation to the group most affected by the policy in question. If we’re talking about unions, someone who never needed the bargaining function of a union to secure their own personal economic security speaks from a different position and with a different kind of authority than someone who did. Same with vouchers: someone who has a kid enrolled in a TUSD enclave school or a high SES public district is speaking from a different point of view than someone with a kid enrolled in Warren, for example. And that difference is relevant to assessing the validity of the opinion.
Of course, it’s always fine to discuss things on a purely THEORETICAL level, as long as everyone’s clear that that’s what’s going on, and there’s no rhetorical attempt to “pass” as “regular folks” or as someone who has first-hand experience of being affected by the policy in question.
There will always be people of wealth and influence who will attract the support of people who have very little wealth and precious little influence. And, those supporters are never going to be rich themselves because of that support.
Keep ranting about liberals, continue voting against your own interests, and by all means keep kissing wealthy union busters’ behinds, and you too will be guaranteed to stay poor, ignorant and foolish.