The Next Phase Of The Koch Brothers’ War On Unions - DailyBeast

[WillyT]

The Next Phase of the Koch Brothers’ War on Unions
And now, the plan is not only to decimate public-sector unions, but all unions—to deplete the money they can spend on politics.
Carl Deal and Tia Lessin - DailyBeast
12.22.14

AFP’s agenda, however, is less obscured. With Wisconsin’s public-sector unions on the ropes, a newly formed state group is pushing for legislation that will cripple unions in the private sector as well—in effect finishing the job that Walker began. That group is led by Lorri Pickens, a former AFP national director of state operations. Two years ago in Michigan, she oversaw AFP operations to help the Republican-controlled legislature pass sweeping anti-union laws. The Koch-backed group bused protesters to Lansing as the bill was debated, ran ads, and even gave anti-union Tea Partiers cards for free gasoline to get them to lobby their elected representatives. AFP boasts that it was “instrumental in the passage of Michigan’s [so-called] right-to-work law.”

Why would politicians and their billionaire backers expend so much political capital (and actual capital) attacking unions when unions in America represent a small fraction of the workforce—around 11 percent? Are they being driven by a philosophical and ideological hatred of collectivists or is it just a crass political calculation? Maybe it’s because unions spend millions on elections. In the 2012 election cycle, the American Federation of State, County and Municipal Employees and Service Employees International Union spent a combined $41 million—$5 million more than AFP. And they spent largely on Democrats, who have historically supported legislation that favored unions and the interests of ordinary Americans over super-wealthy individuals and corporations.

“Many Republicans have been concerned about the amount unions are spending,” former FEC Chairman Trevor Potter, a Republican, explained to us—noting that Citizens United lifted limits on union spending as well as corporate spending.

Karl Rove all but laid out the strategy on national television when he explained how reducing union membership directly impacts elections: “In 2009, the unionized work force made up 12.3 percent of all the workers in America,” he said on Fox News, while tens of thousands of anti-Walker protesters occupied the Wisconsin Capitol. “[Unions] lost 612,000 union members in 2010 alone. Now, think about it. Every one of those 612,000 people had literally perhaps several hundred dollars-worth of union dues going into the political coffers of their union to spend on politics. So… if 500,000 people leave the labor union movement [every year] then pretty soon, you start having crimp in the political budgets of these unions. It has a direct effect on the presidential election.”

This calculus may be why in 2012, Freedom Partners—a group that Politico dubbed the Kochs’ secret bank—directed $1 million to the National Right to Work Committee (NWRC). And why Republican legislators and governors, buoyed by Walker’s success in kneecapping public-sector unions, are intent on eliminating all unions, public- and private-sector alike. Backed by big money like AFP and other groups in the Koch political funding network, and relying on pre-fab “right to work” legislation authored by the NRWC and the Koch-funded American Legislative Exchange Council, they have introduced or will soon introduce union-busting legislation in key battleground states: Ohio, Colorado, New Hampshire, New Mexico, Missouri, and Pennsylvania, as well as Wisconsin.

More: http://www.thedailybeast.com/articles/2014/12/22/the-next-phase-of-the-koch-brothers-war-on-unions.html#

[tradewinds]

1. See you at the ramparts!

[Initech]

2. The Koch Bros are economic terrorists.

[okaawhatever]

3. It's not enough for Americans to vote anymore, we need to vote and donate. nt