Do the Teachers 'Own' Beacon Hill?

By Evelyn Reilly
April 2001

Unions provide enormous amounts of soft money and other contributions to liberal candidates.

In a memo to its members in 1998, the Massachusetts Teachers Association boasted about the $750,000 it had contributed to the failed campaign of Democrat Scott Harshbarger against Paul Cellucci.

"The state legislature is owned in fee simple by the teachers' unions," said John Silber, former Chairman of the Board of Education.

Because of compulsory unionism, the unions are allowed to engage in politics without permission from their members, many of whom object to the candidates and issues supported by the leadership.

In addition to giving money, the unions are allowed to endorse candidates, put trained organizers into key races, obtain voter lists, phone and address files, set up get-out-the-vote phone banks, publish ads, register voters, orchestrate visits, phone calls and direct mail to union households to persuade them to support union-endorsed candidates, and have union members volunteer for candidates' campaigns.

Some say that this explains why vast fortunes of public money have been spent to improve education with little to show for it.

Very few people appear to realize that "Campaign Finance Reform" as promoted by Senators McCain and Feingold would increase the power of unions, the media and incumbents while seriously threatening the First Amendment rights of everyone else.

Teachers' Union Has Power

An example of the power of teachers' unions in Massachusetts is seen in the law passed last year giving them substantial early retirement benefits. The law encourages massive numbers of early retirements at a time when the state is having trouble finding enough qualified teachers and is actually paying bonuses to encourage people to go into teaching.

Almost all union political money goes to liberal Democrats despite the fact that about half of union members are not Democrats. The decisions concerning candidates are made by union leaders with little or no input from members.

However, the U.S. Supreme Court became involved in a case where the dues of non-members were used for political purposes without their permission. The Court declared this to be unconstitutional because it forces non-members to support political or ideological causes they oppose. Under the court's decision, non-members may refuse to pay anything other than an "agency fee" for collective bargaining or contract administration.

But if the person is a member of the union, the union is allowed to decide whether a member must first resign if he desires to ask for such a refund. According to Bruce Cameron of the National Right to Work Legal Defense Foundation, who has been handling lawsuits on behalf of Massachusetts workers for over twenty years, all Massachusetts unions do require resignation. (Even after a member does resign, he must continue to pay the agency fee in order to be able to work.)

Atty. Cameron says that because the Supreme Court has upheld the constitutionality of compulsory unionism, employees in Massachusetts face the "Hobson's choice" of either resigning and having no say about their terms of employment or of remaining as a member and having no right to refrain from subsidizing union politics.

In April 1995, a national survey by Luntz Research found that 78% of union members were unaware of their right to ask for a refund of that portion of their dues that is spent on non-workplace activity. Since that money represents the heart of union power, unions have resisted fiercely, by refusing to notify employees of their rights and by hiding the amount of money actually spent on politics.

Mass. Unions Sidestep Law

In Massachusetts, unions have been required for the last twenty years to provide non-members with audited statements which show that an independent party looked at the accuracy of the union's financial statements given to non-members. The union also must notify them that they can challenge the amount of the fee.

Approximately 500 lawsuits by non-members were consolidated into one in a suit (Belhumeur vs. Springfield Education Association) filed by Cameron at the Supreme Court. However, the Court declined to hear the case last month.

Atty. Cameron tells Massachusetts News:

"The basic question before the Court was whether or not the [Massachusetts Teachers Association's] system for tracking the amount of time and expenses spent in political activities is accurate and reliable. In a hearing, the union admitted their accounts were not accurate, but claimed they were good enough."

Cameron believes their system is not good enough to be reliable. He states, "All 500 of the cases under Belheumer challenged the union's statement of its collective bargaining costs for five years. The [Massachusetts Labor Relations Commission] held that the union violated the law by demanding an excessive fee. They were trying to charge our clients for politics illegally. We caught them mislabeling political expenditures as bargaining expenses.

"The union then did some recalculations and said, 'This is how much non-members really owe us.' The Labor Relations Commission said, 'Okay, you've done a reasonable job of accounting for your primary political activity.'"

Cameron's U.S. Supreme Court appeal claimed the unions had not actually done a good job of accounting for the money.

"There is no question that they violated the law - they did," says Cameron. He asked the U.S. Supreme Court to review whether the union had properly proved its collective bargaining costs. "Our argument was it had not, and that it created way too much of a burden on these nonmembers. ... The union has been improperly demanding agency fees for many years. In fact the MTA has never in any of my cases been willing or able to prove the fee it demanded was lawful in amount."

Since the Supreme Court declined to hear the case, the authority is back in the hands of the Labor Relations Board and the Legislature.

NEA Is Powerful

The National Education Association is perhaps the most powerful union in the nation because it controls most public schools through its members and affiliate unions and consequently controls the education of the vast majority of America's children. The NEA spends millions of dollars each election cycle to put its favored candidates into public office, using forced dues for political activities without member permission. The Massachusetts Teachers Association is its affiliate.

The Landmark Legal Foundation has filed a complaint with the IRS and FEC to address this problem. On its website (www.landmarklegal.org) it says, "Landmark Legal Foundation has collected substantial information showing that the NEA uses tax-exempt general revenue to influence the election of candidates seeking public office - for which it has neither paid income taxes nor reported to the Internal Revenue Service (IRS), as required. The last several NEA Form 990 federal tax returns, submitted to the IRS under penalty of perjury, disclose no political expenditures whatsoever."

But even though the NEA reported no political expenditures, their budgets list expenditures for recruiting and electing candidates to federal, state and local offices. By mixing political activities expenditures with general operating funds, they try to conceal vast amounts of money being spent on politics.

Massachusetts Governor Could Change This

Nationally, there has been increasing resistance to the considerable impact of unions on elections at all levels of government in all states. The Americans for Tax Reform's Director, Ron Nehring, issued a "Policy Brief" in 1999, entitled "How Governors Can Inform Workers of Their Political Rights." He wrote, "In September 1998, California Governor Pete Wilson demonstrated that governors can take decisive action to ensure public sector workers are informed of their political rights. He did so by signing an Executive Order (W-183-98) to inform state employees of their right not to have their union dues spent for political or other activities outside of the union's representational duties.

"Where public employees have collective bargaining rights, a governor may also have the power to declare a policy that the state, as an employer, will not subsidize the collection of political funds by collecting dues on behalf of unions when those dues are used for political purposes, or co-mingled with political funds. Such services amount to a taxpayer subsidy for the collection of political contributions for one group (unions), to the exclusion of others. Once issued, the policy would affect all subsequently negotiated contracts between state agencies and their unions. Legislation to this effect was introduced in several states ... including Colorado and Oregon."

Unreported Political Funds

A "Section 527" organization is a political organization that until July of 2000 allowed tax-exempt funds to be spent, unreported, for political activities in campaigns. In June 2000, both Houses of Congress passed, and President Clinton signed, a law to require full disclosure of Section 527 funds if the organization raises over $25,000. The organizations must register with the IRS, file annual tax returns and report the names of donors who gave more than $200, as well as expenditures of over $500.

According to the February issue of Education Reporter, a publication of Eagle Forum, "these monies are but a fraction of the massive unreported tax-exempt political funds routinely spent by the NEA."

National Right to Work Law?

The National Right to Work Foundation has been nibbling away at union refusal to abide by the Beck decision in thousands of court cases across the country, winning major victories, including in Massachusetts. However, their affiliate, the National Right to Work Committee, urges passage of a national Right to Work Law believing that, "Organized labor will continue to have political and economic influence far out of proportion to its voluntary membership as long as the extraordinary statutory privileges of exclusive representation and compulsory unionism enable it to compel membership and financial support of its bargaining and political activities from unwilling employees."

The National Labor Relations Board, which has many Clinton appointees, has been obstructionist, unwilling and ineffective on the issue, even though they are primarily responsible for enforcing labor laws. Perhaps with the new federal administration, there is hope that some progress will be made to level the playing field in the political arena.

While it would be a bold move, Gov. Cellucci has an opportunity to help weaken the Democratic stronghold by issuing an Executive Order similar to that of California Governor Wilson.

Union members may learn about their rights by contacting the National Right to Work Foundation (www.nrtw.org), or by calling toll-free at 800-336-3600.

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