CBS Investigates: Government Unions & Politics

Last night, CBS 21’s Waste Watch program investigated how government unions use public resources to collect their members’ dues and spend that money on politics. Chris Papst reports: “Government figures show, in 2013, PA’s largest public sector unions collected $170 million and spent $9 million for political advocacy including commercials.”

Notably, AFL-CIO’s President Rick Bloomingdale did not dispute that government unions are political, which his Al Gore and President Obama campaign buttons makes obvious.

In fact, the Pennsylvania State Education Association itself says it plans to use more than $7 million of it’s members’ dues money for political activity in 2013-2014.

So what’s the governement union defense for using public resources for politics—something politicians go to jail for?

Bloomingdale says, “We’re not using tax dollars to do something illegal.”

True, it’s illegal for everyone else, just not for them—that’s the very problem paycheck protection would solve.