THE VIRGINIAN-PILOT
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: Thursday, December 7, 1995 TAG: 9512070002
SECTION: FRONT PAGE: A16 EDITION: FINAL
TYPE: Another View
SOURCE: By SEAN R. GERETY
LENGTH: Medium: 81 lines
I find it enjoyable to watch self-righteous liberal malcontents fume and froth over the fictitious sins of the political right. The most recent example of the left's delusory furor was exhibited in a Virginian-Pilot editorial criticizing the direct-mail fund-raising practices of Sen. Jesse Helms and Oliver North.
Liberals, like those on The Virginian-Pilot, simply can't stand it when conservatives are successful in their grass-roots appeals for financial help, all the while forgetting that unlike those on the left, conservatives at least have the moral decency to ``ask'' potential contributors for money. The editors of The Pilot are quick to impugn the integrity of people like Senator Helms, but seem calculatingly ignorant of their friends on the left whose preferred fund-raising tactic is to pick the pockets of countless working men and women throughout the country.
Contrary to the fantasies of the editors on The Virginian-Pilot, the political reality is that compulsory unionism provides so-called ``progressive'' left-wing candidates with virtually unlimited funds - nearly every dollar ripped from the paychecks of workers who have no choice but to pay union dues or lose their jobs. Estimates from the Federal Election Commission and the National Institute for Labor Relations Research reveal an excess of $450 million in forced dues is used to put Big Labor's hand-picked candidates into office each election cycle. Big Labor's forced-dues influence is felt in nearly every political race for presidential campaigns to local school-board elections.
Aside from The Pilot's self-serving moralizing, the forced-dues politics of the left dwarfs the nearly $41 million that candidates receive on both the left and the right from all PAC contributions combined. Moreover, an estimated $410 million of the left's forced-dues war chest goes unreported each year as it's tunneled into political campaigns through ``soft money'' contributions.
One of the most egregious abuses of Big Labor's forced-dues ``soft-money'' politicking is the use of paid full-time union staff who are ``lent'' to campaigns - while still drawing a union paycheck. The National Education Association, which, thanks to compulsory unionism, has become one of the nation's largest and most radical of our nation's labor unions, ``lent'' one-fifth of its national headquarters staff to the Clinton/Gore campaign during the final days of the 1992 presidential race. According to Labor Department reports, the major labor unions employ a vast army of highly trained political operatives at the cost of more than $3 billion per year.
The editors on The Pilot might do well to recall the recent election-law violations of the local wing of the NEA - the VBEA - and its extensive influence in last year's City Council and School Board elections. Thanks to Big Labor's soft money, and the political activity of the paid operatives of the local branch of the NFA, every one of the teachers' union's hand-picked candidates now holds a seat in local government. The NEA was also successful in diverting attention from issues like granting the School Board separate taxing authority (something the NFA has long supported and of particular local importance given the School Board's recent financial mismanagement) and onto nonissues like the religious affiliations and beliefs of prospective School Board candidates.
There is little doubt the political abuses of Big Labor will intensify in coming months under the direction of the AFL-CIO's new activist President John Sweeney. The Washington Post reported (Oct. 26) that Sweeney has pledged to promote a heightened sense of militancy and has even threatened civil disobedience, ``if necessary,'' to achieve his political goals. Sweeney has backed these threats by putting workers' money where his mouth is. The Post reports that he has committed a ``minimum of $20 million a year on training and organizing new members, eight times the $2.5 million now spent . . . to infuse a (new) militancy into the labor movement.''
Rather than concentrating on the supposed relevance of conservatives' use of the oh-so-evil ``direct-mail,'' The Virginian-Pilot would serve its readers better if it focused on the local influx of forced-dues dollars for politics. Unless I missed it, people are still free to walk to the trash and throw out a piece of mail. On the other hand, there are countless working men and women who would lose their jobs if they refused to pay their union dues. MEMO: Mr. Gerety, who describes himself as a conservative activist, writer and
unabashed admirer of Sen. Jesse Helms, lives in Virginia Beach.
by CNB