Big Labor's ties to the Democratic Party are no secret, but the way in which unions will use their members' dues to influence this year's presidential race may be the most ignored political story in this election.
Like corporations and other groups, unions collect voluntary contributions from their members for their political action committees, which then make donations to specific candidates or political parties.
In 2000, according to the Center for Responsive Politics, a campaign finance watchdog organization, union PACs donated $85 million to Democratic candidates and the Democratic Party.
That's a hefty sum, but, in fact, direct contributions such as those make up only a fraction of total union spending. A much greater sum -- estimated at $500 million to $800 million -- is paid out in indirect contributions and services in the election cycle, and all of it comes from the tax-free dues of their union members.
Of this money, more than 95% typically goes to help elect Democratic candidates, even though as much as 40% of the union vote historically has gone to Republicans. Is that reasonable?
More important, no one knows how much of this spending actually violates campaign spending laws. From my own experience as a union official in the 1970s and 1980s, and from current union members' reports, I believe that many unions routinely break the law.
The laws are clear. Modern campaign finance laws have always prohibited corporations from using corporate money to set up candidate phone banks, print endorsement literature or assign paid staff to political campaigns, but unions are allowed to do so. This gives unions an enormous advantage, which has grown since the McCain-Feingold campaign finance law banned unlimited "soft money" donations to the political parties.
This year, the AFL-CIO has pledged to spend $44 million to defeat President Bush, but individual unions will collectively spend even more.
The president of just one New York City local, Dennis Rivera of the Service Employees International Union's Local 1199, says he plans to spend $35 million to defeat Bush. Much of it will be used to send 1,000 union officials into battleground states.
Similarly, the National Education Assn., the nation's largest union, with 2.7 million members, will deploy its cadre of 1,800 political operatives this year, costing NEA members some $90 million, funded exclusively by their dues.
