Unions join in $30 million pushback

February 24, 2011 08:58

Funds will be dedicated to paid media, lobbying, work-site leaflets, and a range of other campaign items, including opposition research into groups that unions believe could be funding state efforts to restrict union rights, such as the Koch Brothers, and the Scaife and Walton Foundations. – WSJ

By KRIS MAHER And MELANIE TROTTMAN at WSJ

EXCERPTS:

Leaders of major public and private sector unions have agreed to set aside longstanding divisions and turf battles and coordinate in a campaign to counter challenges to their political and contract-bargaining power in a growing number of states.

At the meeting, about a dozen presidents of the nation’s biggest unions formed a group called the “Labor Table,” and signed onto a detailed “unity campaign,” which amounts to a contract among the unions outlining how they will mobilize rallies and other events in coming months.

The meetings involved officials of the Service Employees International Union, American Federation of Teachers, the Communications Workers of America, the United Steelworkers, the International Association of Machinists and the International Brotherhood of Teamsters, among others, according to someone familiar with the meeting.

Unions spent $400 million in 2008 to help elect President Barack Obama and other Democrats, and they spent more than $200 million in the 2010 midterm elections.

Indiana Republican state House member Jeff Espich said voters spoke in November in many states by electing Republicans who promised to bring more fiscal discipline to budgets and weren’t afraid to take on unions. “I think the election truly said that people want a return to local control rather than at the national level,” he said.