Pro-Big Labor Billionaires of the World, Unite!

Moguls Help Fund ‘Working Families Party’ Workers Don’t Support

Increasingly, union bosses who are determined to retain and expand their power to force workers to pay union dues as a job condition are seeking and receiving assistance in that endeavor from radical, politically hyperactive billionaires and millionaires. 

This summer, the emerging Big Labor-billionaire alliance scored its most impressive victory yet when it played a key role in engineering avowed socialist Zohran Mamdani’s capture of the Democrat Party nomination for New York City mayor.

The driving forces behind Mr. Mamdani’s decisive defeat of former New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo and other primary candidates were powerful union bosses and the so-called “Working Families Party” (WFP), founded in 1998 by a coalition of Big Labor officials and far-left activists. 

With the enthusiastic backing of AFL-CIO, Service Employees International Union, National Nurses Union, Unite Here, United Auto Workers, Teamster, and other Big Labor bosses, as well as the WFP, Mr. Mamdani swept affluent parts of the Big Apple like Long Island City, Park Slope, and Fort Greene.

Meanwhile, Mr. Cuomo easily carried heavily working-class and African American areas like Springfield Gardens, Canarsie, and East Flatbush. 

“The WFP’s biggest success yet suggests this putative ‘working class party’ has little appeal for actual working class voters,” commented Matthew Leen, vice president of the National Right to Work Committee.

Mamdani Scheme to Make Big Government Far Bigger A Bonanza For Union Dons

Mr. Leen explained: “All of the significant Democrat candidates in the July 1 New York City mayoral primary, most definitely including Mr. Mamdani and Mr. Cuomo, were die-hard foes of the Right to Work and supporters of compulsory unionism. 

“What makes Mr. Mamdani uniquely appealing to key union bigwigs and the WFP are his proposals for dramatically higher spending of taxpayers’ money on child care, health care, transportation, and government schools. He is even proposing to create a network of taxpayer-funded, government-owned grocery stores! 

“In the Empire State, government employees are 5.5 times as likely to be subject to union monopoly control as private-sector employees. A mindboggling 68.5% of them are unionized.

“Making New York’s already extraordinarily big government far bigger would mean far more dues money and coercive power for statewide and national union officials as well as local ones. 

“That was an irresistible selling point for many union bosses, even when Mr. Mamdani seemed to be a long-shot candidate for the Democrat nomination. And, as surprising as it may seem to many Americans who follow politics casually, it is also an irresistible selling point for billionaire hedge fund heiress Elizabeth Simons, who recently donated $250,000 to a pro-Mamdani super PAC!

“Another extraordinarily wealthy donor bankrolling Mr. Mamdani, in her case by contributing to the WFP National PAC, is Phoebe Gates, the multi-millionaire daughter of multi-billionaire Bill Gates.” 

Workers, Whether Unionized Or Union-Free, Don’t Want What Union Bosses Want 

Mr. Leen added; “Electing radical politicians whose agenda includes sharply expanding the number of workers in Big Labor’s empire makes perfect sense to wealthy leftists like Ms. Simons and Ms. Gates, because they know union bosses will deploy this windfall to advance the same social and political causes they favor. 

“But helping people like Zohran Mamdani get elected makes far less sense to ordinary workers, whether they are unionized or union-free.

“In fact, a 2024 nationwide survey commissioned by the National Right to Work Committee and conducted by the respected firm RMG Research found that employed union members who are also registered voters oppose forcing workers to bankroll a union, or be fired, by an overwhelming 79% to 20%. Opposition to forced dues among union-free workers is even higher, 84% to 7%. 

“Unlike the already-wealthy, unionized and union-free workers have a strong interest in a growing economy that eases the way for their pay to rise in real terms while the business they work for continues to make a healthy profit. 

“Unfortunately, neither Big Labor bosses nor the politicians they support care much about that.”

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