Spending in Secret

Pennsylvania does not afford its workers Right to Work protection, thus giving union bosses the ability to coerce union dues from employees and spend them almost any way they want. That’s the way the union apparatchik likes it.

Philadelphia Local 98 of the International Brotherhood of Electrical Workers spent a remarkable $2.4 million last year on politics and has refused to disclose its expenditures as required by law, reports the Philadelphia Daily News. So intent on keeping their spending secret, the union bosses have filed a lawsuit in federal court, but the Board of Ethics was joined by the state attorney general and the Pennsylvania Department of State, asking Chief U.S. District Judge Harvey Bartle III to dismiss the case.

“Local 98’s PAC wants to keep some of its expenditures hidden from the public, to pick and choose what they’ll show and what they’ll hide,” said the Ethics Board’s executive director, Shane Creamer Jr. “It wants the benefits of being a political action committee, its tax-exempt status and the benefits of giving donations, without any of the responsibilities to show how it’s spending the money.”