United Way Chief: 'Please Support Your AFL-CIO'
Brian Gallagher Prods Charity Workers to Assist Union Lobbyists United Way Worldwide President Brian Gallagher thinks it's a good idea for United Way locals to divert charitable donors' money into Big Labor's lobbying campaign for another round of federal "stimulus" spending. Credit: United Way of America (Source: November-December 2011 National Right to Work Committee Newsletter) For nearly four decades, the National Right to Work Committee has been warning charitable donors that the United Way of America (UWA) was diverting millions of their dollars to AFL-CIO union-boss slush funds. Now such abuses of charitable donations appear to be worse than ever at the United Way Worldwide (UWW), the successor group that came into being in 2009 when the UWA merged with the United Way International. Documents made publicly available by the UWW and AFL-CIO affiliates indicate that today local United Ways bloat their payrolls by employing more than 160 full-time union operatives, known as "AFL-CIO community service liaisons," across the country. And the UWW also openly acknowledges using donors' money to recruit, "train and help place members of organized labor on the decision-making bodies of health and human-service organizations." Moreover, the UWW and many of its affiliates have long operated and continue to operate under "memoranda of understanding" with the AFL-CIO in which they agree to discriminate against goods, services and suppliers that don't wear the union label. Many United Way Donors Have Resisted Discriminatory United Way Policies