While union bosses are spending hundreds of millions of dollars in forced union dues money to prop up their candidates, union members don’t seem to have the same interest in politics.
The New York Times reports that union bosses and activists are having a tough time motivating their members to get involved in the elections this year. Could it be, perhaps, that members objected to a government takeover of health care that the union bosses pushed so hard? Or perhaps rank and file members are concerned about Washington’s out of control deficit spending — the same deficits that union bosses believe are not big enough. On issue after issue, union bosses spend union dues money on issues and campaigns the rank-and-file members do not support. Perhaps this is the year the rank and file says “no more.”