Keith Williams: Unions want everyone to vote by mail, but won’t let their own members vote at all

In case you haven’t checked on labor unions in a while, you might still have an image of workers in squalid factories, forced to work night shifts or lose their job, who band together and strike for fair wages and safe conditions. But things have changed a bit since the roaring ’20s.

Instead of fighting corporate CEOs and monopolies, union presidents are now CEOs of their own billion-dollar corporations. And they have a nationwide monopoly called exclusive representation, which requires that every employee in a particular workplace be represented by the same union, whether members or not.

Instead of fighting to protect workers, unions now lobby for a whole catalog of controversial special interests that have nothing to do with the needs of their members. Whatever your stance on abortion or gun control, everyone can agree that dues-paying union members shouldn’t have to fund their union president’s opinions on these social issues one way or the other.

The situation has become so topsy-turvy that unions now lobby even for issues that directly hurt their members. For example, their radical environmentalism kills unionized energy jobs, and their push for mass immigration imports cheaper labor that drives down Americans’ wages.

Not all unions hold the same positions on every policy issue, but their political spending is overwhelmingly partisan. The $1.7 billion that unions spent on the 2016 election was nearly all used to elect Democrats — and this doesn’t even count the millions they donated to electioneering nonprofits.

Now, unions’ focus for the upcoming election is vote-by-mail. AFL-CIO President Richard Trumka called it “the top cause of our Labor 2020 election effort.” In May, the presidents of AFSCME, AFL-CIO, AFT, NEA, and SEIU — America’s five largest unions — joined Sen. Amy Klobuchar (D-Minn.) on a conference call to endorse her new $3.6 billion bill that forcibly expands mail-in voting.

The stated reason for a shift to mail-in voting, of course, is the risk of coronavirus. However, AFSCME President Lee Saunders was clear that the bill also had partisan intentions: “They want to muzzle poor people and people of color,” he claimed. “The GOP can’t win on the merits, so they game the system.”

AFT President Randi Weingarten warned, “We have to ensure our elections are free, fair, and open to all. That’s why this vote-by-mail is so important.” SEIU President Mary Kay Henry added, “It’s critically important every eligible voter be able to cast their ballot this November.”

But it’s not exactly clear why Senate Democrats or unions have invested so heavily in this quixotic campaign. Coronavirus lockdowns have already begun easing, and voting will certainly not be a safety risk by November. And even if we’re being cynical about unions’ partisanship, studies show no evidence that vote-by-mail favors one party over another.

On the other hand, mail voting systems by definition increase turnout for low-effort voters and provide wider opportunities for fraud. Still, it’s not clear how this would benefit unions or their members.

It can’t be that unions simply love democracy and want to ensure everyone has a voice. Otherwise, they’d be open to leadership and recertification elections that offer their own members real choices. But they’re not — here in Pennsylvania, teachers like myself don’t get to vote for the union that represents them. No school district has held an election for union authorization in four decades. The same is true for UFCW, AFSCME and SEIU. And many locals have had the same president for decades.

Some states, such as Wisconsin and Iowa, have passed laws requiring regular workplace elections for public-sector employees, but unions fought them every step of the way. In those states, 51% of members must vote every year to keep their union.

True democracy of this kind brings accountability to union leadership. But in Pennsylvania and other states without regular recertification elections, it’s rare to see dissatisfied members receive anything other than censure or neglect — certainly not a say in their representation.

While union leaders agitate for new voting methods to spread their version of democracy in the 2020 election, they suppress democracy among their own ranks. That’s hypocritical — and it pulls the mask off their partisan intentions.

Keith Williams is Pennsylvania director of Americans for Fair Treatment. He taught high school English for 21 years in Adams County.

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