The ‘Paycheck Protection’ Racket: Tilting the political playing field toward corporate power and away from working Americans | Economic Policy Institute

The ‘Paycheck Protection’ Racket: Tilting the political playing field toward corporate power and away from working Americans | Economic Policy Institute:

Missouri paycheck decption bill mentioned

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On close examination, it is clear that these bills will not create new rights for Missouri employees, and will significantly tilt the political playing field by enabling unlimited corporate political spending while restricting political spending of organized workers.

• Neither SB29 nor HB64 will provide Missouri employees with any new rights that they do not possess under existing law. Under federal law, unions may contribute to congressional or presidential campaigns only through a political action committee funded through separate, voluntary contributions by individual union members. Furthermore, unions’ campaign contributions at the state level—and more general political activities such as lobbying, issue advocacy, ballot initiative campaigns, and independent union advocacy in support of particular candidates—cannot use dues from any individual who objects to these priorities. In other words, it is already the case that under both federal and state law, no employees—whether in the private sector or the public—can be forced to pay to support a political cause they oppose.

• In voicing its support for HB64, the Missouri Chamber of Commerce claims that, under current law, “employees who pay union dues have no say whether campaign contributions are taken out of their dues, or where those contributions are directed” (Missouri Chamber of Commerce 2013). This is false: All union members have a voice in how dues contributions are used, and any employee who doesn’t want his or her dues used for politics is free to either withhold that portion of dues (in the private sector) or withhold the entire dues payment (in the public sector).

• While providing no new rights, SB29 and HB64 would impede union political activity with extensive and onerous bureaucratic roadblocks that would waste valuable resources and hamper unions’ ability to respond to political attacks against labor rights.