During this difficult economic period, is pouring tens of millions into political lobbying the best way for union leaders to be spending members’ hard-earned dues? 

Across the country and entire world, businesses and workers alike are struggling.  Indeed, among those hit hardest are middle- and lower-income workers, the very people whose welfare Big Labor executives piously claim to represent. 

But instead of applying union treasures toward direct assistance to hard-hit workers and their families, labor leaders are instead choosing to spend extravagantly on high-paid lobbyists pushing their self-serving political agenda. 

This week, Service Employees International Union (SEIU) leaders approved a plan to spend some $150 million of its members’ dollars on a lobbying campaign that will cover just the first one hundred days of the new administration.  There’s no telling, of course, how many more millions will follow that first 100 days. 

Regardless, the SEIU’s own website states that its executive board was unanimous in this curious decision.  Although the site claims that the SEIU is fighting for “working people,” its announcement reveals executives’ true motivation: 

SEIU leaders also pledged to continue the union’s unprecedented growth by creating a national plan to unite more than 500,000 new members in the union by 2012.  That would make SEIU the largest union in American history that is not exclusively public-sector... 

But there’s more.  According to the site, this “is just one part of the ‘Justice for All’ plan.”  It also includes “an unprecedented blueprint to transform the union in order to align the members, staff, and resources.” 

So there you have it – making the union “the largest union in American history,” achieving “unprecedented growth” and re-aligning the union is at the forefront of labor executives’ concerns.  Wouldn’t those millions be better-spent toward assistance to laid-off workers, job training, health care for union members or other pressing needs? 

This is particularly embarrassing amid news reports that SEIU President Andy Stern met with disgraced Illinois Governor Rod Blagojevich, precisely during the period in which Blagojevich was under investigation by federal authorities.  In light of this, one would think that union leaders would be especially careful about their political tactics and decisions. 

But leave it to labor executives to set new standards for shamelessness. 

Compounding the shameless and ironic nature of this decision, SEIU leaders had the audacity to demand taxpayer subsidies for the heavily-unionized Detroit automakers.  In other words, the SEIU will spend its members’ dollars lobbying in the halls of Congress, but taxpayers should be required to subsidize automakers whose suicidal labor agreements put them in the position in which they find themselves.  Keep in mind that those labor agreements result in unionized auto workers earning almost three times the average American worker’s earnings. 

Chutzpah, thy name is Andy Stern. 

In addition, this announcement follows a campaign season in which the SEIU spent approximately $85 million toward candidates who promised to promote its agenda. 

And what is that agenda? 

Obviously, something very different than everyday workers’ immediate concerns. 

Leading the Big Labor wish list, of course, is the so-called “Employee Free Choice Act,” which is anything but.  In addition to eliminating the secret ballot during union elections, and exposing workers’ votes for both union thugs and business management to see, this toxic legislation would allow all-powerful arbitrators to unilaterally dictate labor contracts and agreement terms upon employers.  Didn’t Josef Stalin’s five-year plans unsuccessfully attempt the same thing?  This proposed law is so unpopular with the general public that even those in Congress who voted in favor last year are now reconsidering. 

Less-publicized, however, are other destructive agenda items.  The so-called “Paycheck Fairness Act” would allow arrogant judges to impose salaries in the name of supposed “comparable worth,” allow punitive damages against employers even when no intentional violation is established and dramatically broaden class action provisions.  In other words, a trial lawyer and union boss dream-come-true. 

Also on the Big Labor agenda is the Lily Ledbetter “Fair Pay Act,” which effectively eliminates any statute of limitations, and is so malignant that Congressional leaders wouldn’t even hold hearings or allow markups. 

Labor union leaders possess the authority to waste tens of millions of members’ dollars on high-paid lobbyists and political campaigns.  But during a period of great economic difficulty for those members, they should at least cease insulting members’ intelligence by claiming to have their interests foremost on their agenda.