UPDATE: A reader, Marc, comments below on this post on union political power (or the lack thereof). I am not trying to change his mind (he probably wasn’t trying to change mine either), but here are some additional things to consider. Unions, by far, spent most of their money on 527 organizations. Corporations (as opposed to individual donors) spent almost exclusively on PACs. Most of the big individual 527 donors also contributed to Kerry (Soros, Lewis, etc.). See the list of big donors (topped by SEIU, AFSCME, as well as the Joint Victory Campaign which received a ton of union dues money) here. Corporate PAC spending (segregated from that of individual donors) was about $200 million while labor PAC spending was around $50 million (that is from here). But labor 527 spending dwarfs corporate 527 spending. For example, of the top ten 527 organizations (including the heavily labor-funded America Coming Together, Media Fund and the Joint Victory Campaign, along with the SEIU and AFSCME) only two opposed Kerry, and only one (Club for Growth with about $12.3 million) could be considered “pro-corporate” at all (the other pro-Bush 527 was Swiftboat Vets for Truth, with $13.8 million in contributions). The rest of the top ten – all supporting Kerry and many funded heavily by unions – took in $271.7 million – “dwarfing” the total PAC spending by corporations. Even if you limit your consideration to the 50 top 527 organizations directly tied to labor organizations you still get $68.5 million in spending (none of the top 50 are related to any specific corporation). As best you can tell from OpenSecrets, spending by unions at least approached (if not exceeded) spending by corporations this cycle. But that tells only half the story. Remember that Marc’s narrative is that big corporations are taking away the voice of the American worker. Over half of the PAC spending by corporations went to Kerry. In other words, corporate campaign contributions probably split about the way the general electorate did. Union political spending, on the other hand, went almost exclusively for Kerry – this despite the fact that over 1/3 of union members voted for Bush. It is true that labor has not fared as well on its legislative agenda over the last four years, and it doesn’t look like that will change in the next four, either. But when you compare labor’s spending to its actual representation in the American workforce (less than 10% of the total private sector workforce) it is impossible to conclude anything other than labor’s political voice far exceeds what one would expect when looking at its numbers. If political power means passing labor reform legislation, then labor is probably not very powerful. If it means being relevant politically then labor remains an enormous power (at least financially).
