Patrick Semmens of National Right to Work, which opposes forced unionization, believes any Republican attempt to win elections by relying on union bosses is a fool's errand.
"One might think, 'We're winning here, let's keep attracting [working-class voters] by supporting illegal immigration laws and not trying to eliminate fossil fuels.' Other people for some reason say, 'That's been working but let's not do that, let's try to get the top union officials on our side."
"The idea that there's some deal to be cut with union officials is very misguided. It speaks to the fundamental flaw in reasoning that we see, mostly from Democrats, that says 'We want to be pro-worker. Who represents workers? Union bosses.' But they don't really represent them, they have a monopoly over them," Semmens told The Daily Wire.
"It's bad policy and bad politics."
Reducing LM-2 disclosures could conceal how at-odds union bosses are with the working class. Some unions that will no longer have to file detailed disclosures sent money to groups like ActBlue, Black Lives Matter, and the Democratic National Committee. Without the disclosures, members might not know that's how their money is being spent.
"LM-2s show the salaries, how many officers have the same last name. This is the only way an employee can know if someone who's advocating for a union in their workplace is on the payroll of the union," Semmens said.
While the votes of blue-collar workers can swing an election, organized labor itself is no longer the massive pot of votes that it once was. Private-sector union membership has declined precipitously over the years. Unions have instead become more characteristic of government employment; half of union members in the United States now work for the government.
Semmens said even if some labor groups like the Teamsters consist of mainly Republican members,
"solidarity" means they can't cross their government employee union brethren, for whom protecting jobs means boosting government spending.
"The idea that there would be a separation between the blue-collar and government unions, there is no such distinction," he said.
A 2024 Bureau of Labor Statistics report said
"the highest unionization rates were among workers in education, training, and library occupations." Americans in those fields are unlikely to throw their weight behind a President JD Vance. In 2022, the American Library Association elected as its president a self-proclaimed Marxist lesbian who believes that
"defending libraries is fighting capitalism."
As unions have hemorrhaged blue-collar workers, labor bosses have resorted to keeping the dues money flowing by unionizing new white-collar groups, and drifted further left to appease them. The United Auto Workers has unionized graduate students and adjunct professors on college campuses, which now make up more than a quarter of the union's membership. The Biden administration also let UAW organize National Institutes of Health workers, brushing aside legal concerns as Biden courted the union's endorsement.
Far-left knowledge workers who have never worked in a factory now wear the carcass of an automobile group as a skin-suit. The UAW Higher Education Department's priorities and primary issues are, taken directly from its website:
- We oppose cuts to NIH funding, as well as other essential sources of government funding, and we have sued the Trump administration to reverse cuts to NIH funding.
- We oppose threatening deportation for international workers who participate in Palestine solidarity demonstrations.
- We oppose cuts to socal security, Medicaid, medicare, and the Department of Education.
- We oppose targeting workers and universities for their work on DEI-related issues
- We oppose HR 28 and the Trump administration's regression in Title IX protections.
That means that while the Trump administration pursues action against universities for antisemitism and DEI, a blue-collar private-sector union is working for the opposite.
At the University of California-Berkeley, UAW repurposed the collective bargaining process from one focused on worker safety on the assembly line to one demanding that the school cut ties with Israeli companies. A union committee made a list of
"members of UC Berkeley's Board of Regents who were Jewish or had any connection to Israel," one of whose homes was subsequently vandalized. When a Jewish union member sued, the union asked a judge to bar the litigant from going public about officials' activities.
Unions have historically pressured politicians to make changes to protect their power. After the Waterfront Commission of New York Harbor determined that nearly 20% of the hires proposed by unions there were connected to the Mafia, the International Longshoremen's Association neutered the commission.
Having politicians owe favors to union bosses can put the country in a precarious position. Last year, the ILA threatened to shut down American ports, with significant economic implications, if its members didn't get raises of 60% or more.
"I will cripple you," ILA boss Harold Daggett said, before Biden intervened to broker a deal.
The Teamsters did endorse a Republican for president in 1972, putting their weight behind Richard Nixon just after he commuted the prison sentence of corrupt union president Jimmy Hoffa.
But neither man's story ended well.
