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</div><div>don weiner</div><div>519</div><div>
</div><div>The same corporate-funded groups that bankrolled a successful ten-year campaign to cripple public employee unions by having the U.S. Supreme Court strike down “fair share” fees for nonmembers in Janus v. AFSCME last year are now suing to retroactively recover fees paid before the Court’s ruling.This is the latest move in the right-wing’s quest to <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2017/aug/30/rightwing-alliance-unions-defund-defang" target="blank" rel="noopener noreferrer" style="background-image: initial; background-position: 0px 0px; background-size: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-attachment: initial; background-origin: initial; background-clip: initial; box-sizing: inherit; transition: all 500ms ease-in-out 0s; text-decoration-line: none;">“defund and defang”</a> public sector unions with a goal of delivering a “mortal blow” to progressive politics, and mirrors similar “clawback” suits filed across the country over the past year.Two groups that spearheaded the Janus case, the <a href="https://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php?title=Liberty_Justice_Center" target="blank" rel="noopener noreferrer" style="background-image: initial; background-position: 0px 0px; background-size: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-attachment: initial; background-origin: initial; background-clip: initial; box-sizing: inherit; transition: all 500ms ease-in-out 0s; text-decoration-line: none;">Liberty Justice Center</a> (LJC) and <a href="https://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php?title=National_Right_to_Work_Legal_Defense_Foundation" target="blank" rel="noopener noreferrer" style="background-image: initial; background-position: 0px 0px; background-size: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-attachment: initial; background-origin: initial; background-clip: initial; box-sizing: inherit; transition: all 500ms ease-in-out 0s; text-decoration-line: none;">National Right to Work Legal Defense Foundation</a> (NRTWLDF), have now filed a federal lawsuit in Illinois seeking repayment of $2 million in fair share fees paid by 2,700 Illinois public employees to the American Federation of State, County and Municipal Employees (AFSCME) between May 1, 2017 and June 27, 2018.Public employee unions are required to represent all workers, whether they join the union or not, so unions have collected <a href="https://www.epi.org/publication/janus-and-fair-share-fees-the-organizations-financing-the-attack-on-unions-ability-to-represent-workers/" target="blank" rel="noopener noreferrer" style="box-sizing: inherit; background: 0px 0px; transition: all 500ms ease-in-out 0s; text-decoration-line: none;">“fair share” fees</a>, also known as agency fees, for many decades to cover the basic costs of bargaining for higher wages and benefits. That practice was upheld by the Supreme Court unanimously in Abood v. Detroit Board of Education in 1977, but the Court turned its back on that precedent in <a href="https://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php?title=Janus_vs.AFSCME,U.S.Supreme_Court_Case" target="blank" rel="noopener noreferrer" style="box-sizing: inherit; background: 0px 0px; transition: all 500ms ease-in-out 0s; text-decoration-line: none;">the Janus case</a> and struck them down on First Amendment grounds.A similar lawsuit by the two groups filed in a different federal district court was thrown out earlier this year when the judge ruled that AFSCME had collected the dues “in good faith.”“That ruling echoes what more than a dozen other federal and state courts have decided in similar cases,” AFSCME spokesman Anders Lindall <a href="https://www.chicagotribune.com/news/local/breaking/ct-met-fair-share-lawsuit-20190501-story.html" target="blank" rel="noopener noreferrer" style="box-sizing: inherit; background: 0px 0px; transition: all 500ms ease-in-out 0s; text-decoration-line: none;">told</a> the Chicago Tribune. “The anti-worker, corporate-funded front groups prolonging this failed litigation want to use the courts to further their political attack on working people and our union. Their repeated lawsuits are nothing but a greedy grab for more.”In its Janus decision, the Court’s majority acknowledged that public sector unions would now have to represent nonunion members even without their agency fees, creating an entire class of free-riders.With respect to both lawsuits and the earlier Janus case, public sector unions note that the plaintiffs never complained about receiving the wage increases, health insurance coverage, vacation time, and other benefits that the union negotiated for on their behalf.In addition to the new lawsuit, LJC and NRTWLDF <a href="https://www.sj-r.com/news/20190327/former-state-worker-janus-asks-court-to-order-union-fee-repayment" target="blank" rel="noopener noreferrer" style="box-sizing: inherit; background: 0px 0px; transition: all 500ms ease-in-out 0s; text-decoration-line: none;">have appealed</a> the original case to the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Seventh Circuit.
<h2 style="box-sizing: inherit; line-height: 1.2; margin: 0px 0px 10px; word-spacing: 3.6px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">Lawsuits Bankrolled by Corporate Foundations and a Megadonor</h2><a href="https://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php?title=Richard_Uihlein" target="blank" rel="noopener noreferrer" style="background-image: initial; background-position: 0px 0px; background-size: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-attachment: initial; background-origin: initial; background-clip: initial; box-sizing: inherit; transition: all 500ms ease-in-out 0s; text-decoration-line: none;">Richard Uihlein</a>, an Illinois businessman and GOP megadonor, the Koch brothers’ donor network, and the Milwaukee-based Bradley Foundation have bankrolled much of the groups’ legal war on public sector unions.The LJC, part of the right-wing <a href="https://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php?title=Illinois_Policy_Institute" target="blank" rel="noopener noreferrer" style="box-sizing: inherit; background-image: initial; background-position: 0px 0px; background-size: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-attachment: initial; background-origin: initial; background-clip: initial; transition: all 500ms ease-in-out 0s; text-decoration-line: none;">Illinois Policy Institute</a> at the time of the Janus ruling, has received $1.7 million since 2010 from the Koch donor network’s funding vehicles, Donors Trust and Donors Capital Fund, and $320,000 since 2009 from the Bradley Foundation, which the Center for Media and Democracy (CMD) exposed in a <a href="https://www.exposedbycmd.org/bradley-files/" target="blank" rel="noopener noreferrer" style="box-sizing: inherit; background-image: initial; background-position: 0px 0px; background-size: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-attachment: initial; background-origin: initial; background-clip: initial; transition: all 500ms ease-in-out 0s; text-decoration-line: none;">series of articles</a> in 2017.Uihlein has given over <a href="https://www.propublica.org/article/illinois-policy-institute-john-tillman-transactions" target="blank" rel="noopener noreferrer" style="background-image: initial; background-position: 0px 0px; background-size: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-attachment: initial; background-origin: initial; background-clip: initial; box-sizing: inherit; transition: all 500ms ease-in-out 0s; text-decoration-line: none;">$8.6 million</a> to Illinois Policy Institute since 2009 and at least another <a href="https://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php?title=Ed_Uihlein_Family_Foundation" target="blank" rel="noopener noreferrer" style="background-image: initial; background-position: 0px 0px; background-size: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-attachment: initial; background-origin: initial; background-clip: initial; box-sizing: inherit; transition: all 500ms ease-in-out 0s; text-decoration-line: none;">$800,000</a> since 2014 to LJC. Uihlein is notoriously anti-union and spent millions to support the gubernatorial campaigns of the anti-worker governors Scott Walker and Bruce Rauner.Uihlein has also given <a href="https://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php?title=Ed_Uihlein_Family_Foundation" target="blank" rel="noopener noreferrer" style="box-sizing: inherit; background: 0px 0px; transition: all 500ms ease-in-out 0s; text-decoration-line: none;">$300,000</a> since 2014 to NRTWLDF, which has received $1.3 million since 2003 from Bradley and $833,000 since 2010 from DonorsTrust and Donors Capital Fund, according to IRS filings.LJC’s most recent <a href="https://www.documentcloud.org/documents/6022369-Liberty-Justice-Center-2017-990.html" target="blank" rel="noopener noreferrer" style="box-sizing: inherit; background: 0px 0px; transition: all 500ms ease-in-out 0s; text-decoration-line: none;">IRS 990 filing</a> shows that its revenue jumped from $494,000 in its fiscal year 2016 to $692,000 in 2017, a 40 percent increase, while it was working on the Janus case. LJC’s chair, John Tillman, was paid over $400,000 in 2017 from affiliated nonprofits, principally the Illinois Policy Institute.LJC is a member of the State Policy Network (SPN). In the states, SPN groups peddle cookie-cutter “studies” to back the American Legislative Exchange Council’s (ALEC) agenda.Bradley Foundation grants to SPN “affiliate” and “associate” members stretch back decades and amount to approximately $133 million, according to Bradley grant summary documents <a href="https://www.exposedbycmd.org/2017/09/05/bradley-foundation-funnels-millions-state-policy-network-groups/" target="blank" rel="noopener noreferrer" style="box-sizing: inherit; background: 0px 0px; transition: all 500ms ease-in-out 0s; text-decoration-line: none;">tallied</a> by CMD.A 2016 Bradley internal file on SPN <a href="https://www.exposedbycmd.org/2017/09/05/bradley-foundation-funnels-millions-state-policy-network-groups/" target="blank" rel="noopener noreferrer" style="box-sizing: inherit; background: 0px 0px; transition: all 500ms ease-in-out 0s; text-decoration-line: none;">notes</a> that SPN’s focus in recent years has been on “catalyzing further efforts to curb public-sector unions’ excesses” and “mobilizing nonprofits, donors and citizens to uphold the principles of donor privacy and freedom of speech.” The right-wing effort is part of a concerted campaign to bankrupt unions in order to cripple the Democratic Party and, more broadly, the progressive movement.The new wave of legal assaults on public employee unions as we head into the 2020 elections appears to be the latest stage of that campaign.David Armiak contributed research to this report.</div><div></div><div><a href="https://www.exposedbycmd.org/2018/06/27/trumps-supreme-court-strikes-blow-government-workers-good-paying-jobs/">https://www.exposedbycmd.org/2018/06/27/trumps-supreme-court-strikes-blow-government-workers-good-paying-jobs/</a>In a major blow to organized labor and good paying government jobs, the U.S. Supreme Court ruled today that government workers who choose not to join a union cannot be charged fees to reimburse the union for the cost of representing them in collective bargaining.The decision was 5-4 in the Janus vs. AFSCME Council 31 case, with Trump appointee Neil Gorsuch supplying the deciding vote. Justice Samuel Alito, who actively invited a challenge to union fees, wrote the decision for the Court’s right-wing majority.In today’s decision, Alito wrote that the fees, called “agency fees,” violated the First Amendment. In doing so, Alito overruled a 41-year-old Supreme Court decision legalizing these fees in the Abood vs. Detroit Board of Education decision.The decision ushers in “right to work” style conditions for public employees in states across the nation. These anti-union measures <a href="http://www.labornotes.org/blogs/2017/08/racist-who-pioneered-right-work-laws" target="blank" rel="noopener" style="box-sizing: inherit; background: 0px 0px; transition: all 500ms ease-in-out; text-decoration-line: none;">originated in the Jim Crow South</a> as a means of undermining unions who were organizing black and white workers together in the same shop. Predictably, Koch brothers groups–such as Americans for Prosperity, the American Legislative Exchange Council (ALEC), and the State Policy Network–cheered the ruling, while union leaders prepared to renegotiate thousands of contracts and deal with a new legal landscape for unions across the land.<h2 style="box-sizing: inherit; line-height: 1.2; margin: 0px 0px 10px; text-transform: uppercase; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">CROWN JEWEL IN ASSAULT ON UNIONS BY RIGHT-WING BILLIONAIRES AND CORPORATIONS</h2>The case should be seen in the context of a sustained assault by extremist billionaires, corporations, and foundation on unions, the organized voice of working families and a major player in campaigns and elections on the Democratic side.Over the past decade, as ALEC legislators aggressively advanced union-busting bills in red states like Wisconsin, Michigan, West Virginia and Kentucky, a slew of rapid fire cases were advanced by allied groups in blue states, as Center for Media and Democracy detailed in an <a href="http://inthesetimes.com/features/janus_supreme_court_unions_investigation.html" target="blank" rel="noopener" style="box-sizing: inherit; background: 0px 0px; transition: all 500ms ease-in-out; text-decoration-line: none;">award-winning article</a> on the Janus case. A number of these cases, including Knox v. SEIU (2012), Harris v. Quinn (2014), and Friederichs v. California Teachers Association (2016), made it to the U.S. Supreme Court and were used by Justice Alito to justify the Janus decision.The Janus case originated with Republican Governor Bruce Rauner of Illinois. The American Federation of State County and Municipal Workers (AFSCME) represents state workers in Illinois and campaigned hard against the venture-capitalist in his 2014 race for governor. When Rauner was found not to have standing, attorneys from the <a href="https://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php/Illinois_Policy_Institute" target="blank" rel="noopener" style="background-image: initial; background-position: 0px 0px; background-size: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-attachment: initial; background-origin: initial; background-clip: initial; box-sizing: inherit; transition: all 500ms ease-in-out; text-decoration-line: none;">Illinois Policy Institute</a>–a State Policy Network think tank–substituted Illinois child care worker Mark Janus as the lead plaintiff. Rauner said that “taking this issue on was one of my primary reasons for running for governor in the first place,” and flew to Washington, DC this week to await the ruling.The case involves the obscure technical issue of agency fees. In over 20 states, even if public sector workers do not want to be represented by a union, they must pay agency or “fair share fees” to cover the cost of their representation. These fees were ruled fair and constitutional in 1977 by the U.S. Supreme Court in the Abood decision, to prevent a “free rider” problem and because unions are legally required to represent all workers in a bargaining unit. The fees fund the unions’ collective bargaining process and other services they provide to state workers; they cannot be used for political action.Justice Alito wrote that the free rider problem was not a “compelling state interest.”<h2 style="box-sizing: inherit; line-height: 1.2; margin: 0px 0px 10px; text-transform: uppercase; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">“WEAPONIZING” THE FIRST AMENDMENT</h2>Dissenting justices portrayed the case is a radical re-write of labor law, with dramatic consequences for dozens of states and thousands of binding contracts.“There is no sugarcoating today’s opinion. The majority overthrows a decision entrenched in this Nation’s law–and in its economic life–for over 40 years,” wrote Kagan,who read her dissent from the bench. In doing so the Court has “weaponized the First Amendment,” she said.The radical nature of the case was explained by Justice Kagan during oral arguments:<blockquote style="box-sizing: inherit; margin: 40px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">Twenty-three states, the District of Columbia, Puerto Rico, all would have their statutes declared unconstitutional at once. Thousands of municipalities would have contracts invalidated. Those contracts probably cover millions, maybe up to over 10 million, workers. So property and contract rights, the statutes of many states and the livelihoods of millions of individuals affected all at once. When have we ever done something like that? What would be the justification for doing something like that?</blockquote>Kagan also wrote that in overturning Abood the Court “disregards the defining characteristic of this free-rider argument–that unions, unlike those many other private groups, must serve members and non-members alike…. That special feature was what justified Abood.”“But the worse part of today’s opinion is where the majority subverts all known principles of stare decisis,” the principle that rulings should be based on precedent, Kagan wrote. The majority can’t just “throw some gratuitous criticisms into a couple of opinions and a few years later point to them as ‘special justifications’ for their actions,” she said.Randi Weingarten of the American Federation of Teachers had previously stressed this point. “Rarely is there a situation where a next-generation Supreme Court overrules or changes precedent of a unanimously decided opinion. This is a completely ideological movement to end unions as we know it and to redefine the First Amendment as a weapon against people,” <a href="http://blogs.edweek.org/edweek/teacherbeat/2018/05/randi_weingarten_qa.html" target="blank" rel="noopener" style="box-sizing: inherit; background: 0px 0px; transition: all 500ms ease-in-out; text-decoration-line: none;">she said</a>.<h2 style="box-sizing: inherit; line-height: 1.2; margin: 0px 0px 10px; text-transform: uppercase; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">TRUMP COURT ATTACKS BOTH PRIVATE AND PUBLIC SECTOR WORKERS</h2>The decision, along with the recent <a href="https://host.madison.com/ct/opinion/column/mary-bottari-epic-fail-supreme-court-turns-back-clock-to/article_2d61881f-950f-5281-8822-68bf06669a28.htm" target="blank" rel="noopener" style="background-image: initial; background-position: 0px 0px; background-size: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-attachment: initial; background-origin: initial; background-clip: initial; box-sizing: inherit; transition: all 500ms ease-in-out; text-decoration-line: none;">EPIC Systems v. Lewis</a> case, will make the Trump-Gorsuch court one of the worst for working families in history. Gorsuch wrote the May 2018 EPIC Systems decision, which held that businesses can prohibit their workers from banding together to battle their employers in court in disputes over a wide array of issues such as wage theft, sexual harassment, civil rights, and gender discrimination.“This is probably the most relentlessly anti-democratic and specifically anti-worker court since the ‘Lochner Era’ of the late 19th and early 20th century,” University of Wisconsin Law Professor Joel Rogers told the Center for Media and Democracy.“But Janus shows it’s arguably worse, since it doesn’t even respect freedom of contract. This Court doesn’t stand for the ‘rule of law,’ which means putting constraints on the arbitrary and abusive use of power. It’s ‘let’s concoct a legal justification for giving abuse a free rein,'” said Rogers. The 1905 Lochner case held that limits on the work day or work week violated the Constitution.“These are two devastating 5-4 decisions–two decisions that could have easily gone the other way but for the sabotage of the appointment of Merrick Garland,” said Courtlyn Roser-Jones, visiting Assistant Professor at the Ohio State Mortiz College of Law. Garland was appointed by President Obama in 2016, but the Republican Senate refused to confirm him leading to Trump’s appointment of Neil Gorsuch.The Janus decision could lead to weaker unions, lower wages for government workers, and poorer public services.“We are living in a system that is rigged to benefit special interests and billionaires, all at the expense of working people. Today’s radical decision by the Supreme Court is a blatant slap in the face for educators, nurses, firefighters, police officers and all public servants who make our communities strong and safe… [U]nions will continue to be the best vehicle on the path to the middle class,” said Lily Eskelsen García, President of the National Education Association.And the agenda is broader that just unions, the court is going after the policies that unions advocate for, say experts.“This is a concerted, corporate-funded effort to get rid of public employee unions–to stop them from advocating for higher minimum wages, affordable healthcare or a right to paid sick leave, to stop them winning wages and benefits that force private sector employers to raise their own wages, and to stop them from insisting on a level of public services–schools, libraries, transportation and more–that we all have a right to just by dint of being citizens,” said Gordon Lafer, a professor at the University of Oregon’s Labor Education and Research Center.<h2 style="box-sizing: inherit; line-height: 1.2; margin: 0px 0px 10px; text-transform: uppercase; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">TEAM TRUMP IS BUILDING A LASTING ANTI-WORKER LEGACY, BUT UNIONS ARE FIGHTING BACK</h2>The Trump administration frequently claims to be on the side of the little guy, but it is building a strong track record of harming workers and working families in the courts, in Congress, and in administrative agencies.The 2018 EPIC Systems ruling will harm millions of non-union workers who will be newly subject to arbitration. The huge tax cuts for the wealthy and corporations in the Tax Cuts and Jobs Act signed into law by Trump the end of 2017 will exacerbate an already profound income inequality gap between the wealthy and working families. And the Trump administration has aggressively rolled back a 2016 rule strengthening overtime protections for low- and middle-income workers, and took steps to gut regulations that protect restaurant workers from having their tips taken by their employers. Michael Arria noted in <a href="https://www.salon.com/2017/09/17/in-attacking-overtime-pay-trump-is-hurting-his-biggest-fans_partner/" target="blank" rel="noopener" style="box-sizing: inherit; background: 0px 0px; transition: all 500ms ease-in-out; text-decoration-line: none;">Salon</a> that by “attacking overtime pay, Trump is hurting his biggest fans.”But unions are not sitting idly by. Massive teachers’ strikes have succeeded in winning major concessions for government workers in multiple states. “Don’t count us out,” said AFT’s Weingarten. “Workers are sticking with their unions, because they know that unions are the best vehicle for workers to get ahead.”Richard Trumka, the head of the national AFL-CIO, also noted the recent revival of organized labor. “All over the country, workers are organizing and taking collected action as we haven’t seen in years. More than 14,000 workers recently formed or joined unions in just a single week. This followed a year where 262,000 workers organized and the approval of unions reached a new high.”“The corporate narrative of the labor movement’s downfall is being dismantled by working people every single day,” said Trumka.<hr style="box-sizing: content-box; height: 0px; border-right: 0px; border-bottom: 0px; border-left: 0px; border-image: initial; border-collapse: collapse; border-top-style: solid; border-top-color: rgb(221, 221, 221); clear: both; margin: 1em 0px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);" />Mary Bottari</div><a href="https://www.alternet.org/news-amp-politics/billionaire-wolves-think-they-can-fool-us-wearing-workers-clothing">https://www.alternet.org/news-amp-politics/billionaire-wolves-think-they-can-fool-us-wearing-workers-clothing</a>gerard prz steelworkers
Hundred millionaire Bruce Rauner just couldn’t wait to tell Illinois state workers that the U.S. Supreme Court had given them what he considered a gift.Within hours of the court’s ruling in the Janus case last week, Rauner, the Republican governor of Illinois, emailed state workers to tell them the decision meant they no longer needed to pay either dues or fair share fees to their labor union but the union would still be required to represent them.What a deal! Free service! And it was <a href="https://www.chicagotribune.com/news/local/politics/ct-met-bruce-rauner-janus-afscme-20180604-story.html" style="text-decoration-line: none;">brought to them by Rauner</a>! The governor had filed the lawsuit that led to the Janus decision. When a court tossed him as plaintiff, the right-wing foundations whose billionaire donors paid for the lawsuit drummed up replacement plaintiffs including Mark Janus. He’s an Illinois child support worker who refused to join the union and pay dues and who didn’t even want to pay the smaller fair share fee of <a href="https://www.chicagotribune.com/news/local/politics/ct-met-bruce-rauner-janus-afscme-20180604-story.html" style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); text-decoration-line: none;">$45 a month</a> charged to non-members to cover the union’s costs of bargaining for the...it was that fee that the Supreme Court said government workers had a free speech right not to pay. The court said unions do not have a corresponding free speech right to refuse to represent non-members.While Rauner was sending his email urging Illinois workers to bankrupt their unions, right-wing “foundations” across the country started spending the tens of millions they’d <a href="https://portside.org/2018-07-03/right-wing-business-funded-groups-are-preparing-use-janus-decision-bleed-unions-internal" style="text-decoration-line: none;">received from billionaires like the Walton family and giant corporations like AT&T</a> to do the same thing. These groups are emailing, calling and visiting the homes of government workers.Of course, right-wing billionaires couldn’t be expected to do this work themselves. Work up a sweat walking door-to-door? No way!  So they set up these “foundations” to hire stand-ins, people who look like regular Joes and who are trained to mouth billionaire propaganda. These “regular Joes” will tell state and local government workers that they can give themselves a raise by starving their labor union of funds and still get first-rate union representation. These are wolves in workers’ clothing.The Guardian newspaper[linx xxx] revealed in May that the State Policy Network, a group devoted to causes favoring right-wing billionaires and corporations, had raised $80 million and organized 66 similarly radical “foundations” across the country to destroy labor unions. They prepared an anti-union toolkit to personally target government workers as soon as the court handed down the Janus decision.The toolkit includes advice for anti-union canvassers, including: when talking to union members, dumb down language and pretend to care about them. It says canvassers should say to union members, “the best interest of union leaders should never be placed above the best interest of union members.”
Wisconsin is right-wing union haters’ touchstone. There, an extremist Republican governor and legislature adopted draconian anti-union measures, restricting issues that government workers could raise in collective bargaining, forbidding fair share fees and requiring unions to recertify every year by receiving affirmative votes from more than half of members and assuming those who did not participate had voted against the union.Of course, it neglects to urge the canvassers to say, “the best interests of billionaires should never be placed above the best interest of workers.”One Wisconsin labor organization representing teachers <a href="https://portside.org/2018-07-03/right-wing-business-funded-groups-are-preparing-use-janus-decision-bleed-unions-internal" style="text-decoration-line: none;">lost 60 percent of its members</a>. Overall in Wisconsin, the percentage of union members in the workforce <a href="https://portside.org/2018-07-03/right-wing-business-funded-groups-are-preparing-use-janus-decision-bleed-unions-internal" style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); text-decoration-line: none;">declined from 14.1 percent in 2011 to 9 percent in 2016</a>. Simultaneously, pay and benefits declined. For teachers, salaries sank <a href="https://portside.org/2018-07-03/right-wing-business-funded-groups-are-preparing-use-janus-decision-bleed-unions-internal" style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); text-decoration-line: none;">2.6 percent and benefits dropped 18.6 percent</a>.Losing the power of collective bargaining didn’t work out so well for these workers. But right-wingers believe workers are stupid and must be talked down to, so persuading them to quit their labor organizations and ultimately bankrupt them will be easy.This is more than an effort by billionaires to slash workers’ income. It’s also a campaign to steal workers’ political power, to silence them. The more unions that billionaires can bankrupt, the less money available to support candidates and causes that help workers.
It was, after all, a Democratic president and Democratic Congresses that created a clear legal path for workers to form labor unions and that created Social Security, Medicaid, Medicare, and the Affordable Care Act requiring insurance companies to cover people with pre-existing conditions.None of nonmembers’ fair share fees can be used on politics. But unions spend a small portion of members’ dues money to support issues important to workers and on political candidates who pledge to secure programs like Social Security and Medicare. That is almost always Democratic candidates.Tom McCabe, the millionaire CEO of the Freedom Foundation, one of the State Policy Network anti-union groups, told the Guardian,[v lnx] “Our goal is to help people who we believe are being held in bondage against their will.” The State Policy Network wrote its donors that it would “rescue” government workers from unions.Right. That’s billionaires riding in on their white stallions to “free” working people from their bonds to labor unions, the organizations workers created to secure better wages and working conditions for themselves.Economic self-interest could prompt some workers to drop out of unions if they think they can get the benefits of being in a union for free.But workers may not like being talked down to by flunkies for billionaires. And despite what the State Policy Network thinks, workers are not stupid. They know if their unions have less money, they’ll be weaker in negotiations and politics. They know that what happened to workers in Wisconsin could happen to them.They know that massive strikes this year by ill-paid teachers in West Virginia, Oklahoma, Arizona and Kentucky – <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2018/06/27/opinion/janus-supreme-court-worker-militant-action-unions.html?action=click&module=Intentional&pgtype=Article" style="text-decoration-line: none;">states that forbid teachers to strike</a> – won raises for them and other state employees.The American Federation of Teachers (AFT) <a href="https://www.theatlantic.com/politics/archive/2018/06/janus-afscme-public-sector-unions/563879/" style="text-decoration-line: none;">added 1,250 members</a> in West Virginia after the teacher walk out there, and the National Education Association (NEA) <a href="https://www.theatlantic.com/politics/archive/2018/06/janus-afscme-public-sector-unions/563879/" style="text-decoration-line: none;">signed 2.2 percent more</a> members in states where teachers struck.Though membership had been declining for decades, unions <a href="https://www.epi.org/publication/biggest-gains-in-union-membership-in-2017-were-for-younger-workers/" style="text-decoration-line: none;">added 262,000 members</a> last year. And now they’ve got the <a href="https://www.csmonitor.com/Business/2018/0627/Court-ruling-a-blow-not-a-knockout-to-public-unions" style="text-decoration-line: none;">support of 61 percent of Americans</a>, up from a low of 48 percent in 2009.Also, union members are talking to union members about the value of sticking with the union. Members of the <a href="https://www.theatlantic.com/politics/archive/2018/06/janus-afscme-public-sector-unions/563879/" style="text-decoration-line: none;">AFT are meeting one-on-one</a> with teachers in 10 states, asking them to sign cards recommitting themselves to the union. They’ve got 530,000 so far, and are working toward the full 1.7 million members.So that knock at the door might be a fellow union member and not a billionaire’s flunky after all.=ref
<a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2018/02/25/business/economy/labor-court-conservatives.html">https://www.nytimes.com/2018/02/25/business/economy/labor-court-conservatives.html</a>?smid=tw-shareBehind a Key Anti-Labor Case, a Web of Conservative DonorsBy NOAM SCHEIBER and KENNETH P. VOGELFEB. 25, 2018
In the summer of 2016, government workers in Illinois received a mailing that offered them tips on how to leave their union. By paying a so-called fair-share fee instead of standard union dues, the mailing said, they would no longer be bound by union rules and could not be punished for refusing to strike.“To put it simply,” the document concluded, “becoming a fair-share payer means you will have more freedom.”The mailing, sent by a group called the Illinois Policy Institute, may have seemed like disinterested advice. In fact, it was one prong of a broader campaign against public-sector unions, backed by some of the biggest donors on the right. It is an effort that will reach its apex on Monday, when the Supreme Court hears a case that could cripple public-sector unions by allowing the workers they represent to avoid paying fees.One of the institute’s largest donors is a foundation bankrolled by Richard Uihlein, an Illinois industrialist who has spent millions backing Republican candidates in recent years, including Gov. Scott Walker of Wisconsin, Senator Ted Cruz of Texas and Gov. Bruce Rauner of Illinois.Tax filings show that Mr. Uihlein has also been the chief financial backer in recent years of the Liberty Justice Center, which represents Mark Janus, the Illinois child support specialist who is the plaintiff in the Supreme Court case.And Mr. Uihlein has donated well over $1 million over the years to groups like the Federalist Society that work to orient the judiciary in a more conservative direction. They have helped produce a Supreme Court that most experts expect to rule in Mr. Janus’s favor.The case illustrates the cohesiveness with which conservative philanthropists have taken on unions in recent decades. “It’s a mistake to look at the Janus case and earlier litigation as isolated episodes,” said Alexander Hertel-Fernandez, a Columbia University political scientist who studies conservative groups. “It’s part of a multipronged, multitiered strategy.”In doing so, these donors have not just brought labor to the brink of crisis but threatened the Democratic Party as well.Amid changes in the campaign finance landscape and the decline of private-sector unions, the party and its candidates have increasingly relied on major public unions for funding, including hundreds of millions of dollars in direct and indirect spending during the 2016 presidential cycle. Those unions include the American Federation of State, County and Municipal Employees, whose Council 31 is the defendant in the Janus case.Mark Janus, the plaintiff in a Supreme Court case challenging mandatory union fees, at the Illinois State Capitol. Credit Whitney Curtis for The New York TimesA recent paper by Mr. Hertel-Fernandez and two colleagues may foretell what Democrats can expect if Mr. Uihlein and his fellow philanthropists succeed. It found that the Democratic share of the presidential vote dropped by an average of 3.5 percentage points after the passage of so-called right-to-work laws allowing employees to avoid paying union fees. That is larger than Democrats’ margin of defeat in several states that could have reversed their last three presidential losses.And that is clearly on the mind of Republicans. In a recent interview, the Senate majority leader, Mitch McConnell of Kentucky, acknowledged the potential of the Janus case to hurt Democratic fund-raising for the coming midterm elections. “In states where they got rid of the automatic deduction and employees figured they could keep their own money, they did,” he said. “So it could have an impact.”Conservative groups aren’t alone in locking arms to advance an ideological agenda. For decades, liberal donors and foundations, sometimes working together through coalitions like the Democracy Alliance, have promoted liberal goals in a variety of ways. Some backed groups, like the NAACP Legal Defense Fund and the GLBTQ Legal Advocates & Defenders, that used litigation to move American society leftward.But the extent of the coordination on the right often dwarfs liberal efforts. Especially on the state level, conservative groups are “doing different things, mobilizing different constituencies,” Mr. Hertel-Fernandez said. “But they’re all working with one another. You don’t see the same thing on the left.”As the percentage of unionized private-sector workers has collapsed in recent decades, public-sector unions, which have held steady in the mid-30s since the early 1980s, have increasingly become a target.Conservatives chafe at the unions’ political influence, which they believe not only props up the Democratic Party but also drives up government spending and skews public policy on issues like education.In 2011, Wisconsin rolled back the right of most public unions to bargain over anything other than wages and eliminated the requirement that nonmembers pay fees. The portion of unionized public-sector workers in the state plummeted from half to just over one-quarter within five years.In seeking to produce similar results nationally, conservative donors have created a symbiosis between groups aiming to overturn Supreme Court precedent favorable to unions and groups that take advantage of those rulings to drain unions of members.The Lynde and Harry Bradley Foundation of Wisconsin, which had over $800 million in assets in 2016, has funded both kinds of organizations.In a 2014 case brought by a group that had received more than $1 million in contributions from the Bradley Foundation, the Supreme Court ruled that home-care aides and other “partial-public employees” paid through Medicaid could not be forced to pay fair-share fees if they left their unions. Unions say these fees, typically about 80 percent of standard dues, are necessary to compensate them for representing nonmembers in bargaining and grievance proceedings.A fund-raising solicitation from the Illinois Policy Institute, one of several groups that have fueled efforts to weaken public-sector unions.Then in 2016, the court heard a case, Friedrichs v. California Teachers Association, that could have struck down fair-share fee requirements for all public employees represented by unions in more than 20 states, including California, Illinois and New York. The case was brought by a group that has received millions of dollars from the Bradley Foundation.During 2015 and 2016, the foundation also substantially increased its contributions, totaling well over $1 million, to groups like the Independence Institute of Colorado and the Freedom Foundation of Washington State. Those groups have used such tools as direct mail, phone calls and door knocking to persuade public-sector workers to give up union membership.Richard Graber, the chief executive of the Bradley Foundation, said the foundation avoided short-term tactical considerations in its giving. But he acknowledged that the increase was driven partly by the recent Supreme Court developments, which promised to make such opt-out campaigns more compelling for union members. (Some conservative groups are currently raising money for even more ambitious opt-out campaigns to take advantage of a favorable ruling this year.)Our columnist Andrew Ross Sorkin and his Times colleagues help you make sense of major business and policy headlines — and the power-brokers who shape them.In February 2016, the month after the Supreme Court heard the Friedrichs case, Justice Antonin Scalia died, depriving conservatives of a decisive fifth vote to strike down mandatory union fees. That gave the Liberty Justice Center, backed by Mr. Uihlein, a chance to try again.Few philanthropists have funded a more sweeping assault on labor than Mr. Uihlein, who with his wife, Elizabeth, founded a Wisconsin-based shipping supply company called Uline.Mr. Uihlein is an ardent conservative who considers many Republican office holders too moderate on fiscal and social issues, according to those who know him.“It’s not just politics for him,” said his friend Leonard A. Leo, the Federalist Society executive vice president, who declined to offer specifics on Mr. Uihlein’s views. “I think he is philosophically attuned to conservative ideas,” added Mr. Leo, whom the Trump White House enlisted to shepherd the Supreme Court nomination of Neil M. Gorsuch, Justice Scalia’s successor.The Uihleins have spent tens of millions of dollars over the past decade supporting Republican candidates and committees. That includes contributions to super PACs backing the 2016 presidential campaigns of Mr. Walker and Mr. Cruz, and at least $250,000 to help Mr. Walker survive a 2012 recall election. (Mr. Uihlein did not respond to a request for comment.)The Uihleins appear to be preoccupied with state employee pensions and the unions that negotiate them.“Bruce is the only one in the race who isn’t beholden to public-sector unions,” Mr. Uihlein said of Mr. Rauner, the year before his 2014 election as Illinois governor, in an interview with Crain’s Business Chicago. The Uihleins gave more than $2.5 million to his campaign.Justice Neil Gorsuch speaking in November before the Federalist Society, which seeks a judiciary aligned with conservative values. He filled the Supreme Court seat vacated by Justice Antonin Scalia, who died in 2016. Credit Sait Serkan Gurbuz/Associated PressMr. Rauner has been a major ally in the fight against public-sector unions. Shortly after taking office in 2015, he challenged the constitutionality of mandatory union fees in federal court.By the time a judge ruled that Mr. Rauner lacked standing for his lawsuit, the Illinois Policy Institute, which drew more than one-third of its $5.8 million in revenue that year from Mr. Uihlein’s foundation, had found a viable plaintiff to replace him: Mark Janus. The Liberty Justice Center and the National Right to Work Legal Defense Foundation, which Mr. Uihlein also contributes to, represented Mr. Janus in court.Since then, the policy institute has sought to persuade state employees to leave their union through its mailing campaign. It said it had obtained employees’ names through Freedom of Information Act requests.Mr. Rauner’s administration has amplified the institute’s message, and vice versa. In an August 2016 email to state workers, the administration highlighted a benefit of giving up union membership and urged workers to visit a website that would help them do so. The policy institute soon promoted the same website and provided similar guidance in its mailings to state workers.Mr. Uihlein’s foundation has supplemented these efforts by supporting a nonprofit called Think Freely Media, which uses storytelling techniques to champion free-market ideas, including right-to-work laws. The Uihlein foundation contributed more than $1.5 million to Think Freely from 2014 to 2016, the last year for which tax records are available.At the center of this network is a longtime conservative activist named John Tillman, who serves as the chief executive of the Illinois Policy Institute as well as the chairman of the Liberty Justice Center and Think Freely Media.In an interview, Mr. Tillman, who managed a call center earlier in his career and talked up his “marketing-centric approach” to promoting free enterprise, said the institute is fighting the enormous power of union leaders but is not anti-union per se.“In the late 1800s, early 20th century, business owners had all the power, and workers had very little power,” he said. “Unions and collective bargaining emerged as a way to level the playing field. I think it was an amazing story of success.”But in other contexts, Mr. Tillman has been less conciliatory.In a fund-raising solicitation by the policy institute in December, Mr. Tillman claimed credit for helping more than 2,600 workers leave their union, resulting in a loss of $1.2 million in union revenue.“It’s time for Illinois to throw off the shackles of big labor and big government,” he wrote.“When you and I look around Illinois and see the devastation the union-dominated status quo has inflicted,” he continued, “we simply have no choice.”Follow Noam Scheiber and Kenneth P. Vogel on Twitter: @noamscheiber, @kenvogel=Congressman Calls For Investigation Of Conservative Think TankVeteran Democrat Lipinski joins critics of the Illinois Policy Institute with a letter to the IRS.
by Mick Dumke, ProPublica, and Tina Sfondeles, Chicago Sun-Times Feb. 15, 4:30 p.m. CST Rep. Dan Lipinski represents Illinois' 3rd congressional district. (AP Photo/Pablo Martinez Monsivais)This story was produced in collaboration with the Chicago Sun-Times.
U.S. Rep. Dan Lipinski is asking the Internal Revenue Service to investigate whether a series of financial deals improperly benefited the leaders of the Illinois Policy Institute — the latest call for authorities to examine the influential conservative think tank.In an open letter to the head of the IRS, Lipinski — a Democrat who represents parts of Chicago and the western suburbs — wrote that institute chairman and CEO John Tillman may have violated federal tax laws by channeling money from his nonprofits to for-profit companies Tillman owned or co-owned.Lipinski cited an investigation by ProPublica Illinois and the Chicago Sun-Times that detailed the transactions.“Federal law provides tax benefits that help nonprofits pursue their agendas, including ideological agendas,” Lipinski wrote to David Kautter, the acting commissioner of the IRS. “What it does not allow, however, is for an individual to use a non-profit organization to inure excessive benefits to himself. I fear that is exactly what Mr. Tillman has done.”Neither Tillman nor a spokeswoman for the institute responded to a request for comment. But Tillman said previously the transactions were appropriate and properly disclosed in tax filings.
Read Rep. Lipinski's Letter“Obviously, these are all fully disclosed transactions, all at fair market value as they should be,” Tillman wrote in response to questions.But experts in nonprofit tax laws told ProPublica Illinois and the Sun-Times that some of the transactions raised ethical and legal concerns. Among the list of potential red flags: a zero-interest, $49,400 loan from Think Freely Media, a nonprofit Tillman founded and served as board president, to Crowdskout, a for-profit data and marketing firm owned by a company he controlled.
That loan was essentially a gift, experts said.“No loans are made on zero interest because you lose the inflation value. That means it’s a financial benefit to a for-profit business,” said Lloyd Hitoshi Mayer, a professor at the University of Notre Dame Law School. “Under federal tax law it’s called an excess-benefit transaction.”
Think Freely Media also made another $60,000 in loans to Crowdskout on which it collected interest. On other occasions, Think Freely Media gave grants to nonprofit organizations that hired Crowdskout or other companies in which Tillman had a stake.Lipiniski, a 13-year veteran of Congress, called for the IRS investigation as he faces a primary election challenge from Marie Newman, an activist and nonprofit leader who charges that Lipinski has a “far-right” record of siding with conservatives.The Third congressional district includes parts of Chicago’s Southwest Side and adjacent suburbs. It includes most of Chicago’s 13th Ward, the home base of state House speaker and Democratic Party chairman Michael Madigan, a frequent target of attacks from Tillman and the Illinois Policy Institute.
Read the Original Investigation
As Conservative Group Grows In Influence, Financial Dealings Enrich Its Leaders
Illinois Policy Institute has called for government reform while channeling money to firms owned by insiders.Lipinski is the latest elected official to cite the ProPublica Illinois/Sun-Times investigation while raising questions about the financial dealings of Tillman and nonprofits connected to the institute.Gov. Bruce Rauner — a former ally of Tillman’s and donor to the institute — said last week he was “very troubled” by the report and wouldn’t give the organizations “another nickel.”“It sounds like there’s been improper structure there and improper benefits,” Rauner said.
State Sen. Chris Nybo, R-Elmhurst, emailed Senate Republican colleagues to explore whether to draft a Joint House-Senate Resolution asking for investigations by the FBI, the IRS or the Attorney General’s office.
Maura Possley, a spokeswoman for Illinois Attorney General Lisa Madigan — Mike Madigan’s daughter — said Thursday the office continues to review the transactions, but added, “It is clear that it is also a matter for the IRS, which has greater authority over nonprofits.”Illinois Policy Action was another organization that benefited from Wellspring’s grants in 2016, receiving $2.5 million; it’s the lobbying arm of the Illinois Policy Institute, a conservative Chicago think tank in Chicago that has ties to the state’s billionaire governor, Republican Bruce Rauner, <a href="http://www.chicagotribune.com/news/local/politics/ct-speaker-madigan-movie-met-1013-20161012-story.html" target="blank" rel="noopener" data-saferedirecturl="https://www.google.com/url?hl=en&q=http://www.chicagotribune.com/news/local/politics/ct-speaker-madigan-movie-met-1013-20161012-story.html&source=gmail&ust=1511375231158000&usg=AFQjCNEnEjCbhOVhrp4ql4ezsKltZcgixA" style="text-decoration-line: none; font-weight: bold; color: rgb(0, 51, 153); outline: none; font-family: " times="Times" new="New" roman="Roman" font-size="font-size" large="large" background="background" rgb="rgb">according to the Chicago Tribune</a>. In 2016, the institute released a documentary critical of Rauner’s political opponent, Illinois House Speaker Mike Madigan, a Democrat.<div>=</div><div><a href="https://www.alternet.org/devos-vision-beyond-privatizing-education">https://www.alternet.org/devos-vision-beyond-privatizing-education</a></div><div>
</div><div>If  Betsy DeVos enjoys the occasional quaff of champagne on her private jet, the recent news that the Supreme Court is poised to deliver a <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2017/09/28/us/politics/supreme-court-will-hear-case-on-mandatory-fees-to-unions.html?mcubz=1" style="text-decoration-line: none;">knock-out blow</a> to public sector unions presented a reason to celebrate. The announcement was made just hours before DeVos alit in Harvard Square last week, where she was the <a href="https://www.boston.com/news/local-news/2017/09/28/devos-to-speak-at-harvard-conference-on-school-choice" style="text-decoration-line: none;">star attraction</a> at a school choice conference. At Harvard’s Kennedy School, DeVos was met by one of the largest protests she has encountered to date: an all-ages <a href="https://www.thecrimson.com/article/2017/9/29/IOP-devos-draws-protest/" style="text-decoration-line: none;">demonstration</a> vs just about everything Trump’s Secretary of Education has said and done during the past seven months. Inside, the event was tense, even hostile—another rocky outing in a tenure replete with them. Or at least that is the conventional wisdom. </div><div>
</div>Turning redThe latest Supreme Court case to take aim at the unions, <a href="https://www.lawyersgunsmoneyblog.com/2017/09/janus-v-afscme-council-no-31" style="text-decoration-line: none;">Janus vs AFSCME Council 31</a>, began two years ago with a suit filed by yet another right-wing billionaire: Illinois’ [GOV] Bruce Rauner. While it is framed by conservatives as a case about individual rights and freedom, the aptly named “Janus” is about politics and power. Public sector unions, virtually the only ones left, provide the bank and the foot soldiers that get Democrats elected. At their best, they’ve spearheaded progressive causes that go far beyond the interests of their members. In Massachusetts, the teachers unions have been the driving force behind successful campaigns for a minimum wage hike, paid sick time for all workers, and are now pushing a tax on millionaires. The unions are also virtually the last organized defense of what’s left of our safety net—Social Security and Medicare; the right wants those next.Just days before DeVos appeared at Harvard, she was <a href="https://www.freep.com/story/opinion/columnists/nancy-kaffer/2017/09/24/betsy-devos-gop-donor/696191001/" style="text-decoration-line: none;">back</a> in Michigan, taking what was essentially a victory lap. She exhorted the crowd at a conservative gathering on Mackinac Island to pat themselves on the back for the Mitten State’s having gone Republican in the 2016 Presidential election—the first time since 1988. “We in Michigan have a lot to be proud of, but nothing more than that,” DeVos said. The story of just how the DeVos’ pulled off the feat of turning Michigan red is long and ugly, involving mountains of cash, the steady erosion of representative democracy, and a decades-long effort to dismember the state’s once powerful teachers union: the Michigan Education Association.Michigan went right-to-work in 2012, ushered into the former cradle of industrial unionism via the DeVos’ trademark combo of political arm twisting and largesse. Another DeVos-inspired law made it illegal for employers, including school districts, to process union dues, while simultaneously making it easier for corporations to deduct PAC money from employee paychecks. This summer the DeVos’ succeeded in driving a final nail into the MEA’s coffin: the GOP-controlled legislature <a href="https://www.mlive.com/news/index.ssf/2017/07/changes_to_michigans_teacher_r.html" style="text-decoration-line: none;">essentially eliminating</a> pensions, among the last tangible benefits that teachers in Michigan receive from their unions. The union leaders I spoke to when I traveled through the state <a href="https://haveyouheardblog.com/the-red-queen/" style="text-decoration-line: none;">reporting</a> on DeVos’ legacy were candid about the increasingly precarious state of their organizations. But far worse lies ahead. The demise of retirement benefits means that new teachers have little incentive to join the unions; the shrinking terrain of collective bargaining gives veteran teachers little reason to remain in them.Dark money daysThe specter of Harvard students, standing in <a href="https://www.thecrimson.com/article/2017/9/29/IOP-devos-draws-protest/" style="text-decoration-line: none;">silent protest</a> during DeVos’ talk was a powerful one; the banner declaring “Our Students Are Not 4 Sale” a blunt rejoinder to a vision in which schools are akin to food trucks. But the sign reading simply “Dark Money” may best have captured DeVos’ ethos, her family’s M.O., indeed her very path to the Trump cabinet.The sign was actually a reference to a current dark money controversy simmering in Massachusetts, where the chair of the Massachusetts Board of Education, Paul Sagan secretly chipped in $500K from his own deep pockets to last year’s ill-fated campaign to expand the number of charter schools in the state. (Sagan’s <a href="https://www.bostonglobe.com/metro/2017/09/26/sagan-defends-donation-charter-school-effort/Gkx4Zm34f2XUXj1lauRGrM/story.html" style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); text-decoration-line: none;">defense</a> was that he didn’t want to be perceived as politicizing the issue). The organization that bundled the contributions of Sagan and an array of out-of-state billionaires was later spanked with the <a href="https://www.bostonglobe.com/metro/2017/09/11/pro-charter-school-group-pays-state-largest-campaign-finance-penalty/uQlWnaSnOC6CeHma74cPqN/story.html" style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); text-decoration-line: none;">largest campaign finance fine</a> in Massachusetts history, a ruling that is now being touted as a potential <a href="https://www.alternet.org/dark-money-charter-group-democracy" style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); text-decoration-line: none;">gamechanger</a> for states that are awash in untraceable cash.Protesters carried signs demanding that both DeVos and Sagan be "dumped," but only the latter was tarred with the dark money brush. Even among DeVos' detractors, her <a href="https://www.newyorker.com/news/news-desk/betsy-devos-trumps-big-donor-education-secretary" style="text-decoration-line: none;">role</a> in ushering in our new era of dark money has gone largely unheralded. Campaign workers gathering signatures among the demonstrators for a ballot measure that would reduce the influence of money in politics, had no idea, for example, that DeVos herself was a driving force behind Citizens United. But as Jane Mayer describes in <a href="https://billmoyers.com/story/a-must-read-jane-mayers-dark-money-uncovers-the-hidden-history-of-billionaires/" style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); text-decoration-line: none;">Dark Money</a>, removing any restrictions on political spending has been central to the family’s mission, dating back decades.Long before Betsy DeVos was railing against the “red tape” that stifles public schools, she and her clan were seeking to free the campaign finance system from the burdensome regulations limiting the size of the checks they could write and their influence.The family funded one long-shot legal challenge after another targeting various campaign finance laws. In 1997, DeVos became a <a href="https://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php/James_Madison_Center_for_Free_Speech" style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); text-decoration-line: none;">founding</a> board member at theJames Madison Center for Free Speech, an organization that had as its goal ending all legal restrictions on money in politics. “Soft money,” DeVos wrote in a column for the Capitol Hill magazine Roll Call, was just “hard earned American dollars that Big Brother has yet to find a way to control.”That the balance of power has shifted from parties to a handful of outrageously wealthy zealots, “a tiny, atypical minority of the population,” as Mayer described, is now undeniable. See for example, a recent <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2017/09/28/us/politics/steve-bannon-robert-rebekah-mercer-alliance.html?mcubz=1" style="text-decoration-line: none;">New York Times story</a>about the coming battle of the billionaires, in this case Mercer vs. Koch, over whose grim libertarian vision of the future will be imposed upon the rest of us. Unions are among the last brake on this transfer of power—now they’re under existential threat.DeVos liteA recent poll found that DeVos remains the most disliked official in Trump’s cabinet—not an easy feat to pull off in a gallery of rogues. The depths of her unpopularity are due, not to to the fact that liberals and progressives hate her harder but because her divisiveness crosses partisan lines. When I <a href="https://www.alternet.org/education/devos-brand-public-school-reform-unregulated-profitable-voucher-oriented-meets-resistance" style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); text-decoration-line: none;">traveled</a> to Van Wert, OH this spring to take in the spectacle of a joint school visit by DeVos and the American Federation of Teachers’ Randi Weingarten, I encountered one Trump supporter after another who still liked their guy, even his other cabinet members, but not DeVos. Her single issue, using taxpayer dollars to send kids to private religious schools, has never been popular with voters, and her Margaret Thatcher “there is no school system” line makes little sense in places like Van Wert, where local schools play an outsized role in binding communities together.After seven months on the job, DeVos may finally be shrugging off the “nitwit” rep she earned during her disastrous confirmation hearings. DeVos’ Title IX speech at George Mason was sophisticated and skillful, winning <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2017/09/12/us/politics/betsy-devos-title-ix.html?mcubz=1&_r=0" style="text-decoration-line: none;">plaudits</a>, even from critics. At the Harvard protest, I spotted but a single reference to grizzly bears, on a sign that lay abandoned on the sidewalk. As for the Secretary herself, she gives every indication of being quite pleased with the progress she’s making, and why shouldn’t she be? “Hasten slowly,” is how DeVos <a href="https://blogs.edweek.org/edweek/campaign-k-12/2017/09/betsy_devos_transcript_special_education_ESSA_choice.html" style="text-decoration-line: none;">described</a> her family’s motto in a recent interview. DeVos’ own family and the one she married into, have sought to impose their vision of a country free of unions and dependence on government, including “government schools,” for two generations. Now, after decades of slow hastening, they’re almost there.In other words, this should be fertile territory for Democrats. But the coming decimation of public sector unions also means that the Democrats will be more dependent than ever on corporate money, especially from the financial sector. Accept the growing influence of the party’s biggest donors, comprised of Wall Streeters, hedge funders and Silicon Valley elites, and you also get their cramped and narrow vision of what is possible. And the moneyed influencers within the Democratic Party share a vision of education—personalized, privatized, union free—that’s increasingly difficult to distinguish from the one DeVos espouses.

<a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bruce_Rauner"> https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bruce_Rauner</a>

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<h4 class="yiv5054792590null" style=" margin: 0px; padding: 0px; font-weight: bold; line-height: 20px; outline: none; display: block; color: rgb(128, 128, 128); font-style: normal; letter-spacing: normal; text-align: left; font-variant: normal; orphans: auto; text-indent: 0px; text-transform: none; white-space: normal; widows: auto; word-spacing: 0px; -webkit-text-stroke-width: 0px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><a rel="nofollow" target="_blank" href="http://insideclimatenews.us2.list-manage1.com/track/click?u=7c733794100bcc7e083a163f0&id=5d4396820f&e=06876ede6b" style=" text-decoration: underline; color: rgb(17, 85, 204); line-height: 1.2em; outline: none; word-wrap: break-word; font-weight: normal;">Colorado House Kills Senate Bill to Rollback Renewable Energy Standard</a> (Denver Post)

<a rel="nofollow" target="_blank" href="http://insideclimatenews.us2.list-manage1.com/track/click?u=7c733794100bcc7e083a163f0&id=51fd41dfc2&e=06876ede6b" style=" text-decoration: underline; color: rgb(17, 85, 204); line-height: 1.2em; outline: none; word-wrap: break-word; font-weight: normal;">Illinois Gov. Rauner Seeks to Slash Efficiency, Energy Programs</a> (Midwest Energy News)</h4>

<p style=" font-weight: inherit; border: 0px; border-image-source: initial; border-image-slice: initial; border-image-width: initial; border-image-outset: initial; border-image-repeat: initial; font-style: inherit; margin: 10px 0px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline; line-height: 19.6px;">New Illinois Gov. Bruce Rauner <a href="http://switchboard.nrdc.org/blogs/nmagrisso/good_news_for_clean_energy_job.html" style=" border: 0px; border-image-source: initial; border-image-slice: initial; border-image-width: initial; border-image-outset: initial; border-image-repeat: initial; font-style: inherit; margin: 0px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline; color: rgb(30, 75, 165); text-decoration: none;">has promised</a> to make energy efficiency and renewable energy a priority. And clean energy advocates are hopeful the governor will support <a href="http://www.midwestenergynews.com/2015/02/19/illinois-legislators-introduce-groundbreaking-clean-energy-bill/" style=" border: 0px; border-image-source: initial; border-image-slice: initial; border-image-width: initial; border-image-outset: initial; border-image-repeat: initial; font-style: inherit; margin: 0px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline; color: rgb(30, 75, 165); text-decoration: none;">sweeping legislation</a> introduced Feb. 19 that would increase mandates for energy efficiency and renewable energy.

But in trying to address the state’s current budget crisis, Rauner is proposing to cut existing energy efficiency and renewable energy programs, and to sweep money already collected for those programs into the state’s general coffers.

The administration’s draft budget released in February calls for shifting $175 million worth of energy programs from the Illinois Department of Commerce and Economic Opportunity into the state’s general revenue fund. (See <a href="http://www2.illinois.gov/gov/budget/Documents/Budget%20Book/Budget%20Book%20FY16/FY2016IllinoisOperatingBudgetBook.pdf" style=" border: 0px; font-style: inherit; font-weight: inherit; margin: 0px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline; color: rgb(30, 75, 165); text-decoration: none;">chapter 4-12</a> of the draft budget).

That money is collected from ratepayers on their utility bills, and <a href="http://www.ilga.gov/legislation/ilcs/fulltext.asp?DocName=022000050K8-103" style=" border: 0px; font-style: inherit; font-weight: inherit; margin: 0px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline; color: rgb(30, 75, 165); text-decoration: none;">by law</a> it is supposed to be used exclusively for specific energy projects, namely the <a href="http://energy.gov/savings/public-sector-electric-efficiency-programs" style=" border: 0px; font-style: inherit; font-weight: inherit; margin: 0px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline; color: rgb(30, 75, 165); text-decoration: none;">Energy Efficiency Portfolio Standard (EEPS)</a> fund and the <a href="http://www.dsireusa.org/incentives/incentive.cfm?Incentive_Code=IL05F&re=0&ee=0" style=" border: 0px; font-style: inherit; font-weight: inherit; margin: 0px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline; color: rgb(30, 75, 165); text-decoration: none;">Renewable Energy Resources Trust Fund</a>.

The efficiency fund is used for energy efficiency projects on government buildings and for low-income residents, including in public housing. The renewable energy trust fund provides rebates to residents for wind and solar installations.

The pot also includes money collected for supplemental low-income energy assistance and coal technology development assistance. The draft budget indicates that after money already in these funds is swept, those programs will be eliminated – with a zero budget – in FY2016.

Rauner’s office did not respond to requests for comment. The draft budget says:

“Beginning in fiscal year 2016, an estimate of $175 million in tax receipts for various utility taxes and charges will be deposited in the General Revenue Fund. These existing revenue sources have been deposited into other state funds in prior fiscal years for the Department of Commerce and Economic Opportunity (DCEO) to administer various coal and energy programs. The funding for these specific DCEO programs is recommended to be discontinued in the fiscal year 2016 budget.”

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<h3 style=" font-weight: bold; border: 0px; border-image-source: initial; border-image-slice: initial; border-image-width: initial; border-image-outset: initial; border-image-repeat: initial; font-style: inherit; margin: 0px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline; clear: both; line-height: normal; letter-spacing: normal; text-transform: none; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">A questionable sweep</h3>

“The governor is doing something that is improper and illegal…it’s just inexcusable,” said Robert Kelter, energy efficiency program manager for the Environmental Law & Policy Center. “This is money collected from utility ratepayers, not tax money. The law is very clear that these funds are supposed to go to these energy efficiency programs. These costs are collected through people’s utility bills then the money is turned over to the DCEO to pay for these programs.”

“Stealing money from programs that save energy for affordable housing and public buildings is an absurd way to try to balance a budget,” added Rebecca Stanfield, a Chicago-based policy director for the Natural Resources Defense Council. “It guarantees inefficiency, which is a drag on our economy, makes the utility system more expensive for other ratepayers, and disadvantages families who are living in leaky buildings spending a huge part of their income on utility services.”

Lisa Albrecht, policy committee co-chair of the Illinois Solar Energy Association, also decried the move.

“Both energy efficiency and renewable energy programs are self-funded through a rate utility tax,” she said. “I cannot understand how the legislature can appropriate a tax for a particular purpose, only to spend it on something entirely different.”

(Albrecht  later clarified that the charge on ratepayers’ bills is actually a surcharge,  not a tax.)

Stacey Paradis, interim executive director of the <a href="http://www.midwestenergynews.com/2015/03/02/illinois-gov-rauner-seeks-to-slash-efficiency-energy-programs/mwalliance.org" style=" border: 0px; font-style: inherit; font-weight: inherit; margin: 0px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline; color: rgb(30, 75, 165); text-decoration: none;">Midwest Energy Efficiency Alliance (MEEA),</a>said the group is likewise highly concerned about what the budget means for energy efficiency.

It is generally understood that funds from specific programs which are “swept” to cover a budget gap are meant to be replaced at a later date. But with the state in such crisis, experts aren’t confident that the energy efficiency and renewable energy funds will be restored any time soon.

Some still hope legislators will push the issue with the governor during the lengthy talks that go into crafting and passing the final budget.

“We need to give him the benefit of the doubt right now that there wasn’t a full understanding of what this entailed,” said Kelter.

Environmental attorney James Brusslan decided to install solar panels on his home in the Logan Square neighborhood of Chicago as part of the <a href="http://www.mygroupenergy.com/group/solarchicago" style=" border: 0px; font-style: inherit; font-weight: inherit; margin: 0px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline; color: rgb(30, 75, 165); text-decoration: none;">Solar Chicago</a> program, promoted by Rauner’s friend, Mayor Rahm Emanuel. That program helps Chicagoans access cheaper solar panels through bulk purchases from designated suppliers, and also guides them in applying for the state rebates.

In October, Brusslan and his wife were notified that they qualified for a rebate of $4,465 from the state Department of Commerce and Economic Opportunity for their planned solar installation, with a total cost pegged at $17,863. Around that time Brusslan made a payment of about $5,000 to <a href="http://microgrid-solar.com/chicago/solar-chicago-bulk-purchase-program/" style=" border: 0px; font-style: inherit; font-weight: inherit; margin: 0px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline; color: rgb(30, 75, 165); text-decoration: none;">Microgrid Solar,</a> one of the companies carrying out the Solar Chicago program.

The Illinois Department of Commerce and Economic Opportunity, which carries out the program gave him 120 days to install the solar system and collect the rebate. When it became clear Microgrid could not complete the work in that window, Brusslan said, he requested and obtained an extension from the state agency.

But on February 23, he got an email from Microgrid saying, “It is Microgrid’s understanding that the Illinois Department of Commerce and Economic Opportunity has interpreted the Executive Order as barring any payments of the 2014 solar rebates until the spending freeze is lifted.”

Brusslan is now skeptical he’ll ever get the rebate.

“It’s a nice thing to have solar panels, but since we don’t use much electricity the savings are not that great,” he said. “It was the incentive that made it worth it. If you take that away, we’re really making a big sacrifice. Now the payback time could be something like 15 years. It’s frustrating.”

“That money has to be paid,” said Kelter. “People made big investments and they are counting on those incentives.”

<p style=" font-weight: inherit; border: 0px; border-image-source: initial; border-image-slice: initial; border-image-width: initial; border-image-outset: initial; border-image-repeat: initial; font-style: inherit; margin: 10px 0px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline; line-height: 19.6px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">Albrecht is also a renewable energy specialist for the company <a href="http://www.midwestenergynews.com/2015/03/02/illinois-gov-rauner-seeks-to-slash-efficiency-energy-programs/solarserviceinc.com" style=" border: 0px; font-style: inherit; font-weight: inherit; margin: 0px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline; color: rgb(30, 75, 165); text-decoration: none;">Solar Service Inc.</a> She said she has been in touch with the DCEO and is confident that the rebates will ultimately be given. The executive order applies to all different types of discretionary funding and contracts, she noted, and was meant as an emergency measure while the new administration tries to get the state’s finances in shape. She herself is due a rebate, and fully expects to get it.

But she said the situation is unfortunate for solar development, since it shakes residents’ confidence in the rebate program and could make them back out on, or delay committing, to solar.

The rebate freeze is especially problematic because of scheduling issues. The state’s fiscal year starts on July 1, so solar panels need to be installed by May in order to get a rebate awarded in the current fiscal year. That means solar installers are working against the clock through the winter and spring, not an ideal situation.

The crunch could be worsened by any delays caused when customers hesitate to go through with their installation because of fear they won’t get the rebate, then decide to do the installation as the deadline approaches.

“Every day is vital to our schedule – even last week when it was subzero, our guys were on rooftops,” said Albrecht. “Any delay will have domino effects on our business.”

Even if promised rebates are paid, the FY 2016 draft budget indicates that the renewable energy rebate program will be discontinued going forward. Advocates say that would be a big loss.

“The rebate program has done a tremendous job to develop projects within the state,” said Albrecht. “It’s the primary driver for the little solar we do have today. Eliminating this program jeopardizes the future [of Illinois solar] while we put the new RPS in place.”

She is referring to the state’s Renewable Portfolio Standard (RPS), a law that requires the state get a certain percent of its power from renewable sources. The law has not encouraged new renewable development in recent years, because <a href="http://www.midwestenergynews.com/2013/05/20/fix-for-illinois-renewable-energy-law-faces-opposition-from-utilities/" style=" border: 0px; font-style: inherit; font-weight: inherit; margin: 0px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline; color: rgb(30, 75, 165); text-decoration: none;">the way it’s structured </a>gives power producers no guarantee of long-term purchase commitments.

The <a href="http://www.midwestenergynews.com/2015/02/19/illinois-legislators-introduce-groundbreaking-clean-energy-bill/" style=" border: 0px; font-style: inherit; font-weight: inherit; margin: 0px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline; color: rgb(30, 75, 165); text-decoration: none;">state bill introduced in February</a> would change the RPS so that the renewable requirements are greater and structured in a way meant to spark new development, including distributed rooftop solar.

Albrecht said the current fears about the solar rebate program underscore why a strong RPS is needed. If the RPS bill passes the legislature and is signed by Rauner, solar development should accelerate even without rebates.

“The new legislation will simplify everything,” Albrecht said. “I can’t wait. We have to pass this bill.”

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<div class="print-breadcrumb"><a href="http://www.alternet.org/" style=" color: rgb(0, 0, 0);">Home</a> > The Cruel Politics of One GOP Governor's Agenda to Fleece the Public</div>

<h1 property="dc:title" datatype="" class="node-title">The Cruel Politics of One GOP Governor's Agenda to Fleece the Public</h1>

</div>

<div class="byline news-politics">By <a href="http://www.alternet.org/authors/jane-mcalevey" style=" color: rgb(0, 0, 0);">Jane McAlevey</a> [1] / <a href="http://janemcalevey.com/" style=" color: rgb(0, 0, 0);">JaneMcAlevey.com</a> [2]</div>

<div class="story-date">February 18, 2015</div>

<div class="story-date">ditor's note:You can listen to Jane McAlevey, author of the book from Verso, <a href="http://www.amazon.com/Raising-Expectations-Hell-Fighting-Movement/dp/1781683158" style=" color: rgb(0, 0, 0);">Raising Expectations (and Raising Hell): My Decade Fighting for the Labor Movement</a> [3] discuss this article and other topics with <a href="http://www.kpfa.org/all-programs/behind-news-doug-henwood" style=" color: rgb(0, 0, 0);">Doug Henwood this Thursday February 19 on his show Behind the News KPFA at </a> [4]<a href="http://www.kpfa.org/all-programs/behind-news-doug-henwood" style=" color: rgb(0, 0, 0);">12pm PST</a> [4].</div>

The new governor of Illinois, Bruce Rauner, is a hedge fund manager whose salary last year was <a href="http://www.ctunet.com/blog/bruce-rauner-problem-with-facts" style=" color: rgb(0, 0, 0);">$60 million</a> [5]. He spent $65.9 million—including <a href="http://www.chicagobusiness.com/article/20141104/NEWS02/141109937/cost-of-a-vote-for-governor-23-90-winning-the-election-priceless" style=" color: rgb(0, 0, 0);">$27.6 million of his own money</a> [6]—buying his last election, and he’s about to introduce an austerity program that will make most folks in Illinois think they are living in austerity-wracked Greece, with less idyllic weather. While he’s generating national headlines by trash talking unions, he is quietly taking a scalpel to every important social program in the state, starting with an Illinois program that subsidizes high-quality childcare for 160,000 low-income kids. Instead of extending a small tax increase that passed the Illinois legislature in 2011, staving off a crisis, he’s letting the increases expire. Rauner is methodically manufacturing an economic crisis for his state, one that will let him do what he has long been set on doing: shrink the government and squeeze the 99 percent.

Rauner’s latest executive order extends last summer’s Supreme Court ruling in Harris v. Quinn, which created right-to-work union rules for some public employees, homecare and childcare workers, to all public employees. Government workers in Illinois, and nationally, have long had the right to refuse union membership, and instead of full dues they pay a discounted 60 percent, known in labor parlance as an agency fee, in consideration of the representation and benefits they receive, along with members, from union protection and negotiation. What had been long-settled law on agency fees accepts that a worker might prefer to withhold the roughly 40 percent of dues that a union earmarks for political use. Harris v. Quinn undid this for homecare and childcare workers across the country, setting the stage for a national right-to-work law applying to government workers. Rauner’s order, effective immediately, states that the government will collect all the agency fees and deposit the money in an escrow account—achieving his object of starving union coffers beforethe courts can decide whether his action is legal, and perhaps before the next election cycle.

Rauner hopes to smash labor in Illinois so that he can take a baseball bat to it nationally. He has retained a high-powered legal team that is steering this case to the US Supreme Court and into the longing arms of Samuel Alito, who has already indicated his preference for the Rauner interpretation of Harris v. Quinn at the national level. Rauner’s cynicism was on full display in both his use of an executive order—the same weapon Obama has been deploying over the loud objections of the organized right wing—and in his choice of language, echoing Karl Marx’s description of workers as cogs in the wheel of capitalism by calling union dues “a critical cog in the corrupt bargain that is crushing taxpayers.”

Rauner is firmly entrenched in the corporate right wing of the Republican party. In an <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kog8g9sTDSo" style=" color: rgb(0, 0, 0);">infamous video clip</a> [7] from the summer 2011 Aspen Institute of Ideas, Jonah Edelman, cofounder of Stand for Children, describes how Bruce Rauner suggested that they set up an office in Illinois with the explicit purpose of decimating the Chicago Teachers Union:

“When Bruce Rauner, a mutual friend…asked, after seeing we had passed legislation in several states, including Colorado, that we look to Illinois, I was skeptical, frankly. But after interviewing 55 different folks in the landscape, the speaker of the house, senate president, the minority leadership, education advocates…I was very surprised to see a tremendous political opening,”

The corporate right has a worldview, and, as Edelman’s speech demonstrates, it also has a power analysis from which all strategy flows. In the 1930s, the progressive movement’s analysis of power rested squarely on the faith that workers in large numbers—organized workers—could challenge unfettered corporate power and improve social conditions. And for many generations, through their unions, that is what they did. Now, progressives in and outside of unions have replaced power structure analysis with short-term tactical maneuvers that rely on something fashionably known as narrative change, done best through paid social media, devoid of vision and without the active participation of large numbers of workers. Worse still, despite our defeats in Wisconsin, our own movement continues to throw large numbers of women and African-Americans under the bus by characterizing public service workers as somehow different from, and of lesser importance than, the heroes of the twentieth century’s labor struggles, the largely white male labor force of heavy industry.

In Rich Yesselson’s widely read 2013 article in Democracy magazine, “Fortress Unionism,” the author calls on all progressives to circle the wagons in defense of what remains of today’s unions: “labor can, without undertaking lengthy and expensive campaigns to organize new workers, work to buttress the areas in which is it already strong, extend its alliances with other progressive groups, and even train the worker leaders of tomorrow.” Good idea! Then the bus rolls up as Yesselson continues, “I am speaking here only about private-sector unions, which face a deep crisis. Public-sector unions have their own well-known dilemmas, but require a completely different discussion.” In another recent piece, “Toward a New Solidarity,” he states that “the general public is the ‘employer’ that pays the wages and benefits of both the public sector union members and staff.” This is straight from the right-wing playbook, and it’s wrong. Given the bailouts of the auto industry, the gargantuan subsidies to pharmaceutical companies in the name of research, the public lands “we” donate to the cattle and mining industry, to name a few, “we” the general public pay a hefty chunk of the so-called private sector’s salary, too. What private sector? “Fortress Unionism” articulates very well why it’s so important to protect and defend what we have, and it offers some excellent ideas, but Yeselson’s analysis veers off the road when it separates the interests of labor’s public and private “sectors.”

This same logic appears in a buzz-getting 2014 book by Jake Rosenfeld called What Unions No Longer Do, but Rosenfeld replaces Yesselson’s bus with a steamroller. Echoing Ronald Reagan, Rosenfeld titles his second chapter “Government Is Not the Answer: Why Public Sector Unionism Won’t Rescue the Labor Movement.” Tell that to the mothers of the 160,000 kids in Illinois who are about to lose their access to childcare. Both Yesselson and Rosenfeld bemoan how few strikes take place these days, but the most massive strike in recent times, a strike that riveted America, that completely shut down production in a vital sector—education—was led in Illinois by mostly female teachers, who enjoyed unprecedented community support because they declared that their strike was about more than school workers and more than their wages. The strike was about defending the broad class interests of Chicago’s mostly black families. And they meant it.

Yes, the Taft Hartley Act did a lot of damage to the labor movement’s ability to engage in solidarity strikes, but in my last reading of the law, I didn’t find that unions must surrender all known forms of solidarity. In Illinois right now, many unions, public and private, have made the decision to endorse Mayor Rahm Emanuel. That self-destructive folly wasn’t legislated by Taft Hartley, nor was the selling out of the overwhelmingly female workforce who devote their lives to public service. Notably, among leftists and liberals, it’s men who take the “government unions don’t matter” position, and it is past time for men in the movement to take note that the economy has changed and that women-led professions are now the strategic professions. And it’s time we all sit up and, instead of writing books and articles saying that they are different, or that they matter less, we need to ask these unions how we can help them win.

From the 1970s through the 1990s, the corporate right gutted the power of the biggest organized labor force of that time: factory workers. It did this by creating global trade rules that put US labor in direct competition with workers in repressed countries who were earning $1 a day. Then it started a drumbeat about unionized workers in the United States being overpaid, and while national opinion was marshalled to the message, Rauner’s predecessors were wrecking the lives of millions of blue-collar families and their communities. Now the same right-wing drumbeat is rolling again, demonizing today’s most heavily unionized workforce, those overcompensated toilers—mostly women—doing public-service work. And now they’ve added a new riff: the fiction that these workers are overpaid at “our” expense, not a faceless corporation’s, not the Koch brothers subsidies, because “we” taxpayers are government workers’ real employers. But it’s only a riff, a marketing strategy. The right wing knows that in labor there are no “sectors.” Public or private, it’s the same struggle, about workers exercising their collective power and regulation.

There is only one economy. The false dichotomy of private and public sector is hardly recognized by Rauner’s crowd, the private equity investors and financiers who are really crushing the taxpayers, who suck up the nourishment meant for a whole society through the subsidies, contracts and all manner of fees they receive from government. The truth about “special interests” is that the government spends far, far less providing low-wage working mothers with childcare than it does providing the 1 percent with funds for its unimaginably lavish lifestyle. What private sector? What public sector?

We can reject the right’s message and foil its strategy by building a fortress for all workers in Illinois and across the country.

Jane McAlevey is the author of <a href="http://www.amazon.com/Raising-Expectations-Hell-Fighting-Movement/dp/1781683158" style=" color: rgb(0, 0, 0);">Raising Expectations (and Raising Hell): My Decade Fighting for the Labor Movement</a> [3], now out in paperback (Verso, 2014).

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<div class="print-source_url" style=" text-align: left;">Source URL: <a href="http://www.alternet.org/news-amp-politics/cruel-politics-one-gop-governors-agenda-fleece-public" style=" color: rgb(0, 0, 0);">http://www.alternet.org/news-amp-politics/cruel-politics-one-gop-governors-agenda-fleece-public</a></div>

<div style=" text-align: left;">Links:</div>

<div style=" text-align: left;">[1] http://www.alternet.org/authors/jane-mcalevey</div>

<div style=" text-align: left;">[2] http://janemcalevey.com</div>

<div style=" text-align: left;">[3] http://www.amazon.com/Raising-Expectations-Hell-Fighting-Movement/dp/1781683158</div>

<div style=" text-align: left;">[4] http://www.kpfa.org/all-programs/behind-news-doug-henwood</div>

<div style=" text-align: left;">[5] http://www.ctunet.com/blog/bruce-rauner-problem-with-facts</div>

<div style=" text-align: left;">[6] http://www.chicagobusiness.com/article/20141104/NEWS02/141109937/cost-of-a-vote-for-governor-23-90-winning-the-election-priceless</div>

<div style=" text-align: left;">[7] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kog8g9sTDSo</div>

<div style=" text-align: left;">[8] mailto:corrections@alternet.org?Subject=Typo on The Cruel Politics of One GOP Governor's Agenda to Fleece the Public</div>

<div style=" text-align: left;">[9] http://www.alternet.org/</div>

<div style=" text-align: left;">[10] http://www.alternet.org/%2Bnew_src%2B</div>

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<div style=" text-align: left;">http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bruce_Rauner</div>

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Bruce Vincent Rauner (born February 18, 1957) is an American businessman, politician and the 42nd and current <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Governors_of_Illinois" title="List of Governors of Illinois" style=" text-decoration: none; color: rgb(11, 0, 128); background: none;">Governor of Illinois</a> since January 12, 2015.<a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bruce_Rauner#cite_note-1" style=" text-decoration: none; color: rgb(11, 0, 128); white-space: nowrap; background: none;">[1]</a> Prior to his election, he was the Chairman of R8 Capital Partners and Chairman of the <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Private_equity_firm" title="Private equity firm" style=" text-decoration: none; color: rgb(11, 0, 128); background: none;">private equity firm</a> <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/GTCR" title="GTCR" style=" text-decoration: none; color: rgb(11, 0, 128); background: none;">GTCR</a>, based in <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chicago" title="Chicago" style=" text-decoration: none; color: rgb(11, 0, 128); background: none;">Chicago</a>. He was the <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Republican_Party(United_States)" title="Republican Party (United States)" style=" text-decoration: none; color: rgb(11, 0, 128); background: none;">Republican</a> nominee in the <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Illinois_gubernatorial_election,2014" title="Illinois gubernatorial election, 2014" style=" text-decoration: none; color: rgb(11, 0, 128); background: none;">2014 gubernatorial election</a> and defeated incumbent Governor <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pat_Quinn_(politician)" title="Pat Quinn (politician)" style=" text-decoration: none; color: rgb(11, 0, 128); background: none;">Pat Quinn</a>.<a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bruce_Rauner#cite_note-2" style=" text-decoration: none; color: rgb(11, 0, 128); white-space: nowrap; background: none;">[2]</a>

<h2 style=" color: black; margin: 1em 0px 0.25em; overflow: hidden; padding: 0px; border: none; display: inline; line-height: 1.3; background: none;">Contents</h2>

[<a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bruce_Rauner#" id="togglelink" style=" text-decoration: none; color: rgb(11, 0, 128); background: none;">hide</a>] </div>

<li class="toclevel-1 tocsection-1" style=" margin-bottom: 0.1em;"><a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bruce_Rauner#Early_life_and_education" style=" text-decoration: none; color: rgb(11, 0, 128); background: none;">1 Early life and education</a></li>

<li class="toclevel-1 tocsection-2" style=" margin-bottom: 0.1em;"><a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bruce_Rauner#Business_career" style=" text-decoration: none; color: rgb(11, 0, 128); background: none;">2 Business career</a></li>

<li class="toclevel-1 tocsection-3" style=" margin-bottom: 0.1em;"><a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bruce_Rauner#Political_career" style=" text-decoration: none; color: rgb(11, 0, 128); background: none;">3 Political career</a>

<li class="toclevel-2 tocsection-4" style=" margin-bottom: 0.1em;"><a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bruce_Rauner#2014_gubernatorial_election" style=" text-decoration: none; color: rgb(11, 0, 128); background: none;">3.1 2014 gubernatorial election</a></li>

<li class="toclevel-2 tocsection-5" style=" margin-bottom: 0.1em;"><a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bruce_Rauner#Governor_of_Illinois" style=" text-decoration: none; color: rgb(11, 0, 128); background: none;">3.2 Governor of Illinois</a></li>

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<li class="toclevel-1 tocsection-6" style=" margin-bottom: 0.1em;"><a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bruce_Rauner#Policy_positions" style=" text-decoration: none; color: rgb(11, 0, 128); background: none;">4 Policy positions</a>

<li class="toclevel-2 tocsection-7" style=" margin-bottom: 0.1em;"><a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bruce_Rauner#Unions" style=" text-decoration: none; color: rgb(11, 0, 128); background: none;">4.1 Unions</a></li>

<li class="toclevel-2 tocsection-8" style=" margin-bottom: 0.1em;"><a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bruce_Rauner#Minimum_wage" style=" text-decoration: none; color: rgb(11, 0, 128); background: none;">4.2 Minimum wage</a></li>

<li class="toclevel-2 tocsection-9" style=" margin-bottom: 0.1em;"><a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bruce_Rauner#Tax_policy" style=" text-decoration: none; color: rgb(11, 0, 128); background: none;">4.3 Tax policy</a></li>

<li class="toclevel-2 tocsection-10" style=" margin-bottom: 0.1em;"><a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bruce_Rauner#Term_limits" style=" text-decoration: none; color: rgb(11, 0, 128); background: none;">4.4 Term limits</a></li>

<li class="toclevel-2 tocsection-11" style=" margin-bottom: 0.1em;"><a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bruce_Rauner#Infrastructure_and_transporation" style=" text-decoration: none; color: rgb(11, 0, 128); background: none;">4.5 Infrastructure and transporation</a></li>

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<li class="toclevel-1 tocsection-12" style=" margin-bottom: 0.1em;"><a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bruce_Rauner#Controversies" style=" text-decoration: none; color: rgb(11, 0, 128); background: none;">5 Controversies</a>

<li class="toclevel-2 tocsection-13" style=" margin-bottom: 0.1em;"><a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bruce_Rauner#Dave_McKinney" style=" text-decoration: none; color: rgb(11, 0, 128); background: none;">5.1 Dave McKinney</a></li>

<li class="toclevel-2 tocsection-14" style=" margin-bottom: 0.1em;"><a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bruce_Rauner#Walter_Payton_College_Prep" style=" text-decoration: none; color: rgb(11, 0, 128); background: none;">5.2 Walter Payton College Prep</a></li>

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<li class="toclevel-1 tocsection-15" style=" margin-bottom: 0.1em;"><a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bruce_Rauner#Philanthropy" style=" text-decoration: none; color: rgb(11, 0, 128); background: none;">6 Philanthropy</a></li>

<li class="toclevel-1 tocsection-16" style=" margin-bottom: 0.1em;"><a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bruce_Rauner#Personal_life" style=" text-decoration: none; color: rgb(11, 0, 128); background: none;">7 Personal life</a></li>

<li class="toclevel-1 tocsection-17" style=" margin-bottom: 0.1em;"><a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bruce_Rauner#References" style=" text-decoration: none; color: rgb(11, 0, 128); background: none;">8 References</a></li>

<li class="toclevel-1 tocsection-18" style=" margin-bottom: 0.1em;"><a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bruce_Rauner#External_links" style=" text-decoration: none; color: rgb(11, 0, 128); background: none;">9 External links</a></li>

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