Labor unions are putting record amounts toward Clinton’s bid for the White House. What do they believe they have to gain with this candidate who has already cost the American worker so much?
Well, worker’s unions have long posed as champions of the working man- and in many cases, they have won important victories and established meaningful protections for workers. But, at times, they have also been self-aggrandizing, power-seeking tyrants lording over vulnerable people.
It’s also well known that Hillary Clinton has long held a sharp disdain for the working class. She has made many statements about how she would love to put huge industries out of business with no concern for the families she would be throwing onto hard times.
She was famously confronted by a coal miner who called her out on her plan to dismantle the means by which he supports his family. He called her out on her lies, which she shamelessly defended on national TV.
So, we know that Democrats and Unions have long been chummy, but if Labor Unions are for the worker, and Hillary is so plainly against the worker- then it begs the question- why would Labor Unions be pouring millions into the Clinton campaign? It would seem that it has more to do with party loyalty than it has to with protecting workers.
All in all, Labor Unions have injected nearly $8 million in Hillary’s wallet. Here’s the breakdown:
- Plumbers/Pipefitters Union – $2,007,255
- Laborers Union – $2,006,406
- Carpenters & Joiners Union – $2,005,428
- Precision Network – $1,641,952You don’t need any more evidence than the fact that Hillary has always been a major supporter of NAFTA, her husband’s bill which has been responsible for sending a huge chunk of the American economy overseas- allowing manufacturers to throw American workers overboard in favor of cheap and unregulated foreign labor.
Big labor also dumped millions in dues to the Clinton Foundation, according to a 2015 report by, a union watchdog group which traced no less than $2 million in donations from several union organizations.
The U.S. Labor Department union financial disclosure reports have shown that Big Labor contributed at least $2,034,500 in treasury funds to the Clinton Foundation. Union treasuries are funded almost entirely by mandatory union dues and fees that are collected from workers who would lose their jobs for refusing to pay. As Hillary Clinton closed in on her run for the White House, the amounts increased.
The Clintons transformed their foundation into a “slush fund,” according to a charity watchdog, and received hundreds of millions from major businesses, television personalities, and political figures. The Clintons have maintained that none of the donations influenced her actions as secretary of state and that they were strictly philanthropic in nature.
But, unions did not always agree about the nature of the donations, according to the report. “Some of the ‘donations’ were labeled ‘political’ by the unions on their disclosure reports,” the report says.
The United Association of Journeymen and Apprentices, for example, gave the Clintons nearly $200,000 in two installments in 2013; each of which was classified as political activity.
In 2012, one of the nation’s most prestigious labor groups, the AFL-CIO, bestowed $23,000 to a Clinton “charity” and reported it as political activity. They also lobbied the State Department numerous times about free trade agreements.
Hillary Clinton delivered a half-hearted endorsement of the TPP trade deal that was being negotiated by president Obama in her memoir “Hard Choices,” but has since backed down from that position since declaring her ideations on taking the White House in 2016.
A review of the book by the Washington Free Beacon states that all of the donations were accounted for in public disclosures by Hillary Clinton when she joined Obama’s administration. She and her foundation have faced biting scrutiny for not living up to her promises according to author, Peter Schweizer.
A spokesman for the National Right to Work, Patrick Semmens, said that all of the donations neatly match the pattern of Big Labor’s ongoing hunger for political influence.
Predictably, union bosses are, once again, playing politics with the practically subjugated rank-and-file worker’s money that they muscle away from them- money taken from workers who would get fired if they did not pay up.
There’s little doubt that union officials consider the two million dollars to be a down-payment on ensuring a Hillary Administration would continue the standing policy of Executive power being used to benefit Big Labor at the expense of working people and businesses.
Regards,
Ethan Warrick
Editor
Wealth Authority
