Don't overlook the Big Labor funding behind the LA protests

The Hill

2 days ago

The left in general and labor leaders in particular continue to misread the will of the people.
Case in point: Among the dozens of lessons both seem incapable of learning from last November's electoral drubbing is that Americans are solidly in favor of enforcing the nation's sovereign borders and expelling as many as possible of the millions of lawbreakers who breached them thanks to the calculated apathy of the previous administration.
Apparently unfazed by facts, however, David Huerta, president of the California chapter of Service Employees International Union, last Friday, traded on the full faith and credit of his position to join those violently protesting a legal raid at a Los Angeles worksite by officials from the U.S. Department of Immigration and Customs Enforcement.
He was subsequently arrested for trying to physically block a vehicle trying to enter the property.
Again, Huerta made no attempt to distance himself and his actions from his role as SEIU's California director. To the contrary, he first made sure to don his purple SEIU T-shirt in order to make clear to everyone that he considers obstructing law enforcement one of his legitimate job responsibilities.
Even more brazenly, his own SEIU affiliates in California have used member dues to support at least one group spearheading the protests — the Coalition for Humane Immigration Rights — and to finance the informal 'immigration rapid response' network that has been equally at the center, and in which SEIU itself also participates.
And rather than disavow Huerta's irresponsible, illegal behavior, state and national leftists quickly circled the wagons around Huerta. After all, SEIU California is a major funder of liberal causes and candidates in California.
Syndicated columnist Kurt Schlicter, shrewdly noted this week that the scenario 'provides (the Trump administration) an opportunity to defund the government support to (non-governmental organizations) that launder government money to fund this kind of violence.'
They could start with Huerta's union.
SEIU California and its affiliates siphon millions of dollars a year from Medicaid by confiscating dues from thousands of Californians participating in a federal program that pays a modest subsidy in exchange for providing in-home care for an elderly or low-income client.
Because they work at home, usually looking after a loved one, the union representing the caregivers — many of whom don't even realize they are union members — has relatively little to do. But that doesn't stop Huerta's organization from seizing 3 percent of their annual wages — among the highest dues rates in the country.
In a very real sense, Medicaid is therefore bankrolling the protests in Los Angeles. Here's a thought: Instead of arresting Huerta and the other lawbreaking protestors, why not just cut off their source of funding by prohibiting unions from plundering Medicaid?
Hundreds of thousands of government employees all over the country have exercised their First Amendment right to opt out of union membership and dues since it was affirmed in 2018 by the U.S. Supreme Court.
One of the primary factors behind this movement is widespread anger over unions that use confiscated dues money to promote a radical political agenda instead of representing the legitimate workplace concerns of their members.
SEIU-affiliated care providers in the Golden State need to ask themselves how Huerta's embarrassing spectacle helps enhance their pay, benefits and working conditions.
It doesn't. It simply reinforces what's been obvious for years: The welfare of their rank and file hasn't been a priority for public employee unions in decades, assuming it ever was.
Modern government-employee unions like SEIU exist almost exclusively to fund the failed policies of the left with workers' hard-earned dues dollars; workers who are increasingly fed up with it.
It isn't just worksites overrun by violent agitators that are burning while labor icons like Huerta fiddle. It is also their fading hopes of ever being taken seriously or being handed political power again.
Aaron Withe is CEO of the Freedom Foundation, a national nonprofit government union watchdog organization.