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Last week,\u00a0the AFL-CIO announced<\/a>\u00a0that it was targeting the re-election of Michigan Gov. Rick Snyder (and five other Republican governors) because of his support of allegedly anti-worker initiatives, such as right-to-work legislation.<\/p>\n But in its partisan broadside, the Big Labor lobby only proved why right to work \u2014 which allows employees in a union shop the choice of whether to pay dues \u2014 benefits Michigan workers who are opposed to their paychecks being diverted to partisan electioneering.<\/p>\n \u201cMany AFL-CIO rank and file members in those six states approve of the job being done by those governors, yet their union will use those workers\u2019 dues to engage in an extremely partisan fight not supported by those workers,\u201d says Terry Bowman, a United Autoworkers Union member and founder of Union Conservatives, a non-profit organization opposed to Big Labor\u2019s one-party agenda.<\/p>\n The political record of Big Labor indicates that union leadership is more concerned with Democratic Party politics than with the needs of its rank and file. Now law in 24 states after last winter\u2019s stunning win in union-stronghold Michigan, right to work promises to force labor leadership to refocus on workers\u2019 needs if enough employees choose to refuse union dues.<\/p>\n As evidenced by the re-election campaign of President Barack Obama in 2012, Big Labor has been milking member dues to elect Democrats. Indeed, the GM and Chrysler bailouts \u2014 more accurately called the UAW bailouts \u2014 were White House-organized bankruptcies\u00a0designed to preserve the UAW and its massive dues structure<\/a>, a key Democratic funding source for its political PACs and grassroots organizing (ironically, the UAW\u2019s favorable treatment came at the expense of unionized teachers and firefighters, whose bond-invested pensions were gutted in the automakers\u2019 bankruptcies). The Teamsters union also poured resources into Obama\u2019s re-election to preserve Obamacare \u2014 as did the AFL-CIO, which represents Michigan AFSCME workers and trade unions.<\/p>\n But workers might be wondering what their union dues bought them.<\/p>\n As the Democratic Party leadership has lurched left to the coasts, green priorities often trump industrial concerns. The Keystone Pipeline XL, for example, promises some 20,000 jobs \u2014 many of them represented by the AFL-CIO\u2019s trade unions \u2014 yet the Obama administration has turned a deaf ear to the project.<\/p>\n \u201cAmerica\u2019s Building Trades Unions emphatically support the construction of Keystone,\u201d wrote Sean McGarvey, president of the AFL trades,\u00a0to Congress this May<\/a>\u00a0lamenting the 13 percent unemployment rate among construction workers in the slow Obama recovery. \u201cFor many members of our unions, Keystone XL is not just a pipeline; it is, in the most literal sense, a lifeline.\u201d<\/p>\n The United Mineworkers have also suffered thousands of coal industry job losses under the Obama EPA\u2019s War on Carbon, while Obamacare has\u00a0come back to haunt<\/a>\u00a0the Teamsters and AFSCME, threatening jobs as employers\u00a0move more employees to part time<\/a>\u00a0to avoid the budget-busting employer mandate.<\/p>\n Yet these same workers\u2019 dues continue to fund the Democratic agenda.<\/p>\n In 2014, that agenda includes defeating Republican governors who have fought to give these employees the right to withdraw financial support from political activities. \u201cThese are all states in which the rights of working people are at stake,\u201d Michigan AFL-CIO spokeswoman Sara Wallenfang told The Detroit News in explaining why her leadership has targeted Snyder for defeat.<\/p>\n \u201cThis proves that the AFL-CIO purposely ignores that individual workers actually receive additional rights, freedoms and protections when states grant them the return of their First Amendment right of freedom of association by passing a right-to-work law,\u201d responds union activist Bowman. \u201cMs. Wallenfang apparently wants to continue the destructive policy of forced unionism that politically discriminates against many of their own members.\u201d<\/p>\n Mackinac Center labor analyst Vincent Vernuccio, a supporter of Michigan right to work, hopes that, as more workers refuse to pay dues, the unions \u201cwill be forced to concentrate on their original purpose, which is not to campaign for politicians but to ensure the best conditions for workers.\u201d<\/p>\n