Journalists and Unions — A Cause of Bias?

Newspaper journalists are union members at most of the top 20 newspapers. Wonder which political party gets the money?

Why isn’t the LA Times, NY Times or Washington Post reporting this major ethics question?

By Mick Gregory

Citizen journalists have found multi-millionaire Nancy Pelosi profits from non-union wineries, restaurants and resort hotels. Yet, she is among the top recipiants of union dues every year. It’s as if the peasants willingly handed over a portion of their potatoes every season to their overlords who in turn protect them. Or it’s like a New York shopkeeper handing over protection money to the Soprano boys.

With a little more digging, we find that union members don’t have control over where their dues are being spent. The union bosses make those “lofty” choices for the rank and file.

There is a new Web site named http://www.unionfacts.com
and it’s filled with facts and detailed research that the 12.5 million union leaders and hundreds of Democrats in congress don’t want you to know.

Use of members’ union dues for political goals was second only to corruption as the reasons Americans disapproved of unions, according to a 2004 Zogby poll.
That survey also found that 63 percent of all employees, and 61 percent of unionized employees, agreed that union members shouldn’t be forced to contribute.

A McLaughlin Associates poll showed that 67 percent of workers were unaware of their right to withhold mandatory dues for politics, because of the Beck case in the U.S. Supreme Court in the ’80s. Did you ever read about that in the San Francisco Chronicle or New York Times?

Against Members’ Politics

CNN exit polls showed that 38 percent of union members voted for President Bush in the 2004 election, but more than 95 percent of union funds went to support Democratic presidential candidate Sen. John Kerry.

A 1999 Zogby poll found a majority of union members—nearly 55 percent—thought people should be given a choice of investing their Social Security taxes in some form of personal retirement accounts. But union officials spent millions of dollars to oppose private accounts in the Social Security system.

In 1992, the Teamsters reportedly gave a massive amount of political money to the presidential candidate it knew its membership did not support. According to author Duke Zeller, “As for the actual amount of Teamster money poured into the Clinton-Gore campaign, Gene Giacumbo, a former elected member of [former Teamsters president Ron] Carey’s board, believes the total figure to be even higher. ‘Carey himself bragged to me that the union gave $56 million to Clinton,’ he confirmed, ‘and this was after an independent, outside poll the union paid for showed the membership responses preferred Perot, then Bush, with Clinton in third place.’

There is much more behind the union/Democrat party partnership.

The Communications Workers of America merged with the Newspaper Guild and has been the union of record for most of the top 20 American newspapers for some 12 years. Conflict of interest? You think?

Did you ever read about that in your daily newspaper?

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