Departments

From The Director
Right Wing Gets It
That’s why they work so hard to destroy unions

There are two types of special-interest groups in the world – those who get it and those who don’t. Some don’t have a clue while others know exactly what they’re doing. There are those who do the wrong things intentionally, not from ignorance. These right-wing special interests get it and direct their lies and deceit even toward their fellow special interest groups who don’t.

The National Right to Work Legal Defense Foundation is a perfect example of those who get it. This anti-union organization has worked for three years to deny Freightliner and Thomas Built Buses workers in North Carolina the right to union representation.
The group recently filed another frivolous lawsuit on “behalf of Freightliner workers,” the majority of whom already voted in favor of union representation.

Many companies hire union-busting firms such as the National Right to Work Legal Defense Foundation to discredit unions. But not Freightliner and Thomas Built. They made a commitment that their workers would have free choice concerning union representation.

So if the companies remained neutral in the drives, why would anyone else care? The answer can be found by looking at who supports the NRTWLDF. Its donors’ list reads like a Who’s Who of right-wing organizations.
Here are just three:

• John M. Olin
Foundation. Established by the late chemical tycoon, this foundation has spent millions on promoting “freemarket” thinking in colleges and universities by supporting economics and law programs at Harvard, Columbia, Yale and Stanford. It also played a role in supporting some of the experts who have been advising the Bush administration.
This organization has donated millions to the National Right to Work Legal Defense Foundation.

• Lynde and Harry Bradley Foundation
With more than $700,000,000 in assets, this Milwaukee-based institution prides itself on being one of the country’s largest and most influential right-wing foundations.
Bradley supports organizations and individuals that promote deregulation of business, rollback of virtually all social programs and privatization of government services, particularly education.

The foundation was born out of the coffers of the Allen-Bradley Co., a major electronic and radio company with a long history of being anti-union, antiminority and anti-worker.
Allen-Bradley was one of the last major employers to racially integrate. The company employed a mere 46 minority workers out of a workforce of more than 7,000 in 1968. Organized since 1937, the company consistently resisted union recognition. Another major recipient of Bradley Foundation funds is the Center for Individual Rights which seeks to eliminate affirmative action at universities and colleges. The John M. Olin Foundation is another major supporter of the CIR.

• Walton Family
The heirs of Wal-Mart founder Sam Walton have big hearts. In addition to doling out thousands in donations to anti-union and anti-worker groups such as NRWLDF, they still donate more than $100,000,000 a year to oppose public schools and promote school voucher programs.

So why does a group that specializes in anti-union activities, discrimination, undermining public schools, promoting “free markets” and destruction to neighborhoods and local communities fund an organization that claims “workers rights?”

These right wingers really get it. They know unions are staunch defenders of justice and fairness for all working people. That’s why these right-wing groups band together to prevent workers from having a voice and their own organization.

But some of us in organized labor get it, too. We in the UAW get that we must never give up fighting for all working Americans – not just union members. When we fight to ensure all workers the dignity and just rewards earned by their daily toil, then we win, too.