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By Ted Goodman
One of the nation’s largest labor unions spent $20 million more on political activities than it did on representing the interests of its members, according to the Free Beacon.
The American Federation of State, County and Municipal Employees (AFSCME) spent $55.3 million on “political activities and lobbying” compared to the $36.4 million spent on “representational activities” in 2016.
With more than 1.6 million working and retired members, AFSCME is the nation’s largest and fastest growing public services employees union. Membership includes nurses, corrections officers, sanitation workers and hundreds of other occupations.
The union has approximately 3,400 local chapters with 58 councils and affiliates in 46 states. The group endorsed former Democratic presidential candidate Hillary Clinton early in the 2016 campaign, despite grassroots support for the insurgent candidacy of Vermont Independent Sen. Bernie Sanders.
“This should come as no surprise. Big Labor has long been the personal ATM of the Democratic Party,” Luke Ladan, communications director at the Center for Union Facts, told The Daily Caller News Foundation. “Since 2012, union elites have spent more than $530 million on political advocacy, almost exclusively to support Democrats and liberal special interest groups.”
Big labor finds itself in an awkward position after throwing its support behind Clinton in 2016. While admitting that Trump tapped into the insecurities and anger of working class Americans, most union bosses supported Clinton in the fall campaign.
Despite being a vocal opponent of Trump, the AFL-CIO wrote that Trump’s election was “an expression of the insecurity of working people all over the formerly industrialized world, brought on by globalization forcing them to compete for work in a labor market without borders.”
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