Out of Touch: When Union Politics Leave Workers Behind

their dues, our advancing political agendas that may rank in that many rank and file members do not share. This is a simple question with serious consequences for America's workers. We will hear from today's witnesses whether workers are getting the transparency and accountability they deserve and uh deserve in about the growing disparity between many members' uh political views and the political activity of union leadership. Major unions overwhelmingly backed Democratic candidates and progressive causes, while many union households voted for President Trump. At the same time, these unions have called for President Trump's impeachment and organized opposition to administration policies, ranging from border security to foreign policy. Unions endorse candidates who belong to the Democratic Socialists, uh, of America, an organization that calls for abolishing the Senate and the Supreme Court, to funding the police and establishing universal rent control. While workers have a constitutional right to hold these views, many do not. The question is whether union leaders are using those members' money to advance political positions their uh members do not support. In fact, I believe many workers should be shocked to know where their union dues are actually going. Union dues fund more than politics. According to union's own LM two filings, dues also pay for union leaders' trips to resorts, sporting events, golf courses, and theme parks to the tune of millions of dollars each year. Many union headquarters staff and offices receive six-figure sta- salaries, with some leaders earning as much as five times the average wages of the workers they actually rep- represent. The information we have about union spending is based on their own filings with the Federal Election Commission and the Department of Labor. This is how we know that union PACs spend more than ninety percent of their political expenditures on democratic politicians and causes. Workers who choose to be represented by unions should have represent representatives who understand their membership and are willing to put aside their personal political preferences when speaking, on behalf of their workers. Based on the written testimony from our witnesses, many American workers are not getting the union representation uh they want or deserve. We must hold these union leaders accountable for forgetting who they represent, not their own interests but the interests of millions of American workers. With that, I yield to the ranking member for his opening statement.

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I want to thank the witnesses for being here. Let me start with a simple truth. President Trump's economy is not working for American workers. Inflation has outpaced wage growth. in recent months and American workers are taking home a smaller and smaller share of the economic pie than they have in decades. This is a direct result of corporations and wealthy special interest wielding outside influence over this administration and this Congress. According to a new report from Public Citizen, corporations have spent nearly one point seven billion dollars on federal elections, since the Citizens United decision in two thousand and ten. And six hundred and forty-six million of that has come in this election cycle alone, a record for any midterm in American history. Too often, my Republican colleagues in this Congress have sided with corporate interests over working families, and that includes their repeated attacks on labor unions. Workers join unions so they can have a voice. A voice strong enough to be heard. You cannot lift up by workers while tearing down the very organizations that represent them, protect them, and bargain on their behalf. While elected officials may not agree with every action or statement they - that unions may make, they - they work on behalf of their membership, their interests and beliefs of their members. That includes advocating for policies that benefit their membership and supporting candidates who will fight for their rights regardless of political affiliation. In my opinion, it is the committee of Republicans, not unions, who are out of touch. Today, union approval in the United States is at a record high, seventy-one percent, according to Gallup's annual poll. Americans overwhelmingly understand that unions remain one of the most effective tool workers have to create a better life for them and their families. And yet union membership remains low, just ten percent of US workers belong to a union. Why is this happening? It's not because workers don't wanna have unions. Tens of millions say they would join one today if they could. It's because the economy is stacked against them and outdated law- labor laws no longer do enough for the people they are written to protect. That imbalance shows up everywhere you look. From nineteen seventy nine to two thousand and twenty three, wages for the bottom ninety percent of Americans rose forty percent, while income for the top one percent skyrocketed by more, a hundred and eighty percent. Let me repeat that. Lower ninety percent, which is almost all of us, forty-four percent. Top one percent, a hundred and eighty percent. It's the largest concentration of wealth in the history of this country right now. Republicans have pri- prioritized corporate interests over working families, and have done nothing to lower the cost of living to improve working people's lives. Instead, millions of people are losing their health care while corporations and the wealthy enjoy tax breaks due to Republicans' big ugly bill. Committee Democrats have a different vision, one where working people have power instead of billionaires. That's why we must pass the protecting right to organize or pro-act, which would ensure workers can freely organize and earn the benefits of union membership by a process of democracy, elections, and that they're fair. The big they they the PRO Act would ensure workers can freely organize and earn benefits of union membership. Bigger paychecks, better benefits, and safer workplaces gives them a voice. And alongside it, we must pass the Let's Protect Workers Act, which would hold law-breaking companies accountable for raising penalties for working right violations. So today I hope we can have an honest conversation about the real i- issues facing workers rather than the same attacks on unions and American workers, we have heard again and again in this subcommittee. Thank you, Mr. Chairman, I yield back.

Ranking member yields pursuant to committee rule eight C, all members who wish to insert written statements into the record. may do so by submitting them to the committee clerk electronically in Microsoft for a Word format by five PM fourteen days after this hearing. And without objection, the hearing record will remain open for fourteen days to allow such statements and other extraneous material noted during the hearing to be submitted for the official hearing record. I will now turn to the introduction of our four distinguished witnesses, and I want to thank you for joining us today. Our first witness is Mr. Thomas Jones, President of the American Accountability Foundation in Washington, D. C. Our second witness is Mr. Akash, uh, Chiguli, Chiguli, uh, President of the Foundation for Research on Equal Opportunity in Washington, D. C. Our third witness is Doctor Adam Deen, Associate Professor of Political Science at the George Washington University in Washington, D. C. And our last witness is Mr. Greg, uh, Murad, Vice President of Federal Affairs at the National Right to Work Committee in Springfield, Virginia. Again, we thank the witnesses for being here today and we look forward to your testimony. Pursuant to Committee Rule one, I ask that each of you limit your oral presentation to a three minute summary of your written statement. The clock will count down from three minutes as committee members have many questions for you. However, pursuant to Committee Rule eight D and committee practice, we will not cut off your testimony until you reach the five-minute mark. I would also like to remind the witnesses to be aware of their responsibility to provide accurate information to this subcommittee. So now, I will first recognize Mister Jones for your opening testimony.

Chairman Allen, Ranking Member Desai, thank you for having me here this morning. I think a simple question animates the issue that we're here to address this morning. And look, the question is simple. Do you think the the country's better off with President Trump and Vice President Vance? Or would it have been better off with Kamala Harris and Tim Walz? Would America be better with Speaker Mike Johnson or with Speaker Hakeem Jeffries? For most of you on the on the dais, that's a simple question. And for for a lot of Americans, that's a simple question. But when you walk down into the the factories where all their workers work in the rail yards you talk to electricians, you talk to steel workers, that question's a coin flip. Some places it's sixty forty for Trump, some places it's forty sixty for Trump. But it's a, it's an open question. But what becomes really important, and what I think we're here to address this morning, is what the answer to that question is with those men and women's voice in Washington. And when you go to the men and women that represent union members across the country in Washington DC they're lobbyists and they're leaders in Washington, it's not a close question. And how do we know it's not a close close question? Because AAF spent the last three months looking at the spending out of labor unions on who they support. And the numbers are over ninety percent in favor of one party. And so I'm gonna walk through some of the numbers, because I think they're important to illustrate what happened within the labor unions. If you look at the engineers, the BLET union, it seems to remember ninety-nine percent of party committee money went to Democrats. In twenty twenty four, twenty four checks went to Democratic committees, two went to Republicans. Smart TV, train conductors. Ninety seven percent of contributions went to Democratic committees. One point zero three million to Emily's list. Why on earth do train conductors care about funding a pro-choice left-wing lobby? The UAW, five point three million dollars to Democrats, forty five thousand to Republicans. a two million dollar check to the Democratic Governors Association. You look at the IBW, eleven point two million dollars to Democrats, two hundred fifty-two thousand to Republicans, ninety-eight percent. And and this is all before you get into how these unions are wasting members' money on other things. This is before you look at the ten million dollars one union spent wrapping a NASCAR to advertise their union. Before you get into the millions and millions of dollars that unions continually promoting baseball teams and advertising in stadiums. Before you get to the three point nine million dollars one union spent at Caesars in Las Vegas last year. I love a good time, I love going to Vegas, but I don't uh I can't understand how a near four million dollar expenditure helps a union member get a better pension or a better job in a steel mill, in an auto factory, or working for a railroad. So, a lot of times when when witnesses come up to to speak to you, they give you a kind of a a a legislative solution, I want you to support H R one two three, an act of Congress is gonna fix this problem. I'm not gonna do that today because I don't think an act of Congress is what's gonna fix this problem. What's gonna fix this problem is members of this committee demanding that the union's voices in Washington behave like a truly bipartisan organization representing a diverse interest group. Every other special interest in Washington understands this, the pharma guys, the defense guys, the tech guys, ag guys, they all understand this. They understand that, look, they've gotta work with both sides, they've gotta support members on both sides of the aisle to bleak, to be considered truly bipartisan. So, look, my recommendation is that you guys stop working with the leadership of the unions and cut them off. Look, no amendments, no rules, you know, are not gonna make your amendments in order. Your priorities are not gonna get a hearing until you take us seriously and and are respectful of Republicans and Democrats. not just one side. And then the most important thing you need to do is go around union leadership and speak directly to members. President Trump has a compelling America First Agenda that resonates with union members, reassuring manufacturing in the United States so there's high paying jobs, the one big beautiful bill that provides tax cuts so that those high paying jobs keep more of the money in the household and a a secure border so that jobs are not cut off by illegal emig immigrants for for folks starting their career in trades and and other other jobs. So you have the ability to directly go to these members, explain to them who their union is and what the real America First worker agenda is, cutting off the union leadership in Washington. So I appreciate you giving me the opportunity to talk about this morning, and I look forward to talking to you more about solutions for American workers.

The gentleman yields. I now recognize Mister Chiguli for your testimony.

Chairman Allen, Ranking Member Desaulniere, and members of the subcommittee, thank you for the opportunity to testify today. My name is Akash Shogley. I'm an honorary senior fellow at the Institute for the American Worker and president of the Foundation for Research on Equal Opportunity. Unions operating on a model built for the economy of nineteen thirty-five need to adapt to the workforce of today, lest they risk stagnating themselves into further irrelevance as their numbers dwindle. A twenty twenty-two poll showed that just eleven percent of non-union workers were extremely interested in joining a union. Fifty-eight percent were not interested at all. Let me begin by affirming, worker freedom is not antithetical to workers' right to organize, nor does it prevent unions from exercising their First Amendment right to engage in the political process. To allege that greater freedom, transparency, and accountability within labor organizations undermines the right to organize or engage in political speech is false. It is simply a matter of fact that the status quo in organized labor is completely broken. Eighty-seven percent of union political spending benefited the Democratic Party in the twenty-twenty-four cycle. In the twenty-twenty-four election, forty-five percent of union households voted for the Republican candidate for president. Despite union members' broad support for right-leaning candidates and causes, union leaders largely do not adopt a political strategy that reflects their members' views. Union leaders oppose many policy proposals that union members overwhelmingly support, such as those in the Employee Rights Act. For example, the Employee Rights Act requires that unions receive opt-in permission from a union member before using his or her dues and fees on political advocacy or politics, a provision which enjoys eighty-one percent support from union households. The divide between union leaders and members on politics and policy is wide, but the situation is often even worse in the workplace and at the bargaining table. A timely example is the faster labor contracts act, which the House of Representatives passed in June two thousand twenty six. The FLCA would shift power away from workers toward union leadership and outside decision makers. Union leaders also routinely oppose efforts to provide transparency on their own actions spending and decisions within the union. Workers have a legitimate interest in knowing how their dues are spent and how decisions are made on their behalf particularly because in nearly half the states they can be forced to fund unions as a condition of employment. But when the Department of Labor issued a new LM two reporting form in June, the AFL CIO sued to block it. Unions and their allies have secured have also secured special legal protection from the NLRB for vulgar racist, sexist, and harassing speech when it occurs in connection with unionization, even though title seven of the Civil Rights Act explicitly protects workers from discrimination and harassment. The Employee Rights Act would reverse that Biden-era decision. And in the latest federal survey of independent contractors, eighty point three percent said they preferred their independent work arrangement. In seeking to restrict freelance work, union leaders are flatly ignoring the lived experience and preferences of tens of millions of workers. The Institute for the American Worker found that in twenty twenty three, less than five percent of current private sector union members actually voted for the union that represents them. It's no wonder union leaders do not feel the need to fully and faithfully represent workers. It isn't necessary to maintain their monopoly on representation. American workers deserve meaningful transparency, democratic accountability, and a genuine voice in the decisions made on their behalf. The time has come for reforms that empower workers to rise and thrive in the twenty-first century. Thank you, and I look forward to answering your questions.

Thank you. The gentleman yields uh next uh recognized Professor Deen for your test testimony.

Thank you, Subcommittee Chair Allen, Subcommittee Ranking member Desanier and members of the subcommittee. My name's Adam Deen. I'm honored to join you today to share some of my research on labor unions. I'm an associate professor in the department of political science at George Washington University where I've taught since

Need your microphone turned on, please.

It's on.

Oh, is it? OK.

Can you hear me? OK, thank you. I've researched labor unions for fifteen years, and I've published two peer-reviewed books and fifteen academic articles. Today I hope to explain how labor unions not only provide benefits for the workers that they represent but also protect the broader American working class our nation's public health and our democracy. First, labor unions make sure that workers that they represent share in the benefits of economic growth. Although economic theory predicts that workers' wages will automatically rise with productivity, in the real world we see that wage growth often lags far behind productivity growth. My research shows that unions can help solve this problem. I examined data from one hundred and seventeen countries around the world, and found that wages are much more likely to rise, along with productivity, when workers have strong unions and well-respected labor rights. Related research by other professors finds that labor rights and strong unions are associated with lower levels of income inequality in countries around the world, including here in the United States. Second, Labor unions fight for policies that protect non-union workers too. One recent example comes from the state of California, where the United Farm Workers helped to win the nation's first outdoor heat standard. This law in California provides workers the rights to water, rest, and shade on hot days. My research found that California's law was associated with a thirty-three to fifty-one percent reduction in heat-related deaths for outdoor workers. These benefits, to be clear, uh extend to all outdoor workers in California, not just the two percent of agricultural workers represented by the United Farm Workers. Extending such heat pr- heat protections across the United States could save between one thousand and fifteen hundred workers' lives each year. Importantly, my research finds that these simple, life-saving heat protections were inexpensive and had no negative economic impact on California's agriculture and construction industries. Third, labor unions often fight for policies that improve public health for everyone. During the COVID-19 pandemic, for example, unionized nursing homes were much safer places for elderly nursing home residents as well as health care workers that care for them. My research found that unionized nursing homes in the state of New York, for example, had thirty percent lower mortality rates during the first months of the pandemic. Why? Because unions fought for PPE and infection control policies that protected workers and lowered transmission between workers and the residents that they care for. Around the United States, unionized nursing homes had seven percent lower infection rates for health care workers as unionized health care workers often said during the pandemic, if we get sick, you get sick. Fourth, unions protect democracy itself. In a new book I'm writing, I've studied every democratic transition around the world over the last seventy-five years. In countries where unions helped to lead the struggle for democracy, new democratic governments quickly increased labor rights, economic inequality fell, and democracy survived. Where businesses and other non-union groups led the struggle for democracy, new democratic governments failed to increase labor rights, economic inequality rose, and democracy was far more likely to collapse into authoritarianism. Given the broad benefits that labor unions provide, it's no surprise that seventy-one percent of Americans now approve of labor unions. For Americans under thirty years old, support for unions is now at eighty-eight percent. And many workers who are not union members would like to join a union. A two thousand twenty-three survey found that forty-three percent of employed non-union workers would vote to join a union if they had the opportunity. In short, the majority of Americans support labor unions, and as many as fifty-six million non-union workers would like to join a union if they could. Thank you for the opportunity to share my expertise with the subcommittee. I'll be happy to answer any questions.

The gentleman yields. Lastly, I recognize, uh, Mister Morad for your testimony.

Thank you, Chairman Allen, Ranking Member Desaigne. I'm Greg Morad, Vice President of the National Right to Work Committee, a nonpartisan organization with one mission, one that eighty percent of Americans agree with. and that is to see that no American worker is forced to pay dues or fees to a union as a condition of employment. The title of this hearing has it right, and I'd like to give you the reality behind it. In twenty twenty-four, union households split roughly evenly between the two presidential candidates, and the only union I know of that actually polled its members showed a split more like two to one in favor of President Trump. But in that same cycle, unions reported spending nearly two billion dollars on politics, most of it from forced dues and the vast overwhelming majority of it to one political party a worker who voted for this administration had a part of every paycheck taken away against his will without his consent and watched it be spent to fight against the man he was voting for and fight it they did, and the fight didn't stop with the elections. Unions have filed suit against this administration on roughly eighteen fronts. They've filed suit to block the reforms at the Department of Education. They've rallied against the President's budget. When federal agents had to arrest the president of the SEIU California in an immigration raid the AFL-CIO staged protests in cities across the country. Their national federation even demanded that the president change the arms export policy of the United States. None of that is a wage, a benefit, or a working condition. It is a political program. And in the twenty-four states without a right to work law, the workers paying for it cannot say no. Ask Charlene Carter, a Southwest flight attendant who had resigned from her union, but was still forced to pay into it. When she objected to the union spending her dues money to march against the newly elected president, it ended up costing her her job. And it took eight years before the courts finally vindicated her. The clearest case may be President Trump's executive order fourteen two five one which restored the government's ability to run security-related agencies without giving the unions a veto. The unions sued, of course, arguing that the order punished them for opposing the administration, which at least was the frank admission that they had indeed been spending their members' money to oppose virtually everything this administration set out to do. This sort of thing is why Franklin Roosevelt himself understood that collective bargaining I'm quoting " cannot be transplanted into the public service." He was right. It is bad in principle, it is bad politics, and it is bad policy. There is one fix that reaches all of it. Make union support voluntary. The twin pillars of union power are monopoly bargaining and forced dues. Congress created this problem when it passed the National Labor Relations Act in nineteen thirty-five and it is up to Congress to solve it. A union that has to ask for workers' support instead of compelling it is a union that will have to listen to its workers. That's all the National Right to Work Act does, and a hundred and fifty-one members of the House and Senate have already signed on. The workers I've described are not anti-union, many of them are union members. They just don't believe their dues should be spent on lawsuits they never asked for and that have nothing to do with their workplace, or a campaign against a president that they voted for. Pass the National Right to Work Act and they will have a union that finally has to earn their support. Thank you and I welcome any questions.

Uh, the gentleman yields. Uh, now under co- Committee Rule nine we will uh now question witnesses under the five-minute rule. Uh, first I'll uh recognize the chairman of our full committee, uh, Mister Wahlberg, for his five minutes of questioning.

Thank you, Mister Chairman, and and thanks for the hearing, I think it's worth talking about. Um, I've mentioned numerous times that when I worked at US Steel, Southworks, Southside Chicago, same place my dad had, I had a much better work experience there, benefits, safety, than my father had. And it was because of the re- the union effort. They changed a lot that went on. And I was grateful for it, as was my dad. But that doesn't, that doesn't change the fact that in the United States, we wanna encourage people to um be able to express their positions and join their associations voluntarily. Michigan, uh, Mister Rurad, a- as you know, for almost a decade had uh employees right to work. Worked so well that union members in my district, which is a strong union district, had the choice and some chose to continue with their membership, others said "I don't need it." And they made that choice. And then when the Democrat administration took over and controlled all three houses, they quickly changed that, taking away the Employees Free Choice Act. I don't think that's helped the unions at this point. We know in my district, a portion of district formerly represented by the lion of the house, John Dingell, um, that portion of my district, strong union district, strong supporter for President Trump, overwhelmingly supporting President Trump. Uh, the fact of what you're seeing now, the UAW coming out endorsing El-Sayed. My union rank and file think that's crazy. That's not common sense, it's just crazy. It's socialism. They don't want that. They want the right to work, they want the opportunity to work, they want good wages, good benefits, but they don't want their dues being used for that. Uh, each of you expressed, have expressed some of the percentages of support that go by the unions uh to the Democrat Party and liberal liberal regimes. Uh, mister Murad, uh, when a union's political arm is that lopsided year after year, is it still fair to call it a labor organization engaged in politics, or has it become a political operation that collects dues?

Uh, I would argue that it is indeed become a political operation, collects dues from rank and file workers. It's primary spending is on politics, not on organizing, not on uh workplace issues, but on politics. And yeah, there's no doubt it's more, it is more a political organization than a worker support organization. Indeed, it's exploiting those workers to support its own political agenda.

Yeah. And, and, and the employees suffer as a result of that.

Indeed they do.

At least at expense of spending things that they wouldn't expend their their finances on.

If the union dues were uh were commensurate with the u- money the union actually spent representing those workers' actual interests, dues could be a lot lower and they'd all have more money in their pockets.

Yeah, and appreciate the union.

Indeed. Well.

Uh, mister uh, Chugely, uh, your written testimony discusses the faster labor contracts act. You raise a concern that nothing in the bill limits what a contract may cover, which could result not only in contracts workers never get a chance to vote on, but also union contracts that stray into social and political issues that have no bearing on the workplace. Elaborate a bit more on your concerns in this regard.

Absolutely. So, as I mentioned in my written testimony, the FLCA essentially allows unelected arbitrators to impose a contract for two years on workers that they never voted for. There are no limitations in that legislation about what they can bring to the table. We have seen time and time again that unions, motivated primarily by progressive politics, put forth issues that are completely irrelevant to the day-to-day well-being of workers and the issues that traditionally unions should be negotiating over, wages, workplace conditions, et cetera. Countless examples that include uh diversity, equity, and inclusion mandates, anti-Israel policies, such as the United Auto Workers in Michigan, your your home state as you mentioned, Mister Wahlberg, Uh, they voted to divest from Israel, as they say, the resolution cites the billionaire class and Israel's contribution to quote, undermine global worker unity. These are not issues that are relevant to the day-to-day concerns of rank and file workers. And yet, these might become the floor by which arbitrators are are abiding by, uh, when they impose a contract worthy FLCA to become law.

Overall worker disunity, in many cases because of this.

Exactly. It it what it does, one of the, you know, unfortunate side effects is that it creates unnecessary divisions in the workplace. I think one of the beauties of our pluralistic society is that workers who disagree on any number of issues people you know reasonable people can disagree on these questions. These are strongly held beliefs on questions you know foreign policy and things like that.

My time i- my my time has expired,

Uh

but thank you so much, I yield back.

Chairman yields, uh now I'll call on Mister Courtney for your five minutes of questioning.

Th- thank you, uh Mister Chairman, and um Again, I sort of find it ironic that the title of this hearing is " Out of Touch", um because as uh Professor Deen indicated that if anything we are going through a moment right now where support for unions uh across the country is pretty much, uh almost at an all-time high. And again, I've been on this committee long enough to remember when uh Gallup polls came in below fifty percent in terms of union support. Um you know again, I think it's just clear to all of us uh on this side of the witness table to understand that um you know the American people are feeling the pressure right now in terms of the economy and um and they basically feel that there is an imbalance uh in terms of uh their ability to to change that in terms of uh wages uh and benefits. And again I would just cite uh Mister Chairman the American uh Conference of Bishops Labor Day statement that they issued uh a few days ago, hardly, uh members of the DSA uh who uh basically uh point out that uh roughly one quarter of the labor force today are low wage workers. Among them, seventy-two percent lack stable and secure jobs and more than half are people uh of color. And again, this uh description of America Labor Day twenty twenty six from the American uh Conference of Bishops, uh I think underscores the fact that that is what's driving that gallop poll, which again, Mister Dean sort of uh walked through um in his testimony. Um, again, it's a pleasure to have you here, Professor, uh, who grew up in the second congressional district in Connecticut in Waterford uh Connecticut. And again, um, one of your uh uh your comments and your testimony about the fact that uh actually uh having higher wages uh drives increase in productivity is playing out right now uh on the shoreline, uh in eastern Connecticut. The UAW uh in twenty twenty five negotiated a contract with General Dynamics uh electric boat. uh at the shipyard there uh five year contract nine percent pay increase in year one five percent five percent five percent and four and a half percent and no give backs in terms of um any you know health and pension again this is happening at a time when the country is investing in tens of billions of dollars to recapitalize our submarine force and in fact uh we're seeing now with the new hires that this is uh generating um that actually productivity and the uh production cadence uh in the shipyard is actually on an upward trajectory which again as I think many of us know this is a a critically important um enterprise for the country right now in terms of our strategic position uh globally so again Professor you know can you talk a little bit about that sort of uh connection between giving people a decent wage in terms of creating higher productivity in our economy.

Thank you, Congressman, for the opportunity to share uh more about my research. I think an important thing to keep in mind is that the economy doesn't work the way that we're often taught about it in economics textbooks. So for example, the idea is that workers are gonna automatically share in economic growth through their wages rising with productivity. And the reality is that we only see that happening where workers have strong union representation. Without that bargaining individually, their wages tend to lag far behind productivity growth, meaning that they are not keeping up with the sort of quality of life that's possible here in the United States.

So and I found it interesting that you cited um in support of your position, uh Adam Smith in the Wealth of Nations, uh who is obviously uh you know one of the patron saints of you know sort of the uh laissez-faire economics uh in this country, but again even he saw what you just described. Can you uh talk about that a little?

Yeah. Absolutely. Adam Smith understood that in a negotiation between one individual worker and an employer it's a question about how long you can hold out before coming to an agreement and an employer can hold out much longer than an individual worker, who needs to ultimately earn a living uh to af- afford uh food and uh housing and the basic quality of life. Uh so without the ability to hold out, workers often settle for much less than an employer is able or willing to pay, and it's only through a union that they can hold out if you have a strike benefits, you can negotiate collectively for a fair share of the sort of economic pie.

Thank you. And again, uh, Pope Leo's, uh, predecessor, who you took the name, uh, Leo, issued an encyclical, Re Novarum, back in the late eighteen hundreds, uh, which laid out exactly that same, um, uh, need for, again, rebalancing what was happening as the, uh, world was industrializing. Um, and the new, uh, encyclical that just came out, Maxima Humanitas,

Without objection.

Thank you. Yield back.

Uh, the gentleman yields. Now I will uh recognize myself for five minutes for questioning. Uh, first uh I will have to say that uh y- you know, the workforce has changed. uh drastically in this country the modern workforce is very entrepreneurial we've seen a growth in uh uh those who performing like concrete finishers now in their own concrete companies and uh and that's kind of what's happened in in in my business which was construction uh iron workers are now uh you know uh uh uh subcontractors uh uh erecting steel and supplying steel so it it's been a change we've had ESOPs now that are available to employees. So there's all kind of opportunities and incentives for those folks to be part of the solution rather than have this uh controversy. And uh and I think people, that's what they want, they want uh they want those opportunities, those incentives. Uh, Mister Jones, uh, one of the troubling things that we've seen is UAW President Sean Fain wears an Eat the Rich T-shirt and says billionaires do not have a right to exist. Um, uh, however, your report found that he had several board members and they spent ninety-four thousand dollars at a Sheraton casino resort in Puerto Rico for what was billed as a week-long meeting. What does this tell you about the internal oversight of union treasuries?

Yeah, and, and so when we dug into the the reports of the spending at the unions, We see this happening unfortunately everywhere, that there is a significant line items expenditures at at really opulent resorts. Um, you know, we've got hotels and conferences from the UAW at, you know, totaling seventy-six million dollars over ten years. That's a lot of meetings and it's, you know, it's not at the Holiday Inn in Poughkeepsie, it's at the Caesars in in Las Vegas. So what I think we're seeing here is an out of touch leadership that believes they can use the union treasury as their own key to to go to resorts and spend money and and live high on the hog while their members are struggling making seventy five thousand dollars a year while they're making six figure salary.

Mm.

So unfortunately, uh oversight is asleep at the switch on when it comes to union spending.

Yeah.

And and and and it's throughout,

Yeah.

whether it's, you know, massive spending on sponsoring baseball teams so they can get access to

Yeah.

or or NASCAR, it it's throughout the labor unions.

So, uh, follow-up question, do you believe current federal reporting requirements on union spending are effective at highlighting this kind of spending for union members and what, what does Congress need to do about it?

So there's two parts to that. So, I'm a research nerd fundamentally and like I'm the kind, like I'm one of like the two people in the world that actually likes looking at LM two reports. Um, and they provide a lot of information. The Trump administration is expanding that and and detai- and providing uh, a requirement that there be more detailed information on what is disclosed. We actually get a d- a decent amount of information. That's why I can tell you about what happened here. But I think the r- the the real problem is, is taking the transparency that exists and converting it into publication, of making people understand

Right. Well, the members should know it, right?

Exactly.

I mean, it should be disclosed to every member,

Like

like, " Okay, we just spent this money."

Hundred percent. Like, you know If if I'm if I'm working if I work for Norfolk Southern and I come home at night after, you know, ten hours in the rail yard, I'm not going to the Department of Labor site to dig into the LM two to find out, you know,

Yeah.

what, you know, what the union spent my dues on. So what needs to happen is I think it's to a certain degree incumbent upon members that every time a member of a union writes you about a labor issue I think you need to one you obviously respond to their concern,

Yeah.

but you need to say, hey, look, um, your union has spent on X, Y and Z things. And if they're if you're okay with that, that's great, but if you're not, I think you need to understand a little bit better. He and so to the extent that members and groups like ours can publicize where the money is going I I think that is gonna really go a long way to tamping down the

Yeah.

disconnect between the members cuz the members are gonna say hey,

Right.

knock it off.

I'm just I'm just about out of time and I've gotta ask Mr. Gouley uh I introduced H. R. forty-one fifty-four the employee rights act, which requires unions to receive op-in permission from a union member

This is a common sense reform. Nobody should be forced to fund political speech or policy advocacy with which they disagree. The status quo is completely turned on its head where workers have to proactively opt out of having their dues and fees spent on politics if they do not wish to see it that way the Employee Rights Act creates a voluntary opt-in system, so that Union dues are treated like every other political dollar in this country, which is that they are voluntary to be spent on those causes.

OK, and uh I'm out of time and I yield back, and now I'll call on uh Ms. Lee from Pennsylvania for your questioning.

Thank you, Mr. Chair. So, this is the very last committee, subcommittee hearing that we're gonna have until November. And we're not talking about affordability crisis, we're not gonna talk about how, you know, one in five Pennsylvanians are gonna lose their health coverage, and uh thousands more will because of Republicans' Medicaid cuts. We're not gonna talk about the mass firing of fellow employees, or the unemployment rate for black women, and how it's the highest that it's, uh, that it's at its highest point in four years, or any number of issues that are within the jurisdiction of this committee. But we are gonna have another conversation and another hearing where Republicans accuse unions of being out of touch instead of looking inward. They're attacking union spending based on intel from a dark money organization, while shielding for corporations that spend hundreds of millions of dollars each year on union busting. Millions corporations could be spending to increase the wages of the union workers that they've been asking for. Um, take Amazon, a company whose profits increased by billions. each year while the number of their workers who rely on Snap benefit and Medicaid has tripled since twenty twenty. This is the same company that spent twenty thousand dollars a week, poor union busting consultant. Talk about out of touch. Last week on Labor Day, as per usual, I marched through Pittsburgh with our hundreds of our union siblings. It is a tradition in Pittsburgh where we are a proud uh labor town despite all of the barriers that union busting corporations place on our workers who are desperately attempting to unionize or to bargain in good faith. The labor movement has always been politically engaged because they know that whatever is won at the bargaining table can be undermined and has been before undermined by people on this very committee. Um, but union members will never agree on every single thing, nor should they. For instance, as it was pointed out, uh, for in the the occasion of this hearing, many members of unions are but it doesn't mean that they wanna rebou- that they wanna vote for Republicans' anti-worker agenda they have the ability to do that. The point is is that by being in a union, they have a vote, if members are unhappy with their leadership they can change it, just like your constituents can change their leadership in November if they don't agree with your agenda that doesn't meet the needs around affordability or gas prices or grocery or healthcare or childcare or housing or student loan debt or many other things and unions definitely don't Congress intervening to tell them how they should or shouldn't be spending their voluntary dues. If we're gonna talk about money in politics, let's talk about the super PAC that's paying incarcerated people in Oklahoma to make phone calls political phone calls for Republican candidates. Where's the concern? For these workers. Of course, conservatives don't actually care about the ethics of money in politics, nor how workers are being left behind. They wanna undermine unions because they are a stronghold of our democracy. Professor Deen, what does research tell us about the connection between the strength of a country's labor unions and the likelihood of collapse into authoritarian and what actions do you see against labor unions from governments that lack democracies or are beginning to backslap?