FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE: April 12, 2000
CONTACT: Dan Rene, 703-847-3088 or drene@nlpc.org
WASHINGTON -- Today, Ken Boehm, Chairman of the National Legal and Policy Center, a union corruption watchdog group, testified before the U.S. Senate Rules Committee, chaired by Sen. Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.), at hearing on campaign finance and compelled speech in unions.
Mr. Boehm’s testimony is entitled “Union Corruption and Compelled
Speech: The Need for Meaningful Remedies.” The full text is available
at: <http://www.nlpc.org/olap/congress/000412.
htm>. The following is two excerpts of Mr. Boehm’s written testimony:
"One of the greatest ironies in the current debate over campaign finance is that many of the those self-described 'reformers' who would like to restrict First Amendment rights of individuals to engage in political speech appear to have no qualms about allowing compelled political speech, i.e., forcing individuals to subsidize political views with which they disagree.The National Legal and Policy Center publishes Union Corruption Update, a fortnightly newsletter. UCU is archived at: <http://www.nlpc.org/olap/ucu/index.htm>. NLPC’s Organized Labor Accountability Project is investigating and exposing corruption in the Teamsters, LIUNA, HERE, AFL-CIO and other labor organizations. NLPC is a nonpartisan, nonprofit foundation promoting ethics and accountability in government through research, education and legal action.The notion that individuals should have their free speech rights curtailed while at the same time be forced to support political beliefs which they abhor is not new. It is the hallmark of virtually every dictatorship and police state that has ever existed.
In the context of the campaign finance policy debate, the compelled political speech issue has been most relevant in the controversy over the use of forced union dues to pay for political activities."
"[R]ights, like the Supreme Court decisions that support them, are not self-enforcing. In the absence of meaningful remedies to ensure those rights are honored, recent history suggests that those whose interests are threatened by workers exercising their rights will do their utmost to undermine those rights.
The weight of evidence suggests that a 'wave of union corruption'...is occurring because of weaknesses in the system of laws meant to prevent, detect and punish those crimes. Workers whose hard-earned money is being stolen through union corruption deserve the protection of the law. No credible argument can be made that workers should have less legal protections against corruption than shareholders have against unscrupulous corporate officers...
The Supreme Court decisions repeatedly recognizing the rights of workers against compelled political speech are the law of the land, yet the rights are elusive without meaningful remedies. Workers who have no access to reliable information as to what portion of the funds they provide to unions go for collective bargaining as opposed to politics are poorly equipped to exercise their First Amendment rights, especially in the face of harassment, retaliation and and the studied indifference and delay of government bureaucracies to their plight."