As a Chicago firefighter or paramedic, do you believe your public sector union dues, spent on political contributions, are beneficial to your long term financial security or your families’ well-being? Do you know how much of your monthly union dues end up in the hands of politicians through political contributions? Do you know if your union even provides you the names of the politicians or political organizations that they contribute to with your monthly union dues? These are legitimate questions for you, as a member of a public union, to ask yourself and your union leadership. I do know the answer to some of those questions.
Most members I speak to don’t believe contributing to politicians in this City or State has benefited their financial security or families’ well-being. Why do they say that? Most members I speak with reference the poor funding of their pensions, the increased violence in the neighborhoods they serve spreading throughout the City, and a political culture that has no shame and doesn’t represent the stabilizing middle class values that we choose to live our lives by. Almost every firefighter or paramedic I speak with trumpet the same concern – that the lack of accountability in the justice system seems to encourage the exact type of behavior that our parents discouraged and that we in turn discourage in our children.
I haven’t found a firefighter or paramedic yet, who could tell me, how much of our monthly union dues are given to politicians or political organizations. By my estimation, on average, over the past ten years, our union has contributed $150,000/year in political contributions. But that amount is trending higher with over $220,000 being spent on political contributions in 2019. I understand the union executive board, who approves these contributions, will push back, saying – ‘these contributions come from union members that voluntarily contribute to our PAC fund.’ That response would be wrong. The correct answer is, a large majority of the union’s political contributions come from your monthly dues, whether you want them to or not. So, unless the union is telling you who they are making political contributions to, the union is essentially making unauthorized political contributions on your behalf, without telling you.
Does the union tell its members who they are making contributions to with your monthly dues? No they do not. In fact, the union has made a conscious effort not to tell you. When your union publishes votes on political contributions in the executive board minutes, the names of recipients are excluded. So, this isn’t an oversight, this is a conscious decision to keep you uniformed. A decision to give your union dues to politicians – politicians you more than likely would not support if the decision was yours alone.
But to be fair to the Local 2 Executive Board, there are times when the union does name the politician or political organization they choose to give our union dues to. It isn’t clear to me why the Secretary-Treasurer occasionally deviates from the normal practice of keeping the membership in the dark, but occasionally, he will shed some light for the membership to see their executive board in action. For example, the May 2021 executive board minutes does indicate who the executive board intends to contribute, when it voted to give a $10,000 donation to Mayor Lori Lightfoot.
Even though our union typically does not tell you, it is possible to determine which politicians the union gives your money to at the state and local level by searching the Illinois State Board of Elections website. But even that is a tedious chore, because our union is very inconsistent when they write these checks. If you search for contributions under ‘Local 2 Union” you will miss the contributions made under “Firefighters Local 2” or if you search for just “Local 2” you will miss the misspelled “Chicago Firefighters Union 3”. It is difficult to quantify all of our union dues that went to local politicians because our union contributes under so many different names. My analysis identifies 200 different versions, of our union’s name, as a political contributor in the Illinois State Board of Elections database.
I am not certain how to determine how much of your union dues goes to national candidates like President Biden. I can tell you nearly 25% of your union dues, approximately $1 million annually, goes to the International. Our International was an early, and from what I understand, substantial supporter of President Biden. It would be difficult to quantify how much of your monthly union dues made it to the President, but I think it would be reasonable to conclude that some of your union dues were used to elect President Biden.
It is important you know who you are financially supporting with your union dues and whether your union is willing to tell you or keep that information from you as a public union employee. I’ve extracted and summarized from the Illinois State Board of Elections the top 100 political contributions Local 2 has made – the contributions are listed below. You might recognize the names if you read the newspapers or watch the news; the media narrative around these public figures include words like incarceration, embezzlement, ghost payrolling and indictment. Some of the names in the list are names of political party organizations that Local 2 deems are better able to identify the politicians that are ‘aligned’ with our interests; so Local 2 essentially allow the political party to divvy up our union dues to support the candidates they choose. Brothers and Sisters, stay safe, stay informed and be smart!
Fraternally,
This newsletter is my opinion only and clearly is not the opinion of the Retirement Board of the Firemen’s Annuity and Benefit Fund.
