EXCLUSIVE: The country’s four largest public-sector unions spent a combined $915 million on elections and progressive political activism during the 2024 election cycle, 86% of which came from member dues.
The Commonwealth Foundation, a Pennsylvania-based nonprofit promoting free-market policies, highlighted the massive political spending by the National Education Association (NEA), the American Federation of Teachers (AFT), the Service Employees International Union (SEIU) and the American Federation of State, County and Municipal Employees (AFSCME) in a new report released this week.
The foundation published a similar report during the 2022 election cycle that found all four of these unions spent $708 million on progressive politics,
The report’s findings, particularly that 86% of the unions’ nearly $1 billion in political spending stems from membership dues, underscore criticism that these entities work more to push a political agenda than support their members.
FEDERAL PROBE DEMANDS CHICAGO TEACHERS UNION EXPLAIN MISSING FINANCIAL AUDITS SINCE 2020
“What they’re doing when they’re making these political investments is they’re trying to get people into office that will raise taxes and increase the size and scope of government,” public sector unions expert Aaron Withe told Fox News Digital. “That’s the way that it’s been working for decades. That’s why you see the government grows every single year. That’s why you see taxes go up most every year as well.”
Withe, a critic of both public- and private-sector unions, said private-sector unions at least have an incentive structure based on a company’s or industry’s bottom line, but public-sector unions, Withe argued, are incentivized by raising taxes and growing government.
“When you look at union spending in politics, you have to remember that their goal — their primary purpose is a business — so they’re there to grow revenue. They’re there to gain more revenue than the year previously,” Withe pointed out. “The difference with the government union is that that revenue comes from public employees. And the way that you hire more public employees is by raising taxes on the private sector so that you can hire more bureaucrats.”
David Osborne, senior director of labor policy for the Commonwealth Foundation and co-author of the report, said “the big question” from his report is whether rank-and-file union members are aware of how their money is actually being spent.
“Years ago, [union members] could expect union executives to use dues to drive member services, including contract negotiations and grievance processing,” Osborne said. “Now, union members are unwittingly propping up left-leaning candidates and progressive causes like abortion, critical race theory and defunding the police.”
MY TEACHERS UNION CALLS IT REPRESENTATION. I SAY THERE ARE $114 MILLION REASONS TO SUE THEM
According to the Commonwealth Foundation’s report, the findings show that approximately 25% of the group’s total spending — or $642 million — goes toward “representational activities,” which the report describes as “the spending category most closely tied to membership support.” Meanwhile, the unions also spent about a combined 33% of their total spending — or $845 million — on general overhead, union administration, staff benefits and other cost categories “linked to basic operations.”
But spending on elections and progressive political activism surpassed both those categories. Collectively, the unions spent around $755 million on federal elections and national progressive politics, while their state-level affiliates combined to spend another $160 million on state races and ideological causes. Of that spending, $650 million, or 86%, originated from union membership dues, according to the Commonwealth Foundation.
The report notes the unions also collect voluntary political action committee (PAC) deductions from members and their families, which allows the unions to collect money that can then go directly to candidates, something that is not supposed to be done with members’ dues money. The union’s federal PAC spending accounted for 14% of the group’s political spending, according to the report.
“Government unions’ heavy use of membership dues money for politics — more than what they collectively spent on representational activities — underlines a disturbing trend: the growing, overt reliance by union officials to spend member dues rather than political action committee funds on their political and ideological agendas,” the Commonwealth Foundation says in its new report.
“Yet, much of this spending is possible only because of the lack of accountability and control over what powerful union executives do with members’ dues. Union dues, not the separately collected PAC funds, are the overwhelming power behind — 86 percent — of union political spending.
“Few members are aware that union leaders launder much of their dues through super PACs and 527s to back political projects. Even fewer members can effect change within their union to stop it.”
Fox News Digital reached out to the NEA, AFT, SEIU and AFSCME for comment but did not hear back in time for publication.
Largest public-sector unions spent eye-popping amount on left-wing politics — 86% funded by member dues 2025 IUSTITIA.BG – Investigations 2009-2025 2025-12-04 22:35:09 Latest news World news Country news Most important news latest news most important latest of the day Justice Petar Nizamov Feathers Petar Nizamov- Feathers Justice bg iustitia.bg iustitia iusticia usticia investigation Burgas Bulgaria news news of the last hour news of the day news of today Bulgaria news The news from Bulgaria blitz news top news most important most commented latest news Boyko Borisov news weather coronavirus news news weather facebook youtube facebook instagram news today news of the last minutes news today today news news bg news leading news hot news bg news site for news all news news bg news of the last hour latest latest news bg news of today news today news today news of the last hour latest news today news bg news news 24 hours news vesti bg novini news world bird bg bivol bg bivol trud bg novini latest news today novinite bg news hello bulgaria political party coat of arms delyan peevski scandalous Bulgarian National Television Free Europe Television scandal exclusive live tv live right now tv tv online tv program bg live now tv news online tv online live court Burgas court Burgas district court Burgas court Burgas district court Burgas district court Burgas appellate court Burgas prosecutor Burgas prosecutor’s office Burgas district prosecutor’s office Burgas district prosecutor’s office Burgas district prosecutor’s office Burgas district prosecutor’s office Burgas district prosecutor’s office Burgas district prosecutor’s office Prosecutor General Ivan Geshev Prosecutor Geshev Tsatsarov Ministry of Internal Affairs Burgas ODMR Burgas ODPR Burgas police Burgas district police Burgas prosecutor Tsatsarov SGS cases Varna court chairman of the SGS court decisions on civil cases decisions on cases Plovdiv court decision of the court decisions cases Varna court criminal cases district district court decisions work in the court SGS chairman of the SGS judges Sofia court post judges Plovdiv court Plovdiv judges Plovdiv Supreme Court Inspectorate Supreme Court Supreme Judicial Council lawyer lawyer criminal cases lawyer civil cases lawyer marriage cases lawyer administrative criminal law criminal process civil law civil process administrative law constitutional law
