 Larry Cohen endorsed Sanders, a U.S. senator and professed democratic socialist
from Vermont, a few weeks after stepping down as president of the Communications
Workers of America union.
“Many are discouraged that economic inequality is worse now than it was six
years ago,” Cohen wrote in a July endorsement of Sanders published at Huffington
Post.
The gap between America’s rich and poor is a major theme of Cohen speeches and
the Sanders campaign, but CWA paid Cohen a total of $1,009,057 from 2011-15.
Cohen’s pay was taken from workers’ paychecks.
Many of those workers weren’t even CWA members. As of June, CWA was taking
mandatory “agency fees” from 41,287 nonmembers who were required to pay the
union to keep their jobs.
“The one percent that controls the wealth of our nations now believes they can
control our democracy, our workplace, our environment, our earth,” Cohen warned
in one of his final fiery speeches as CWA president.
While Cohen was running CWA, over 40,000 nonmembers had to pay CWA “an agency
fee equal to normal Union dues” – and those fees helped cover Cohen’s yearly
compensation, which ranked among America’s top 5 percent.
Nonmembers who don’t want CWA spending their agency fees on politics must file
an objection every year for a partial refund. This is common practice in states
without right-to-work laws, and it’s a practice Sanders firmly supports.
Even if every CWA agency fee payer got a refund for the union’s political
activity last year, they were still required to contribute to Cohen’s pay.
RELATED: Business-bashing telecom union boss takes mandatory dues
CWA headquarters hasn’t endorsed Sanders for president, but the congressman has
been an outspoken CWA ally in what the union describes as a movement “to restore
economic justice for working families.”
Cohen’s early endorsement of Sanders helped spark a national “Labor for Bernie”
drive to secure Sanders endorsements from labor unions that haven’t yet lined up
behind Hillary Clinton.
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 Greg Mourad, vice president of legislation for the nonprofit
National Right to Work Committee, told Watchdog it’s no surprise
Cohen and his peers like Sanders.
“Sanders tries to make it easier for Big Labor to collect forced
dues, and Big Labor bosses turn around and give some of those forced
dues back to Sanders and others like him, so he can keep making it
easier to collect more forced dues,” Mourad said.
“It’s a vicious cycle,” Mourad added, “and the victims are the
hard working men and women these politicians and union bosses claim
to represent.”
Even if CWA doesn’t follow its immediate past president in formally
endorsing Sanders for the Democratic presidential nomination, the
union spends millions of dollars on far-left politics every year.
CWA reported $4.4 million in political activity and lobbying
expenditures to the U.S. Department of Labor for the 2015 fiscal
year ending in May. A large portion of another $3 million in CWA
“contributions, gifts and grants” spending went to political
activist groups.
CWA donated $490,000 to its CWA Working Voices political action
committee and $350,000 to “New Yorkers Together,” a labor union
group based in Phoenix, Arizona.
CWA gave $151,000 to a union “State Unity Fund” in Washington, D.C.,
and $100,000 to Jobs With Justice DC, a chapter of a national union
advocacy group founded by Cohen.
Other political groups receiving donations CWA didn’t report as
political activity included Democracy Alliance, which received
$60,000 from the union, and National Gay & Lesbian Task Force, which
received $50,000.
CWA reported $485,615 in political activity payments to CWA Working
Voices, and $33,000 in political expenses paid to left-wing advocacy
group Campaign for America’s Future.
The Washington, D.C., union headquarters made political payments of
$33,000 to ProgressOhio, $25,000 to OhioOhioNow, $15,000 to Policy
Matters Ohio and $5,000 to Innovation Ohio.
CWA and the Sanders campaign both failed to respond to requests for
comment.
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