Ah election time, banners, backstabbing and bulls**t.
I tender this question, since every group known to man seems to have a political agenda they wish push onto everyone else, and in their struggle to achieve this, they routinely endorse candidates whose ideas and platform most closely match theirs. Fair enough…But, what about groups or unions whose members are made up of government employees? It can be inferred that their exsitence is solely based on the fact that taxes are paying their wages, witch pays the union dues yada yada yada (I think you can see where I am going with this).
Some of these groups are huge, in fact, I think the main federal workers union (sorry, forgot name) is the second largest union behind the Teamsters! Quite frankly, my political views can be very different than theirs.
Come on Dopers, what you think? Please try to stay with this thread, also, I know that some of you, as I am, are very passionate about your politics, please be courteous to each other. Please try ::rolling my eyes:: to back up what you say with reasonable debate.
That would be AFSCME I believe. Association of Federal, State, County and Municipal Employees.
The problem is the unions aren’t just federal government, they are also state county and municapiliies. I think it would be unfair to tell city employees that they can not try and influence a presidental election.
But what about federal employees? Well, it is no longer your taxes once in goes to them. It is at that point their wages. If you are going to complain about them contributing to political campaigns, you would also have to ban them from making private donations, you would also have to ban politicians from making contributions or campaigning for someone. Then we enter the sticky territory. I don’t think that people should own pets (not really my viewpoint).Should I be able to protest that my tax dollars are funding pet ownership? No! All they are doing is paying for people to provide services. What they do afterwords is their business.
I’m a federal employee, and a member of the American Federation of Government Employees local 1969.
The AFGE is one of the larger gummint unions, and they’re a member of the AFL-CIO, which did endorse Gore.
There are strict regs (the Hatch Act, specifically) that prevent federal employees from taking certain actions. These include such things as wearing campaign buttons to work. At one time, federal employees weren’t allowed to publicly speak on any candidate.
In 1992, I was active-duty military, working for the Clinton campaign in Texas. (This was permitted; I checked.) I was shoved in front of a camera and asked why I was a Clinton supporter. Thank God Abilene, Texas isn’t a large Navy town and I wasn’t in uniform; I could’ve been court-martialed for making that statement. The laws have since been loosened up somewhat.
We’re allowed and encouraged to vote, and certain forms of activism are welcomed. However, the federal civil service and politics don’t mix. And it’s a good thing.
I disagree with the OP, but have to admit that I am a state employee.
First, the tiny nit - AFSCME is the American Federation of State, County and Municipal Employees. There are, in fact, some federal employees represented by AFSCME, but that is not part of their name, and I think it is a pretty small part of the union membership.
Second, corporations that contract with the federal government are allowed to lobby the government about their contracts and to write off the expenses for such lobbying as a business expense. I certainly don’t see why federal employee unions should be cut out of political activity, just because tax dollars are involved.
Third, of all the kinds of things that an organization could do politically, an endorsement seems to me to be the most benign. If you don’t like the politics of a group, the endorsement is there for you to gain an additional clue about a politician (and, presumably, vote against him/her).
Fourth, it is certainly NOT the case that a union endorsement means that all of the workers in that union will heed the endorsement. My recollection is that union members are becoming less prone to following either traditional partisan ties or their leader’s endorsements.
Finally, oldscratch’s point about who owns the wages is important. If you don’t want them getting the wages in the first place (you want a smaller government), then work to cut the size of government. But don’t presume that you get the right to say how those workers can use the money they have earned.
Insert standard disclaimer about opinions not being those of my employer here