Taxpayer Funded Lobbying

Under current law and contracts, it’s permissible for a school district’s personnel office to act as the collection agent for Political Action Committee contributions and membership dues on behalf of a government union. Taxpayers shouldn’t be forced to collect union campaign contributions and political money. Paycheck protection laws can put an end to this system by preventing the use of taxpayer resources for politics. Here are eight misleading claims about paycheck protection

Taxpayer resources should not be used for any political purposes. Every citizen and every organization—including government unions—should have an equal opportunity to engage in policy debates through a level playing field for all, and favor for none. Ending the government unions’ special privilege of taxpayer-funded "automatic collection" of dues and political action committee (PAC) money is a matter of fairness.

Comprising the government employee unions, private sector unions, trial lawyers, extreme greens, and other nonprofits that feed off taxpayer money, the Union Party is aligned for a single purpose: To use the American political system to extract the greatest amount of income and wealth as possible for the benefit of but a few.

Pennsylvania's government unions wield tremendous political influence and advance policies that harm the commonwealth's taxpayers, children, and even their own members. Pennsylvania is a forced union state, meaning even workers who are not official union members must pay fees to the union as a condition of their employment. A single union usually has monopoly bargaining power with a government unit, such as a school district, preventing employees from choosing a different union or from bargainin

Pennsylvania is one of 28 states in which workers can be compelled to give part of their paycheck to a union just to keep their job. Moreover, even non-membership is costly. Those able to evade union coercion are still compelled to pay hundreds of dollars in fair share fees, or agency fees, to cover their supposed share of benefits gained from collective bargaining.

Pennsylvania is a forced union state, meaning that workers can be forced to join a union or pay a "fair share fee" just to keep their job. Most government units in Pennsylvania are "agency shops," with a specified union to which workers must pay a fee. When state and local governments automatically deduct dues and fair share fees from government workers' paychecks—as is the practice in Pennsylvania—employees have little or no say in how their money is used.

On June 30, 15 of the state's 19 government union contracts expire, with two more expiring in August. These 19 public sector unions represent 62,271 state employees, whose compensation from taxpayers exceeds $4.6 billion.

More than $92 million in taxpayer dollars for public education is being funneled through school districts back to these special interest groups, including the American Federation of Teachers (AFT) and the Pennsylvania State Education Association (PSEA). These groups that profit from the $26 billion Pennsylvania taxpayers dole out on public schools have formed a coalition against school vouchers, ramped up their lobbying efforts and run attack ads against school choice and other education reforms

The Commonwealth Foundation announced today preliminary results from extensive Open Records Requests that found more than $59 million dollars of taxpayer money is being funneled through taxpayer-funded public school districts directly to organizations frequently involved in lobbying against the interests of taxpayers and underserved children.