One thing that this last election cycle made clear is that it matters to union members how their money is spent in relation to politics and social movements. That insight has become clearer with the organization or a new kind of union. Tech Solidarity is one such “union.” It was founded in November 2016. “But rather than fighting for higher compensation and better working hours like most traditional unions, the group says it is organizing to deliver a different message: it won’t help companies collaborate ‘on dubious government policies from immigration to surveillance.’” This is another example of the shift of unions away from traditional “representational” activities and more toward social justice issues. Looking at the amount of sway political and social movement donations from businesses have in our culture, it wouldn’t surprise us to see unions embrace this sort of paradigm in their organizing efforts. They already have. Just look at Fight for $15. Speaking of, it was recently pointed out that Fast Food Justice, “a nonprofit worker center that advocates on behalf of low wage workers,” shares an office with SEIU 32BJ. Now of course we’ve known SEIU was backing a lot of these worker centers, it’s just interesting to see that the organizations themselves appear to be less and less concerned with keeping up the “we’re two separate entities” approach, especially as they attempt to pass the Fast-Food Worker Empowerment Act. This bill would “require employers to honor workers’ requests to deduct voluntary contributions from their paycheck to a not-for-profit organization” or (as we would suspect is likely) unions fronting as not-for-profit organizations.
