Big Labor not only squanders millions of dollars of union dues on political campaigns, they also run “training camps” to groom union members for political office. New Jersey currently boasts of the most effective of these efforts. On tomorrow’s ballot, 53 of those candidates will have completed the AFL-CIO sponsored boot camp. The effort in New Jersey alone cost the AFL-CIO approximately $250,000 this year. More than 160 current officeholders have been through the program, including 8 members of the Legislature, 12 county freeholders, 18 mayors and a county clerk. The majority of them are Democrats. “The concept was to take our members and apprentice them in the field of politics, just as we apprentice them in their own crafts,” said Charles Wowkanech, the president of the state AFL-CIO. “We started with zoning boards, school boards, councils, then mayor, freeholder, and then senators and assemblyman.” The payoff? The New York Times article credits the program with the success of several union-friendly laws coming out of Trenton, including a law allowing government agencies to require even nonunion contractors to adhere to the terms of union contracts and a card-check provision making it possible for employees to unionize without elections.
