The Washington State Labor Council is holding its 2022 Committee on Political Education (COPE) this week to discuss how the union bosses will spend their members forced “contributions” on social justice Democrat candidates.
Of course, the members won’t be considering anyone much to the right of Karl Marx in their endorsement process. Previous endorsements have been 100% partisan and all for Democrats.
The COPE meeting is the who’s who of the alphabet soup of left-wing unions, including AFSCME, AFT, WSNA, IAM, IBEW, IBT, SPEEA and the big spender, the Washington Education Association (WEA).
The whole point of the meeting is to get every organization in lockstep and endorsing the same candidates over the objections of any particular individual member organization. They just can’t have some local thinking for itself and endorsing a candidate that isn’t as liberal as they would like.
Claiming the process is open and members votes will be counted is quite the farcical statement. Good luck introducing a candidate that doesn’t meet the collective approval of the union bosses. The voting process is perfunctory as only the approved candidates are presented for voting. Previous endorsement lists have made that clear.
The WEA, one of the biggest spenders on political campaigns, no doubt will be controlling the narrative the entire time, making sure that even before candidate filing week (when all the candidates will be out in the open), they are ready to anoint their chosen Democrat.
In order to drum up attendees (who wants to spend $179 a night on a hotel at the airport to attend a political farce), the labor council leadership is touting the claim that the unions are outspent 24-1 by big business on politics. This is to get the rank-and-file furious at the people that pay their salaries. Given the fact that the WEA spends millions of its forced dues from members on political hit pieces, this claim seems ludicrous – and it is.
Don’t panic though, if you miss the conference, you can now volunteer for candidates directly and the union-sponsored buses will drop by your house or work to whisk you to a far-flung legislative district to hand out flyers for a candidate you have never heard of.
Sounds like fun.
Of course, to get into the committee meeting you’ll be asked for a minimum $20 donation on top of the percentage of your paycheck the union has already forcefully extracted from you. And despite the union claiming it’s an open process, you have to be an affiliated organization member even to observe what’s going on.
Its just a big time-wasting session before the unions get serious and start “negotiating” with Democrat Governor Jay Inslee to create their latest backroom deal to enrich the unions (which enrich Democrat campaigns).
If you are going to the COPE meeting, have a great time. Just don’t expect your candidate to be anything but a pre-approved Democrat stalwart.
Leave a Reply