“The Fraud to End All Frauds”

by Art Pulaski, California Labor Federation

Labor Day is a celebration of working people, brought to you by American unions.  It’s  a day we can appreciate each other, and all the gains we’ve made for working people. But everything we’ve won by standing together, Prop 32 threatens to take away.

LA Times columnist Michael Hiltzik calls Prop 32 “the fraud to end all frauds.” The billionaire backers of this fraud are trying to eliminate the labor movement so they can strip away everything we’ve fought generations for: overtime pay, workplace safety, quality public education, prevailing wage, retirement security and middle class jobs.

Defeating Prop 32 is about our jobs and our wages. It’s about our right to speak out on behalf of all workers. It’s about the middle class. It’s about standing up to powerful corporations and their army of lobbyists. It’s about our right to exist.

The anti-union millionaires behind Prop 32 are trying to fool the public into thinking this fraud of a measure is about “campaign reform.” That’s a lie. Maybe the biggest lie in the history of ballot measures.

Prop 32 is a one-two punch to knock out workers. First, the anti-union millionaires strip us of our voice. Clear us out of the way. Then they come after our jobs, wages, retirement…even the right to have a union at all. 

To see what’s really going on with Prop 32, just look behind the curtain to see who’s behind it. It’s not good government types like the League of Women Voters.  In fact, the League and every other non-partisan government reform organization oppose Prop 32.

The funders and backers are the 1%. They’re billionaires like Charles Munger Jr., who has a long history of trying to rig the system so he can use his fortune to gain more power. They’re corporate executives like Thomas Siebel, a billionaire who supports sleazy Super PACs. It’s the Lincoln Club of Orange County, a group of wealthy corporate bosses who spend big money to attack unions and workers. It’s Karl Rove, the George W. Bush mastermind who now runs the biggest Super PAC in the country.

These wealthy special interests are trying to game the system. They’ve written Prop 32 to restrict unions while including every special exemption you can imagine for corporations, Wall Street, insurance companies, real estate developers and other corporate special interests.

If they succeed in passing this fraud of a measure, we won’t be able to stop them.

If the idea of a union means something you, it’s time fight back.  We have between now and Election Day to educate our co-workers, friends and communities about the Prop 32 fraud.

Saying No to Prop 32 is a good start. But we must do so much more. We need to expose this measure for what it really is. We need to urge everyone we know to vote this November. It’s a fight for the survival of our middle class. And it’s a fight California can’t afford to lose.

To learn more about Prop 32, go to www.CaliforniaLabor/NoOn32.