Prop. 32: a facade of equality

Often they can be underappreciated or unnoticed, but many play a central role in our communities. They are the firefighters, police, teachers and other public sector employees. Without these integral members in our society, everyone would suffer.

Yet California’s Proposition 32, also known as the “Paycheck Protection” Initiative, has angered many public servants, such as teachers, as an attack against their livelihood.

Prop 32 restricts the ability of unions and businesses to support political candidates with monetary funds through money given by union members. Many teachers believe that this policy benefits large businesses and corporations while restricting the ability of unions to contribute and let their voice be heard.

“Prop 32 is a way to keep the unions down and raise the importance of corporations, which already outspend unions by quite a bit,” history teacher Mike Davey said.

If the legislature truly desires to stop special interest money, the law must be equal for all.

Instead of solely limiting union fundraising, a better method of stopping special interest contributions would be to restrict the amount of money donated by large corporations or to equalize the law to encompass all special interest groups. Currently, Prop 32 would unfairly repress the voice of unions, especially those of government workers, such as teachers, while leaving large corporations untouched.

“Unions don’t have any other way of getting funding, so they ask the members to give a mandatory [fee],” history teacher, Matt Torrens said. “Big business can go out and do fundraisers and collect money in other ways, in addition to [member fees].”

In Wisconsin, a similar law was passed limiting collective bargaining for public workers. Collective bargaining is the practice of having worker unions and corporations negotiate for an agreement acceptable to both parties.

Thus, with the restriction of collective bargaining, teachers were unable to protest or compromise when heavier workloads and longer hours were imposed upon them. California teachers fear that a similar situation will occur if Prop 32 is passed.

“People think that [restriction of payroll deductions] is the first step, and that [the loss of collective bargaining] is the second step,” Torrens said. “Once you take away the power to collect donations to fight [decisions] in the legislature, then you make it easy to try to take away collective bargaining.”

Supporters of the bill claim that the proposition is equal: No one can contribute money from payroll deductions and this in turn will reduce the amount of interest money pouring into campaigns. However, large corporations contribute much more money to political causes than unions do, but their activities are not limited significantly by the proposition, as payroll deduction funds do not constitute a majority of the money donated.

Instead of cutting off the minor donations generated from unions, controlling the money spent by big businesses would be much more effective in stopping special interest money.

“Seven of the top donors are wealthy Republicans; only the other three are unions,” Davey said. “This is an attempt to squash unions.”