It’s the union that won’t take “NO” for an answer.

Five years after workers at the Volkswagen plant in Chattanooga said “no thanks” to representation by the UAW, the beleaguered union was once again rejected this week.

Shed a tear for the editors who had to scrap or rewrite pre-drafted editorials about labor’s new momentum in the south.

Regardless of whether you were pro- or anti-UAW, local news reports made clear it was impossible to miss the union’s message in Chattanooga. The union’s lavish spending on television, radio, digital and even gas station advertisements ensured that workers were well-educated on what they were voting for (or against) this week. A pro-union reporter even suggested that the city was “mobilized” in favor of the UAW.

With all of these advantages, the union still couldn’t gain majority support. If you thought the union might spend the morning in quiet reflection, you’d be wrong:

The UAW today called on Congress to take a comprehensive look at the country’s labor laws and NLRB rules that made it almost impossible for Volkswagen workers to form a union. https://t.co/Qlge5pUFvw

— UAW (@UAW) June 15, 2019

This is a classic case of sour grapes. The union’s real gripe here isn’t with US labor law; it’s that no one could help the UAW tilt the playing field to overcome its terrible reputation. The union has spent the last several years coping with a Justice Department investigation into corruption in its top ranks. (This investigation is apparently ongoing.) Add to that the guilty pleas from its top leaders, and multiple scandals over excess spending, and it’s no surprise that workers are skeptical of the union’s value proposition.

Even in Chattanooga, the UAW was its own worst enemy: An apparently UAW-approved “Center for VW Facts” smear campaign, run by UAW member Joe DiSano, was so distasteful that pro- and anti-UAW workers were united in opposition. Nice job, guys!

If the union’s leadership wants to know why autoworkers are rejecting UAW representation, they should start by looking in the mirror.

As workers at Tennessee’s Chattanooga Volkswagen plant prepare to vote next week on whether or not to join the UAW, the newly launched “Center for VW Facts” (sound familiar?) has set out to “bring transparency to VW.” A questionable goal, considering the group’s founder has a history of using dirty and dishonest tactics.

The man behind the group is Joe DiSano, a long time political consultant from Michigan. The group’s website accuses VW of “waging a ‘deceptive campaign to discourage employees'” from joining the UAW. But, as a recent article unveiling DiSano’s unsavory past offenses points out, it seems he “would know a thing or two of ‘deceptive’ campaigns.”

During a 2012 Democratic statehouse primary in Michigan, DiSano put out a robo call that accused one of the candidates of “using the internet to lure young girls into nude modeling sessions at his home.” It then described how the same candidate would take “dirty pictures” in his basement. The call further indicated that the candidate needed “psychiatric help” for this “filthy” hobby. The man who was the target of these calls ultimately lost the election, but went on to sue DiSano for defamation.

In the end, not only did DiSano agree to settle the lawsuit, he also agreed to perform a slew of public apologies. For starters, DiSano had to issue and sign an apology letter—the wording of which the plaintiff had the final say over. DiSano also allowed two full-page ads to be taken out publicly announcing his apology, both of which he was to pay for in part. If that wasn’t enough, DiSano also had to organize another robo call, this time to apologize for his lies, directed at the same households that received the first one.

Even after all that, it doesn’t look like DiSano has learned his lesson about lying. He continues to claim that the Center for VW Facts is unconnected to the UAW (although DiSano himself is a member of the union). However, recent Federal Communications Commission filings show that both groups hired the same media buying company for the same job—placing thousands of dollars in ads in Chattanooga.  A purchase order made by the Center for VW Facts last month showed the stated purpose was for “VW Union,” the same label the UAW has used for its purchases.

Workers in Chattanooga might ask themselves how much trust they’re willing to put into Joe DiSano and his so-called “Center for VW Facts.”

Last week, the National Labor Relations Board dismissed the United Auto Workers’ petition requesting a vote to unionize at the Volkswagen plant in Chattanooga, TN. Just hours after the NLRB gave its decision, the UAW filed a new petition with the board.

But a new petition won’t fix the union’s bad reputation—the reality of which the Center for Union Facts continues to highlight for the public. CUF’s ongoing national campaign to hold the UAW accountable for its “culture of corruption” now features a series of updated digital billboards in Chattanooga that highlight the UAW’s many broken promises to workers.

UAW Promise: Better Work Schedules. Reality: Forced Overtime.

UAW Promise: Prioritize Union Workers. Reality: Union Leaders Guilty of Corruption.

UAW Promise: Protect Members “Forever.” Reality: Thousands of Lost Auto Jobs.

UAW Promise: Respect for all Workers. Reality: Accusations of Discrimination and Abuse.

The UAW has been scraping the bottom of the barrel in an attempt to fight these and other facts. A recent opinion piece in the Tennessean even launched personal attacks at longtime Ford employee Terry Bowman for speaking his mind about the UAW’s corrupt actions.

Some additional food for thought that’s not featured on these billboards: According to the UAW’s political spending in the last election cycle, over 99 percent of the union’s candidate-specific giving went to the Democratic Party.

Given the UAW’s track record, it seems members can expect at least part of their union dues to go to either liberal politicians, or—even worse—into the pockets of union officials. Workers like Bowman are right to ask themselves if that’s really how they want their hard-earned dues to be spent.

Earlier this year, Njoke Woods, a worker at the Service Employees International Union’s second largest local, United Healthcare Workers West (SEIU-UHW), accused the union of having a “culture of sexual misconduct, favoritism, and backroom dealing against the members.” She was ultimately fired for speaking out.

Now, to add insult to injury, she is being sued for defamation by the union and the SEIU International Vice President Dave Regan.

But the same union is also facing a sexual misconduct lawsuit that was brought by SEIU organizer Mindy Sturge. According to the Payday Report, the lawsuit brought by Sturge corroborates the same accusations made by Woods.

The allegations have certainly ruffled feathers at the SEIU—Vice President Regan has since made public warnings against employees who might plan to come forward with their own negative experiences. As Woods put it, “They want other people to be afraid of speaking up, they have a lot of secrets that they don’t want people to know about.”

Unfortunately, ongoing cases of sexual misconduct within today’s labor unions don’t stop with the SEIU. Amid the broader #MeToo movement, workers have been empowered to come forward with stories of workplace abuse, often at the hands of union officials. How their unions handle these accusations is a different story.  As the New York Times recently reported, several unions “including the United Auto Workers have come under fire for seeming to do more to protect the jobs of the accused than the women who were their targets.”

As more employees undoubtedly come forward, let’s hope union officials put less emphasis on protecting their own skin, and more effort into protecting workers.

The United Auto Workers union might like you to forget that some of its top-ranking executives have been implicated or plead guilty in a federal corruption investigation. A new series of billboards ensures this won’t happen anytime soon.

For the next phase of a national education campaign on corruption in the ranks of the UAW, the Center for Union Facts has launched a series of high-profile billboards in Chattanooga, TN, and a mobile billboard in Detroit, MI, near the UAW headquarters. The billboards are part of an ongoing effort to educate the public and hold the UAW accountable for its “culture of corruption” and anti-worker tactics.

The billboards in Chattanooga are located along heavily-trafficked routes and feature the following facts about the UAW:

UAW officials admitted guilt in a federal corruption investigation. 

Thousands of auto jobs have been lost on the UAW’s watch.

The UAW built a luxury home for its former president with non-union labor.

A series of digital billboards in Chattanooga will rotate through facts that readers of this website are well-acquainted with, including the “culture of corruption” identified by the Justice Department and the UAW’s huge drop in membership in 2018. And in Detroit, a mobile billboard featuring similar messages will travel between downtown and the UAW’s headquarters at Solidarity House.

If sunlight is truly the best disinfectant, perhaps these billboards are a small step towards UAW leadership seeing the error of its ways.

On Monday, the Center for Union Facts launched a new project www.PublicUnionFacts.com. The first of its kind, the website compiles 20 years of data on public-sector union political spending in one place. The site includes over 385,000 political contributions from nearly 5,000 labor unions.

Unlike most private unions, public-sector unions are not currently required to file financial disclosures with the Labor Department. The best source of information on public-sector union spending habits is its political giving. Unfortunately, this information is often spread across multiple difficult-to-access state databases. With PublicUnionFacts.com, employees can simply type in the name of their union to find its political spending history.

The site also highlights the disproportionate amount of member dues unions have sent to Democratic causes over the last 20 years. Of the $1.5 billion that was sent directly to Republicans or Democrats, 90 percent went to Democrats with only 10 percent going to Republicans. Additionally, Democrats in just five states—California, New York, Illinois, Pennsylvania, and Oregon—received more money from public unions than Republicans did nationwide.

After the Supreme Court’s landmark decision in Janus vs. AFSCME, public-sector union members are no longer forced to financially support their union as a condition of employment. Now, workers can choose to keep the portion of their dues that would have gone to support predominantly left-leaning causes. In fact, early data from the Labor Department shows many workers are doing just that.

There is a growing disconnect between how unions are spending money and what workers really want. Now, with access to more facts, employees can start to hold their representatives accountable.

Last week, Representative Phil Roe, M.D. (R-Tenn.) reintroduced the Employee Rights Act (ERA). The bill, which garnered over 180 co-sponsors in the last Congress, would bring our current labor law into the 21^st century by providing protections for the 7.6 million private-sector union members in the U.S.

Right now, about 40 percent of union certifications bypass the secret ballot election. This means union leaders can hold public votes, relying on coercion and intimidation to maintain the status quo. To combat these scare tactics, the ERA would ensure secret ballot elections—a method over 80 percent of union households support. It would also guarantee periodic recertification votes to make sure current union members actually get the chance to vote for their representation.

The ERA would bring much-needed reform to the process by which unions can deduct members’ dues from their paychecks and use them to support political causes. Right now, dues are automatically withheld from workers’ paychecks. While employees can request a refund, the method for doing so is often vague and arduous. The ERA would put an end to this out-dated process by instead requiring workers to opt in to making dues payments that go to support their union’s political agenda.

This is good news for the 40 percent of union households who vote Republican in any given election, even though unions have given over $1.3 billion dollars—or 99 percent of their total political spending—to liberal groups and causes.

As Rep. Roe put it, “The ERA will restore workers’ faith in unions because it is neither pro- nor anti-union. It will simply make unions more accountable to the workers they serve.”

It’s time for Congress to get on board with the over 70 percent of Americans who support the ERA’s provisions.