Kenneth Schrupp - Are California’s Public Unions Serving Themselves?

City Journal investigative reporter Kenneth Schrupp joins Lars to discuss California public-sector unions collecting more than $1 billion in dues while spending millions on politics and luxury resorts. Are union members getting their money’s worth?

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SPEAKER_01 0:13

Welcome back to Lars, Lars and Joe. It's a pleasure to be with you and glad to get to your phone calls and emails. You know, California's public sector unions rake in over a billion dollars in dues while they spend huge on politics and luxury results or some of the fat cats who actually operate those unions. Who exactly are they working for and who exactly do they benefit? I thought we would check in with Kenneth Shrupp, who is an investigative reporter at City Journal. Ms. Shrupp, welcome to the program. How are you?

SPEAKER_00 0:42

Thanks, Daniel, Morris.

SPEAKER_01 0:44

So if I've if I've mischaracterized what the unions are doing, I don't have a good opinion of unions myself. I was once forced to be in a union because I don't work in a right-to-work state, and I didn't like the experience. I didn't like giving them my money. And I've never understood why somebody would want to give their money to an organization that then makes political donations to people you disagree with. But that is what California's public sector unions do. So who exactly are they serving?

SPEAKER_00 1:11

That's a great question here. When you look at the kind of benefits and money that they get, especially for some of these workers who they represent, who are frontline workers earning very little minimum wage, you see some of these leaders earning about half a million dollars a year, and they're living big at five-star resorts. I really can't understand why the California Nurses Association is spending big money at the four seasons in Toronto. That's in Canada. What are they even doing there? Why are they even at these five-star resorts? It's happening all across the state with many of these top unions that we looked at, and it's a real travesty to the workers who they say that they serve.

SPEAKER_01 1:47

I mean, because if you're going to represent, say, nurses in the state of California, you'd think the very least you could do is have your big union meetings somewhere in the state of California where the workers you represent are. Why, why, how would they justify going off to Canada?

SPEAKER_00 2:01

Well, you know, they did spend some good money in California. They spent $180,000 at the Hotel Bel Coronada, that five-star resort in San Diego, right on the ocean, $70,000 at this wonderful resort called the Claremont in Berkeley. Um, and they even spent another $65,000 in an Oceanfront Seascape Beach Resort in Apatos, which is also in California. So they're still spending some money in California to be sure, to be sure.

SPEAKER_01 2:25

And I guess the money they spend on themselves putting the you know union fat cat leaders up, the ones who make the big fat salaries and then get to go on these junkets, that pales by comparison to their political contributions, doesn't it?

SPEAKER_00 2:38

That's right. That's right. The political contributions um are are millions and millions and millions of dollars. But the that that also, even though there's a lot of money here and it's not that expensive to sort of own the politics of the machine in California, the real kicker here isn't how many members they actually have. So just looking at these 10 unions, their membership equates to at least 29% of the state's 2024 Democratic primary voters. So that's enough to completely determine in a state like California, Blue State, if you control 29% of the Democratic primary voters, you control who the nominee is. And that's the whole election right there.

SPEAKER_01 3:17

So in other words, they could have the elections even if they weren't able to also make very large donations to the campaigns of people running for office.

SPEAKER_00 3:27

Right. That's what I'm saying here. The amount of money that they spend on campaigns, it's quite a lot of money, but it pales in comparison to the real power of just sheer numbers. And these are sheer numbers of people who are voting to vote for people who will increase the amount of membership that they have, increase their pay and benefits, and the cycle continues.

SPEAKER_01 3:45

I guess the thing I wonder about, and I'm talking to Kenneth Shrupp, who is an investigative reporter at City Journal, is this if the union membership understands uh, you know, there's a lot of money that's going into politics, and only, I think, if I remember the numbers right, maybe 20 percent of their union dues are spent on actual representation activities, that is, bargaining for new contracts, uh hearing grievances or defending grievances, those kinds of things. And the other 70 or 80 percent of the money is spent on politics. Why don't the union members demand, hey, we don't want to make all these political contributions anymore. Why don't you just spend the money representing us and cut our union dues down dramatically?

SPEAKER_00 4:26

I mean, that's that's something I'm sure that a lot of union members want, or what a lot of people have done is they've decided to opt out. Um also remember though, a lot of the quote unquote representation spending, we found that a lot of that was spent at these hotels that we're talking about. They they put they file these expenses for their own lavish lifestyles under representation.

SPEAKER_01 4:47

Well, how is it that people who are making, as you point out in the story you wrote at City Journal, some of these workers are making $17.95 an hour. In other words, they're making about minimum wage for California. How is it that they tolerate the folks who are running their unions having such a fat cat lifestyle?

SPEAKER_00 5:05

Well, it's it's it's a lot of work to try to you know audit these organizations and change how they operate from the bottom up. Because if you're an IHSS worker, that's this program where the state pays you to take care of generally a family member, right? It's a very hard to audit program. A lot of people say it's full of fraud. So these workers, they have to go in for a mandatory orientation. And during that orientation, union leaders are allowed to show up and tell them to sign out for the union. There's an ongoing lawsuit saying they had no choice, saying that there's one worker who says that she was locked in the room. She and she was told that they could not leave until they actually signed to join the union. They were they were coerced into joining. And I I've I've seen other cases, even other people, where there's forgery of signatures. They say they never joined, but there's a signature that doesn't match theirs, and the money is just taken out and taken out from the account, and they can't got get off. And that's why there's an ongoing lawsuit.

SPEAKER_01 6:05

Well, in fact, Kenneth, we've talked to some of the lawyers for some of those lawsuits where they've actually pointed out we've had signature experts, not we, I haven't, but the lawyers have, and they said this is not the person's signature. And in some cases, the union even or even acknowledges, yeah, that's not the member's signature, but they're still, you know, they've still agreed to to have us represent them, and there's nothing you can do about it. And they seem to be untouchable. And in California, that seems to be the case.

SPEAKER_00 6:33

That's right, because the the governing body for these disputes is is PERB, the Public Employees Relations Board. And the majority of those people on that board, and they have judicial power pretty much, right? They are actually mostly connected to the unions. So you're not gonna get a fair trial here. Um the the House has fully rigged the deck.

SPEAKER_01 6:56

And in this case, if the union already has the deck and they've already controlled the the oversight of it through this PERB, then uh then they're not gonna get knocked out of that position at all. Unless, of course, the members. And I keep challenging people who are people who are in public unions, whether it's teachers, nurses, whatever, why don't you stand up and object to a union that claims to represent you, takes your money and then gives your money to people that you thoroughly disagree with in politics? If you're tired of that, why don't you stand up and take control? And the answer I usually hear back from them, Kenneth, is well, you know, we can't do that. This is the union. I said the union is its members. If the members can't control the union, then what exactly is the union other than just a political organization that pretends to represent the workers? Kenneth, thanks very much. That's Kenneth Scrupp, who is an investigative reporter at City Journal. Glad to get your calls at 866. Hey Lars, that's 866-439-5277. As always, on this program, naysayers always go to the head of the line. You can send emails to talk at larrislarsen.com. Our poll on X today. After the agreement by Meta to pay $18 billion to settle a lawsuit, should tech companies be held legally responsible when social media harms the mental health of kids. Back in a moment, you're listening to the Lars Larson show.