Yet another boondoggle

 

For the benefit of overseas readers who may not have heard of it:

The American Federation of Labor and Congress of Industrial Organizations (AFL-CIO) is a national trade union center that is the largest federation of unions in the United States. It is made up of 61 national and international unions, together representing nearly 15 million active and retired workers. The AFL-CIO engages in substantial political spending and activism, typically in support of progressive and pro-labor policies.

"Progressive" is right . . . the AFL-CIO and its member unions have consistently advocated for pro-labor, anti-capital positions, and have actively sought to organize workers in many other countries.  Unfortunately, it looks like they were doing so by illicitly using US taxpayer dollars to fund their operations.

The American taxpayer should not be subsidizing an international NGO that serves as the global arm of a partisan U.S. labor union. Yet, through an intricate web of grants, bureaucratic allocations, and foreign assistance programs, millions of taxpayer dollars flow directly into the coffers of the AFL-CIO’s Solidarity Center, an entity functionally indistinguishable from the union itself. This relationship is not only improper; it is a textbook example of a conflict of interest—one that permits an ideologically driven labor federation to extend its influence under the auspices of U.S. democracy promotion while working against the very interests of the American worker.

The Solidarity Center is not a neutral NGO pursuing disinterested humanitarian labor reform. It is, in reality, an extension of the AFL-CIO, created and staffed by the very same individuals who dictate the federation’s domestic agenda. The leadership structure reveals this plainly: the chair of the Solidarity Center’s board is none other than the AFL-CIO president. The Center’s policies, hiring, and operations mirror those of the union itself. This is not a loosely affiliated advocacy group that happens to share an ideological affinity with the AFL-CIO—it is a fully integrated arm of the same organization, masquerading as an independent NGO to secure government funding.

Consider the implications of this arrangement. If a politically aligned, privately run trade union can establish a non-governmental organization that then siphons taxpayer money under the guise of promoting “labor democracy,” the result is a system in which the federal government is effectively underwriting the union’s political ambitions abroad. This dynamic is especially troubling given that the AFL-CIO, like all labor unions, exists to serve a narrow set of economic interests—those of its leadership, its dues-paying members, and its preferred political allies. When the AFL-CIO lobbies for policies that increase unionization rates or protect entrenched labor privileges, it does so in direct opposition to large segments of the American workforce—especially independent contractors, small business owners, and workers in right-to-work states who have chosen not to unionize. The Solidarity Center allows these domestic priorities to be exported under the banner of international development, reinforcing the power of organized labor with government assistance.

Moreover, the funding pipeline that sustains the Solidarity Center is largely opaque. The Center’s operations rely almost entirely on U.S. government grants—more than 96% of its funding comes from agencies like USAID, the National Endowment for Democracy (NED), and the U.S. Department of Labor. This is not an organization sustained by voluntary contributions from like-minded donors; rather, it is a taxpayer-funded project that continues to receive tens of millions of dollars in federal grants despite its direct alignment with a partisan domestic institution. There is no meaningful oversight mechanism that prevents these funds from being used to advance AFL-CIO interests rather than genuine labor reform abroad. Even more troubling, there is little transparency about how funds are spent in the dozens of countries where the Solidarity Center operates.

There's more at the link.

Isn't it nice to know (NOT!) that our taxes have been wasted on such activities, rather than spent on things that this country really needs?

I'm beginning to think that Elon Musk's early estimate that D.O.G.E. might be able to find up to $2 trillion in wasted and/or fraudulent and/or unnecessary expenditure might be conservative.  He and his team have been at work for only a few days longer than a month, yet already they're uncovering such problems left, right and center.  I understand that so far, they've clawed back wasteful expenditure amounting to well over $100 billion, with perhaps as much again on their radar for further investigation - and they haven't even started to get into the really big candidates for fraud and abuse, such as Defense, Medicare/aid and Social Security.  Here, just for interest, is what they announced yesterday among their latest "recoveries":

Meanwhile, one hopes that this little shenanigan by the AFL-CIO will be nipped in the bud, right smartly.  I'm also looking forward to learning just how much money was spent on progressive left-wing NGO's and their allies over the years.  To name just one example, the innocuously-named but Soros-affiliated East-West Management Institute is said to have received over $270 million in US taxpayer funds from USAID, with a further $90 million obligated through various contracts.  That's not small change!  How does funding to the AFL-CIO Solidarity Center compare over the same period?

Peter