The Freedom Foundation has filed a 45-day letter with the Washington Attorney General, citing multiple campaign finance law violations by Service Employees International Union (SEIU) 775, one of the state’s most politically active government employee unions.

The letter outlines three major violations of Public Disclosure Act and requests the AG’s Office investigate and prosecute SEIU 775 for concealing its electioneering activities from the people of Washington.

Violation 1: SEIU is a political committee.

SEIU 775 is a private entity ostensibly organized as a labor union to represent, among others, Washington’s 33,000 “individual providers.” These “IPs” care for chronically ill or disabled individuals in their homes and receive state payment for some portions of their work.

This payment is the only connection between the state of Washington and IPs, but SEIU 775 was able to forcibly unionize them so it could collect dues and agency fees – 40 percent of which are spent influencing elections.

Before the U.S. Supreme Court’s 2014 decision in Harris v. Quinn IPs who managed to opt out of full membership in SEIU 775 were nonetheless required to pay fees to the union. According to a 2014 union report, at least 40 percent of its activities were devoted to politics.

In other words, the union spent 40 percent of the dollars it illegally extracted from nonmember IPs (who make, on average, $11 per hour) to influence elections. In 2014, that amounted to a whopping $9.2 million.

On whom does SEIU 775 spend this money? Virtually 100 percent of it goes to Democrat candidates and liberal causes including, among many others, “Working Washington,” which takes credit for introducing and supporting minimum wage legislation throughout Washington.

Working Washington’s extensive electioneering activities are documented by both the Washington Public Disclosure Commission and the union’s own federally mandated self-reports.

Additionally, SEIU 775 pays each of its top three officers – David Rolf, Adam Glickman, and Sterling Harders – six-figure salaries (while the IPs it represents make little more than minimum wage). Meanwhile, huge portions of those salaries (Rolf: 40 percent; Glickman: 61 percent; and, Harders: 24 percent) are devoted to the political, lobbying and electioneering work with which the three union bosses fill their time.

SEIU 775’s behavior clearly demonstrates it is a political committee. The union will certainly deny this, but the evidence gathered by Freedom Foundation is publicly available. We encourage the Attorney General and the people of Washington to judge for themselves.

And because SEIU 775 is a political committee, it has failed to meet the reporting requirements imposed by the Public Disclosure Act. The people deserve the truth about this mammoth organization and how it is directly influencing the people’s politics.

The Freedom Foundation is committed to shining the light on SEIU 775. 

Violation 2: SEIU 775 failed to file proper lobbying reports. 

Secondly, SEIU 775 is clearly a lobbyist employer. The union spends hundreds of thousands of dollars each year lobbying government officials to implement pro-union, anti-employee policies. If you’ve read the Freedom Foundation’s blog, you’ll remember the many attempts the unions made in the 2015 legislative session to stack the deck against workers’ freedom.

In any case, when a lobbyist employer devotes money, resources or staff time to a political committee, it has to file an appropriate form with the Public Disclosure Commission. SEIU 775’s officers commit considerable staff time to political committee activity, yet the union has never filed the appropriate forms with the PDC.

Perhaps this is because its leaders would rather not disclose just how little “union” business the organization actually undertakes.

Violation 3: SEIU 775 sent an unreported political advertisement to union nonmembers.

Lastly, SEIU 775 continually harasses IPs who’ve opted out of full membership, including sending them political advertisements. These mailers invite nonmembers to join the union and solicit political donations for one of SEIU’s many, many political committees.

By sending these political advertising letters out to thousands of nonmembers, SEIU 775 violates the Public Disclosure Act in numerous ways.

As already noted, SEIU 775’s expectation of receiving political contributions in response to its letter qualifies the union as a political committee and subjects it to reporting requirements under the PDA. And it’s failed to meet those requirements.

Additionally, SEIU 775’s solicitation indicates that any contributions it receives will be sent to SEIU’s national political committee, the “Committee on Political Education.” As terrifying as that sounds, SEIU uses its national group simply to funnel money through a national entity that only redistributes the same money back into Washington political races.

SEIU 775 operates this way for no other reason than a desire to avoid reporting requirements.

The Freedom Foundation has documented numerous other violations connected to the political advertisement letter. SEIU 775 has operated, for far too long, above the law.

In reality, SEIU 775 is a shadow candidate in nearly every Washington election. It’s time the union started playing by the same rules as everyone else.

Under state law, the attorney general has 45 days to investigate and prosecute SEIU 775 for its multiple violations of the public disclosure act. If the AG fails to do his job and protect the people, we will.