Election Rule Change Proposal Will Effect Unions

The Campaign Finance Board Is Proposing Rules That Will Significantly Make It Harder To Do Legislative Advocacy And Communicate To Our Members

Two years ago the charter revision commission introduced a ballot measure to the City Charter: and the rules outlining it were created this spring by the campaign finance board (CFB). The following describes how organizations such as TWU Local 100 will be affected:

What the CFB tried to do:
- Make sure they capture any bad "actors" as they wanted to expose the shams in organizations that support campaigns and verify people who "sneakily" support candidates.

What does this cause?
- A list of overly burdensome issues for organizations that reach out to members by way of flyer, phone and email. Not only are unions affected but many community and non-profit organizations as well.

What do the restrictions say?
- Any Communication such as a flyer, phone call or email attachment, either supporting or opposing candidates within 90 days of an election would have to be filed with the CFB under the new rules.

How does this affect TWU Local 100?
- The campaign finance board sees our members as members of a general public and wants to everything that we send them that contains an elected name or party affiliation. If we urge our members to call City Council, for example, to oppose an issue, we would have to report whether we support or oppose the elected officials we are asking our members to call. Basically by reaching out to our members, they are saying we are trying to influence the general public.
- Currently a form 7A is filled out to file expenditures; it is a simple one page document. But, the new forms proposed by the CFB will need to be sent in 11 times a year and we will only have 24 hours to report outreach to our members.
- All receipts surrounding a campaign or even just mentioning a candidate or elected official will have to be reported.
- We will have to submit the wages of our members who simply come to pick up flyers and conduct basic outreach from our union hall; unless each person "authorized" to flyer our members holds the title of supervisor.
- Members who pay dues in the amount $1,000.00 or more in one year- whether they are reconciling dues or their normal dues payment amounts to this- will have to be reported.

What is not affected?
- Newsletters to members are exempt.
- Arthur Ochs Sulzberger Jr's: The New York Times.
- Media Companies are exempt such as Rupert Murdoch's News Corp.

What is Proposed? How Can we stop this?
- There will be a hearing conducted for this issue on October 27, 2011 At 11Am and members from organizations labor and non-for profit are urged to testify. Members in working clothes (not union clothes) should be prepped with some talking points about the issue.
- Petition cards will be provided please call (212) 873-6000 x2137 for more information.