ON THE TWU’S NATIONAL COPE PROGRAM
How It Works and Why
For the first time in over fifty years both Houses of Congress and the White House are in the hands of enemies of labor. We have never faced so many attacks, Never has the need been greater to have all effective COPE and national legislative program and to speak with one voice.
Q: What does COPE have to do with our job as union officials?
Almost every TWU member works in a job highly affected by government - from highly regulated industries like air and rail to direct government employees like transit, municipal and school employees. Everything we get at the bargaining table can be taken away in the political arena - even the right to bargain itself.
Q: I understand the need to lobby, but why COPE?
Before you can ask a legislator for their vote, you have to get in the door. COPE is not just about writing a check, hut a vital part of our lobbying effort - opening doors for our legislative representatives in Washington to advance the TWU agenda. Our COPE contributions help our D.C. representatives gain access to the legislators whose votes we need.
Q: Why do we need a national lobbying office? Why not just lobby our Washington Congresspeople locally?
Union locals are like the fingers of a fist. Only clenched together are they strong. One of the strengths of the TWU is the way members of the Air Transport, Transit and Rail Divisions all look out for each other. The International is the weapon that binds our locals and divisions together and allows us to speak with one voice.
Q: Why do we need a national COPE program? Why not just have the locals make their own contributions?
Three-quarters of the members of Congress are in districts without TWU locals. Every local that participates in TWU’s national COPE program helps contribute not only to their own local Congresspeople, but to legislative leaders and committee chairs in places like South Dakota, West Virginia arid South Carolina where no TWU locals exist. Without this national ability to target powerful members of Congress who have no TWU in their district we could not win a single legislative battle.
Q: But we want to give the check to our Congresspeople ourselves?
No problem. COPE has always arranged to send the COPE checks for federal candidates to Local Union Officers if they want to hand them over personally. But the check has to he cut by the International’s COPE.
Under law, all TWU contributions to federal candidates are subject to a single $5,000 limit. To avoid breaking the law, TWU federal contributions (not State and Local) must come from one source. Some locals giving money to federal candidates on their own has already resulted in legal violations in the past. These violations can result in fines or worse.
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