Unions at a loss

$530M to tanking Dems

Big Labor pumped $530 million of workers’ dues into mostly Democratic Party groups and liberal causes over a four-year period — most recently with dismal results, according to a new analysis.

Despite labor’s massive cash infusion into Democratic causes, Republican Donald Trump won the union-heavy Rust Belt states of Pennsylvania, Ohio, Michigan and Wisconsin. A GOP-led Congress, expected to be hostile to union causes, also was voted in.

“Labor unions have become the ATM of the Democratic Party — despite the known fact that 40 percent of union households vote for Republican candidates,” said Richard Berman, director of the Center for Union Facts, which conducted the study.

The analysis by the group, which is typically critical of unions, considered tax filings from 2012 to 2015 to see how much labor — including the AFLCIO, Teamsters, publicemployee, auto-workers and steelworkers unions — donated to liberal groups.

The review found that the unions plowed $529.9 million into the groups and causes over those four years.

Based on what was spent in previous years, the unions likely donated another $140 million to allied groups in 2016, bringing the total to $670 million over five years.

A total of $260.4 million went to 45 different party or Democratic-leaning groups, including the Bill, Hillary and Chelsea Clin- ton Foundation, Democratic Attorneys General Association, the Working Families Party, the Center for American Progress and Planned Parenthood.

More than $21.5 million went to left-leaning civilrights groups. including Al Sharpton’s National Action Network, Jesse Jackson’s Rainbow PUSH Coalition, the National Council of La Raza and the NAACP.

Labor leaders defended the spending and dismissed the report as coming from an anti-labor, right-wing group.

“It’s crucial for working people’s voices to be heard in the political process,” said Stuart Appelbaum, president of the Retail, Wholesale and Department Union and a member of the Democratic National Committee.