Quote:
Originally Posted by CorsiHockeyLeague
There's at least an argument that given that your duty is owed to a broad class of members, rather than one entity whose interests can be reasonably determined, you shouldn't be donating to political parties at all. Sure, you may be able to say that many of your members will be benefited by a donation to the party that's most pro-union (or whose policies are favourable to workers in your union's industry), there is no one-size-fits-all policy. People, including union members, have diverse interests, and it's entirely possible that there's a proportion of your members who would be better served if the other guys were in office - say, for example, they'd see a net benefit because of different child care policies or tax policies that happen to land squarely in their favour. That's not even getting into whether members' political preferences and ideologies also qualify as relevant interests for these purposes.
I'd say it's pretty reasonable to conclude that if you owe the duty to all of your members, you shouldn't be permitted to make a political contribution that will favour some of them at the expense of others (even if the "others" are in the minority).
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But a union is, fundamentally, a democratic organization. Making decisions for the greater good, sometimes at the expense of the few, is absolutely fundamental to collective bargaining. This is what unions do at the bargaining table.
Also, we should keep in mind the scale of donations at issue. The largest political contributor in Ontario was the United Associatikn of Plumbers and Pipefitters. It contributed $500,000 between 2013 and 2016. UA Canada has ~300,000 members. So we are talking about ~$0.40 per year per member.