Sen. Josh Hawley, R-Mo., recently launched a formal Senate investigation into the Coalition for Humane Immigrant Rights of Los Angeles, or CHIRLA, for its role in stoking violent riots in Los Angeles. Hawley wants to know whether the group financed and planned illegal activities and who its donors are.
Digging into CHIRLA may force Hawley to confront an awkward truth. A significant amount of the organization's funding comes from a group Hawley has increasingly cozied up to: labor union officials.
Financial disclosures from nine major unions, including the AFL-CIO, Service Employees International Union, and Randi Weingarten's American Federation of Teachers, reveal hundreds of thousands of dollars in grants to CHIRLA.
These unions can afford to toss around four- and five-figure grants to obscure LA charities, because big labor as a whole rakes in north of $15 billion each year from its members. Much of that money comes from those who will be fired if they refuse to pay union dues because they lack right-to-work protections.
In non-right-to-work states like California, New York, or Josh Hawley's Missouri, even if you oppose a union in your workplace, think it's doing a terrible job, and hate the political causes it openly supports, you cannot avoid having money seized from your paycheck to fund it. In right-to-work states, workers have the option to cut off all financial support for unions they oppose.
When a large part of their revenue comes from compulsory payments, union officials feel no obligation to represent the political views of their so-called members.
The president of SEIU California, David Huerta, who has received $2.7 million in forced-dues funded salary and benefits since 2001, did not need to consult the workers he supposedly "represents" before getting himself arrested for physically obstructing federal agents.
The SEIU leapt to Huerta's defense, posting on X: "ICE's brutal, military-style tactics have no place in our communities. ... We demand David's release."
The union organized protests across the country in support of Huerta and against Immigration and Customs Enforcement.
It's not all that shocking that the SEIU has long been funding a charity that Josh Hawley believes has been funding the violent anti-ICE rioters in Los Angeles. What is shocking is that Hawley fails to see the connection between compulsory union dues and the radical political causes union bosses support.
Hawley recently reversed his position on voluntary dues, saying he wouldn't want to "impose right to work on anyone." In Hawley's upside-down logic, having the freedom to withdraw financial support from a radical union like the SEIU is an imposition, while being forced to pay dues to fund protests and rioters is just fine.
It's likely there are more connections between union officials, those financing the riots, and those working to enflame public opposition against ICE. Some are already coming to light: A man arrested by the FBI for allegedly distributing construction-grade face shields to LA rioters turned out to be a Teamsters union official.
As chairman of the Senate's Judiciary Subcommittee on Crime and Terrorism, Sen. Hawley has the power to investigate these connections. Hopefully, he follows the facts wherever they may lead, even if it forces him to rethink his position on allowing union bosses to take money from workers without their permission.
Mark Mix is president of the National Right to Work Legal Defense Foundation and the National Right to Work Committee. To read more of his reports — Click Here Now.
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