Hey kids!
Remember how I told you a couple days ago how we had urged the Treasury Department to deny bailout money to the Principal Financial Group because of its extensive lobbying against workers’ rights?
Well, yesterday Principal responded:
Contrary to incorrect reports issued today, The Principal Financial Group has not taken a position on the Employee Free Choice Act, nor do we plan to take such a position.
The Principal represents the interests of millions of employees and hard working Americans who participate in its employee benefit plans; as well as 35,000 employer clients, 42,000 retirement plan sponsors and its own 15,000 employees.
As an advocate and expert on long term financial security, The Principal remains focused on core issues in the best interests of clients, both business and union organizations, as well as individuals covered by its plans. We have been a frequent advocate on issues of critical importance to unions and the financial services industry, such as civil rights and pension plan funding.
Oh, really?
The thing about lobbying Congress, see, is that if you do it you have to submit quarterly reports to each chamber disclosing all the people who lobby for you, and what issues they lobby on. (Here’s the House’s instructions on how to file, and here’s the Senate’s.) Those reports are public records, so it’s easy to check and see who’s been lobbying for what.
So we went ahead and pulled Principal’s lobbying reports for the last few quarters and, lo and behold, they showed lobbying activity around the Employee Free Choice Act! Oops.
An example. Here’s a link to Principal’s Senate disclosure report for the fourth quarter of 2008. (Warning: clicking the link will open a 47-page PDF file; if you use Adobe Reader, your browser may freeze up for a few seconds while loading the document, because it’s big.)
These reports break down lobbying activity by “issue areas”, like trade and taxes and health issues, and then list all the bills lobbied on in each issue area by the reporting organization. The issue area we care about in this case (“Labor Issues/Antitrust/Workplace”) starts on page 38 of the report. And in that area, on page 40, we find these two bills listed:
S. 1041: A bill to amend the National Labor Relations Act to establish an efficient system to enable employees to form, join, or assist labor organizations, to provide for mandatory injunctions for unfair labor practices during organizing efforts, and for other purposes…
S. 1312: To amend the National Labor Relations Act to ensure the right of employees to a secret-ballot election conducted by the National Labor Relations Board.
So what are these bills that Principal reported lobbying the Senate on?
Well, S. 1041 was the bill number of the Employee Free Choice Act in the last Congress (which this report covers). And S. 1312 is the so-called “Secret Ballot Protection Act” — a bill pushed by the Republican Party and big corporations whose entire purpose is to strip you of your right to choose what method your workplace uses to decide whether or not to organize, unlike the Employee Free Choice Act, which guarantees you the right to choose.
But maybe this is an isolated incident, right? To be sure, let’s check Principal’s disclosure form for the first quarter of 2008. Whoops, both the above-mentioned bills are listed there too, right on page 35.
So how can Principal claim not to have lobbied on the Employee Free Choice Act when they repeatedly reported doing just that in official documents? It all comes down to semantics. Note the precise wording of their statement:
The Principal Financial Group has not taken a position on the Employee Free Choice Act, nor do we plan to take such a position.
They don’t denying lobbying on the Employee Free Choice Act; they deny having a position on the Employee Free Choice Act. If this distinction seems a bit silly, that’s because it is. As TPMDC noted today,
The company did not deny lobbying on the union-organizing legislation in its statement, so we can only presume that spent money last year to tell Congress it took no position.
Why would a publicly held company spend hundreds of thousands of dollars lobbying on legislation that its management has no opinion about? That’s a great question. I imagine Principal shareholders would be keenly interested in the answer.
Comments (3)
Comments posted to CtW Connect are the sole property of the individual posting them, and do not necessarily reflect the viewpoints of Change to Win, its affiliated unions, or its leadership.
I am a union member with over $100,000 frozen in the Principal US Property Seperate account. No one asked the members with accounts at Principal before sending this request to congress to deny TARP funding. This so called "alliance" betrayed my interest as a member without my vote.
The Principal US Property account requires both oversight and liquidity injections, and should be examined by the SEC for misleading investment disclosures, and the queue Ponzi management scheme.
If any unions start blocking deposits to Principal, TARP will be needed to unfreeze the commercial real estate accounts. Freezing up Principal also will freeze development on vast tracts of commercial space,robbong union members like myself of work and now,retirement funds as well.
Posted by Joe Electrician on March 2, 2009 at 8:03 AM
Posted on March 2, 2009 at 8:03 AM
should read "robbing union members".....
Posted by Jo on March 2, 2009 at 8:11 AM
Posted on March 2, 2009 at 8:11 AM
Joe- please email me at waldo245@aol.com
regarding a possible legal action
waldo
Posted by waldo on November 19, 2009 at 1:52 PM
Posted on November 19, 2009 at 1:52 PM