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While some 70% of Americans have a positive view of unions, and see their fight for higher wages and benefits as mostly helpful, McCabe argues that unions hold workers in "bondage against their will" and sees himself as some sort of Moses to the masses. The reality is that, given the choice, many members of unions, clubs, trade association or even churches would prefer to enjoy the privileges of membership for free. Ask physicians. Would doctors like to skip the $420 membership fee of the American Medical Association and still enjoy the significant benefits of membership? Sure. Do they think they are enslaved? No.
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Bradley hailed the work of the Freedom Foundation as a "national model" and touted the skills of its "pugilistic" leader Tom McCabe. "Under McCabe, the Freedom Foundation has expanded its own activities to include almost all of the weapons in the arsenal of any good conservative state infrastructure—whether done by several separate entities or, as in this case, by one" (Bradley Foundation Barder Fund, on file with CMD 6/2/15).
McCabe is one of many Bradley grantees to leave his work as a political operative to turn a tax-exempt charitable organization into a weapon of the right. McCabe worked in the Reagan administration as a young man, then went on to head up the Building Industry Association of Washington, turning the trade association into a GOP juggernaut whose "brass knuckled" tactics resulted in a $242,000 fine in 2008 for failing to properly disclose all its spending.
McCabe denies his goal is to defund the left or unions, but one of his staffers gave a speech to the Koch's Americans for Prosperity group, declaring: "Our No 1 stated focus is to defund the political left," and his organization fundraises off the same message. <ref name="guardian">Steven Greenhouse, "[https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2016/mar/10/union-killers-freedom-foundation The door-to-door union killers: rightwing foundation takes labor fight to the streets]," ''The Guardian'', March 10, 2016.</ref>
===Freedom Foundation Materials Reveal Electoral Nature of Attack on Unions===
===Freedom Foundation Given Award for Its Attacks on Unions===
In public, State Policy Network “think tanks” claim to be “independent,” “non-partisan,” “charitable organizations.” Behind closed doors, its all politics. SPN’s secret campaign to get rid of public sector unions was exposed by the Center for Media and Democracy and the Guardian in 2017 as part of a political effort to deal a “mortal blow” to the “American left” and the Democratic Party.
“A network of conservative think tanks with outposts in all 50 states has embarked on a ‘breakthrough’ campaign designed to strike a ‘mortal blow’ against the American left. The aim is to ‘defund and defang’ unions representing government employees as the first step towards ensuring the permanent collapse of progressive politics,” writes the Guardian‘s Ed Pilkington. FN https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2017/aug/30/rightwing-alliance-unions-defund-defang
