{"id":622,"date":"2006-01-23T09:58:58","date_gmt":"2006-01-23T17:58:58","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.bridgeandtunnelclub.com\/wordpress\/archives\/2006\/01\/money_well_spent.html"},"modified":"2006-01-23T09:58:58","modified_gmt":"2006-01-23T17:58:58","slug":"money_well_spen","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.bridgeandtunnelclub.com\/blog\/archives\/2006\/01\/money_well_spen.html","title":{"rendered":"Money Well Spent"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>With a transit workers contract back in the news, <a href=\"http:\/\/www.nydailynews.com\/news\/local\/story\/384670p-326502c.html\">the Daily News looks at contributions TWU Local 100 made to elected officials and others<\/a>:<\/p>\n<blockquote><p><em>Transit union President Roger Toussaint shelled out millions of dollars to pass laws, lobby pols, elect candidates and win over New Yorkers &#8212; but it wasn&#8217;t enough to sell his own members.<br \/>\nLong before his illegal strike and the stunning rejection of his contract on Friday, Toussaint quietly launched one of labor&#8217;s most aggressive spending sprees.<\/p>\n<p>Last month, for example, the Rev. Jesse Jackson applauded striking bus and subway workers for following in the footsteps of Rosa Parks and the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr.<\/p>\n<p>What he didn&#8217;t say: Transit union bosses have steered $12,000 to the Citizenship Education Fund, a Chicago-based advocacy group Jackson runs.<\/em><\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p>It goes on and on from there, of course, and all members and all parties participated, but generally, the stories read like this:<\/p>\n<blockquote><p><em>City Councilman Charles Barron (D-Brooklyn) was angry. On Day 2 of the strike, he blasted the MTA as a &#8220;plantation.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;Actually,&#8221; he told The News last week, &#8220;it&#8217;s probably healthier on the plantation.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p>Asked about $4,000 his campaigns have collected from the union, he replied, &#8220;You think they bought me? I supported the workers long before I became an elected official, and I&#8217;d support them, even if they backed my opponent, because their cause is just.&#8221;<\/em><\/p><\/blockquote>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>With a transit workers contract back in the news, the Daily News looks at contributions TWU Local 100 made to elected officials and others: Transit union President Roger Toussaint shelled out millions of dollars to pass laws, lobby pols, elect candidates and win over New Yorkers &#8212; but it wasn&#8217;t enough to sell his own [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[45],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-622","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-well_what_did_you_expect"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.bridgeandtunnelclub.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/622","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.bridgeandtunnelclub.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.bridgeandtunnelclub.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.bridgeandtunnelclub.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.bridgeandtunnelclub.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=622"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.bridgeandtunnelclub.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/622\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.bridgeandtunnelclub.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=622"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.bridgeandtunnelclub.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=622"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.bridgeandtunnelclub.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=622"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}