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About Northwest labor press. (Portland , Ore.) 1987-current | View Entire Issue (Dec. 18, 2015)
PAGE 20 | December 18, 2015 | NORTHWEST LABOR PRESS Coalition calls for repeal of Freedom Foundation’s tax exempt status A broad coalition of community organizations in Washington and Oregon announced Dec. 7 that they have filed a complaint with the Internal Revenue Service (IRS) calling for an investigation and repeal of the ultra-conserva- tive, anti-union Freedom Foun- dation’s 501(c)(3) tax-exempt status. “The Freedom Founda- tion is blatantly ignoring the IRS rules that prohibit tax-exempt organizations from engaging in partisan political activity—and as a result, they’re getting tax breaks while taxpayers are foot- ing the bill for their conservative attacks,” said Andrew Biviano, founding board member of the Northwest Accountability Proj- ect, a non-profit social welfare organization. “It’s outrageous that the Freedom Foundation is engaging in partisan attacks on the middle class, the environ- ment, and the values that we hold here in the Pacific North- west, while hiding behind a bo- gus 501(c)(3) tax exemption.” As laid out in the complaint, the coalition alleges that: ● The Freedom Foundation is participating in political cam- paign intervention. ● A substantial part of the Freedom Foundation’s activities is attempting to influence leg- islative activity and lobbying. ● The Freedom Foundation is operated for the private benefit of the Republican Party and other conservative and libertar- ian groups in the states of Wash- ington and Oregon. To qualify for exemption un- der Section 501(c)(3), an organ- ization may not participate or in- tervene in (including the pub- lishing or distributing of state- ments) any political campaign on behalf of (or in opposition to) any candidate for public office. It must be operated exclusively for exempt purposes and not for the benefit of a private individ- ual or group. And it can under- take only a limited amount of lobbying activity. The coalition filing the com- plaint includes the Oregon AFL- CIO, the Washington State La- bor Council, UFCW Local 555, Washington State Council of Firefighters, Oregon Nurses As- sociation, and other groups. ...Labor at Paris Cimate talks From Page 16 job. We clearly outnumbered them by quite a bit, but they stayed back and there was no at- tempt to shut down the rally. Going forward, what role do you see the union move- ment playing in addressing climate change? What impressed me so much was this: The level of under- standing, of knowledge, of com- mitment to impact this eco- nomic transformation is so much higher in the trade union movement in other parts of the world than it is here in the United States. In the United States, many parts of the trade union movement are still saying, “Okay, this is real but it’s not go- ing to happen for another 40 or 50 years; we’ve got time.” When you talk to brothers and sisters internationally, they say, “No, brother, it’s happening now, and we may be too late.” So they get it, in the interna- tional labor movement, that we have to pressure our govern- ments, and in collective bargain- ing agreements with employers, to do everything we can to cut emissions. In our country, we’ve got to educate our own mem- bers that this is serious, and it’s not abstract. It shouldn’t be looked at as an inconvenience, but rather, as an opportunity to restructure the way we do eco- nomics, and a way to fight in- equality. What work do you person- ally expect to do now that you’re back home? I sit on governing board of the Alliance for Jobs and Clean Energy in our state, and we’re contemplating a ballot initiative next year that would cap carbon and charge fees for polluters and then take that money and rein- vest it in the economy. There are many steps between now and actually putting something out there on the ballot, but that’s what we’re working on. Should the decision be made not to go ahead in 2016, we’ll continue educating our own membership and the greater public about re- ducing carbon emissions. Our governor also has a proposed clean air rule which has a cap on carbon. They want to adopt the rule by mid-summer.
