Union dues are used to represent you. The following graph sets out the use of union expenditures.

Attend union general membership meetings to receive a specific monthly breakdown of the use of your union's funds.

Some situations, it should be noted, require an enormous short term expenditure of union funds. The 1997 Safeway strike for example, drained union strike and other funds at a rate of well over one million dollars per week. By the way, employees do not pay strike benefits back to the union. They are not a loan - they are a benefit!