Oregon and Washington unions are under attack by the Freedom Foundation, a business-funded organization targeting government employee unions. The anti-union group has filed numerous lawsuits against unions and has campaigned vigorously to get workers to drop union membership, even producing a weekly anti-union radio show.  

One of the group’s largest funders is Vancouver-based M. J. Murdock Charitable Trust, led by three trustees, one of whom is Wells Fargo senior executive Jeffrey T. Grubb.

In a counter move, the union established Northwest Accountability Project, which has publicly criticized Murdock, a big funder of other right-wing groups such as the anti-gay-rights legal group, Alliance Defending Freedom.  

In his rebuke to Wells Fargo, Local 114 Secretary-Treasurer Terry Lansing says, “We feel strongly that Mr. Grubb’s support for these groups, through his paid role as one of three trustees, undermines many of the values we hold dear as labor activists in the Pacific Northwest.” Opened in 1963, the union’s Wells Fargo account has now been transferred to IBEW and United Workers Federal Credit Union.