In every right-to-work debate, Teamsters union president James P. Hoffa and his
fellow labor bosses try to cast themselves as the underdogs. But Hoffa has it
backwards.
Despite decades of waning union influence, the Davids in this story are the
workers Hoffa can still squeeze for mandatory union fees in Missouri and the
other 24 states without right-to-work laws.
Teamsters headquarters in Washington, D.C., reported 5,300 “agency fee payers”
to the Department of Labor in 2014 — 5,300 workers who opted out of joining the
Teamsters and were forced to pay the union to keep their jobs.
Collecting forced fees from nonmembers frees up member dues for union bosses to
spend on politics, organizing and their own paychecks, even though agency fees
can’t legally be spent on anything except representation costs.
This is the simplest explanation for why unions hate right-to-work laws, which
make agency fees illegal. It’s an explanation labor bosses evade as best they
can, because taking hefty salaries from workers’ paychecks is inconsistent with
unions’ message of solidarity.
RELATED: Union bosses benefit from the income inequality they bash
The Teamsters union has fought right-to-work in Missouri to make sure “big
business” doesn’t “grow even more wealthy and powerful at the people’s expense,”
Hoffa wrote in a Huffington Post op-ed.
At Teamsters headquarters, Hoffa was paid a total of $379,411 last year — and he
was just one of 10 officers and employees who received more than $200,000 from
the union.
When you know what Hoffa and other labor officials are paid, labor boss
criticism of wealthy CEOs sounds an awful lot like projection.
“These anti-union, anti-worker bastards are not only crazy, they’re mean,”
exclaimed Laborers’ International Union of North America president Terry
O’Sullivan — who was paid $670,403 in 2014 — during a July 2014 rant against
Charles and David Koch.
A Watchdog investigation found that, excluding pro sports unions, 497 U.S. labor
union officers and employees were paid more than $250,000 in 2014.
International Union of Operating Engineers headquarters in Washington, D.C.,
took agency fees from 7,776 non-members and paid 22 officers and employees more
than $200,000 each. IUOE president James Callahan was paid $488,377.
Richard Trumka, president of union coalition AFL-CIO and a tireless critic of
CEO salaries, was paid $322,131 last year.
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The average private-sector CEO is paid $216,100, based on U.S.
Bureau of Labor Statistics data. Unlike union bosses, CEOs are
responsible for the profits that fund workers’ paychecks.
And unlike union bosses, CEOs aren’t paid with money taken from
workers’ paychecks.
Even if it’s not in a company’s best long-term interests, there’s
nothing hypocritical about a CEO paying employees what their skills
command while at the same time taking home as many millions per year
as shareholders will tolerate.
But when a Hoffa who attacks “big business” in fiery screeds about
worker solidarity takes 10 times the average union member’s income
for himself and spends millions more defending his ability to take
forced dues – that’s another matter.
This is why labor bosses insist right-to-work leaves workers
helpless to demand fair wages, good benefits and safe working
conditions by taking away their ability to unionize.
Right-to-work laws “make it harder for workers to protect their
wages and job security, while at the same time taking their voice on
the job away,” Hoffa wrote at Huffington Post, calling right-to-work
a “repeal of workers’ rights.”
Hoffa’s is a frightening message, provided the audience doesn’t know
right-to-work simply ends forced union fees and does nothing to stop
workers from forming, joining or collectively bargaining through
labor unions.
It’s a message that worked in Missouri this summer, with Teamsters
front group Preserve Middle Class Missouri, Carpenters union front
Protect Missouri Families and AFL-CIO front We Are Missouri helping
labor bosses give their talking points an air of populism.
Unions convinced some lawmakers right-to-work was political suicide,
but Missouri right-to-work opponents are more likely to suffer at
the ballot box next year. Nixon is term-limited, and Republicans
have signaled right-to-work will be a priority in the 2016
governor’s race.
In May, respondents to a Missouri Freedom Alliance poll of more than
10,000 likely voters expressed support for right-to-work by a 54
percent to 35 percent margin. Republicans in Indiana, Michigan and
Wisconsin have all increased their legislative majorities since
implementing right-to-work in their respective states.
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