UAW Provides Another Example of Big Labor’s Disregard For Employee Interests

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Right to Work Opposition Based on a False Premise

As if we needed more examples of union bosses’ failing to live up to their “premise that [organized] labor protects the interests of [working] men and women … ,†the latest highly publicized UAW corruption cases point again to how employees are sold out by union officials.

In a recent column for the Detroit News, Bankole Thompson reconsiders the Michigan Right to Work battle in light of the details revealed this winter “in the bribery proceedings in federal court in the ongoing corruption scandal involving UAW and Fiat Chrysler … .† Last month, former Fiat Chrysler (FCA) labor negotiator Alphons Iacobelli pleaded guilty, and claimed that he and other company officials had made “illegal payments to UAW officials to influence contract negotiations.â€

Iacobelli’s statements, declares Thompson, “raise serious questions about the [UAW] culture that existed as it relates to its dealings with FCA.† If Iacobelli’s confession is accurate, it means that union officials “have been deceiving their members.â€

It also means UAW-boss PR campaigns against Right to Work in Michigan and elsewhere have been using the false “premise that [organized] labor protects the interests of the men and women working in auto plants.â€

At the end of 2012, United Auto Workers (UAW) union bosses waged an “Armageddon-like battle†against pro-Right to Work elected officials as legislators adopted and Gov. Rick Snyder signed a law in Michigan that prohibits the termination of employees for refusal to fork over union dues or fees.

The federal probe into alleged corrupt dealings between top UAW officials and Big Three automakers already provides ample evidence that union bosses cannot be trusted with immense power they have gained through compulsory-unionism privileges.

And a review of U.S. Labor Department documents conducted for the Detroit Free Press showed that federal investigators have uncovered theft in “more than 300 locations†nationwide just since the beginning of  2016.

In a January 7 story for the Free Press, Phoebe Wall Howard explains that union theft happens “in big cities and tiny towns in all corners of the country.â€

The expanding UAW-FCA corruption case is far from the only one that involves accusations that union officials exploited their monopoly-bargaining privileges to line their own pockets.

Last summer, the U.S. Justice Department indicted Chicago union boss John Coli, a top ally of Teamsters General President Jim Hoffa, for threatening a production company with “work stoppages and other labor unrest†unless Coli was paid off.  The current charges against Coli include extorting a total of $325,000 from Cinespace Chicago Film Studios.

Flourishing organized labor corruption provides ongoing and significant evidence of the outrageous abuse of power committed  by the federal and state lawmakers who endowed union bosses with the legal privilege (ultimately sanctioned, unfortunately, by the U.S. Supreme Court) to gain compulsory-unionism control over workplaces.  This special privilege should be revoked as soon as possible.

Union bigwigs like former Chicago Teamster chief John Coli (left) exploit their government-granted monopoly privileges to forge close ties with politicians like Windy City Mayor Rahm Emanuel (right). According to federal prosecutors, Coli also took advantage of his inordinate power over employees to shake down a film studio, personally collecting $325,000 in extortion money. Image: Labor Union Report.

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