Yup....I've seen that type of corruption in quite a few unions. It's a big part of why they've lost community support and with out community backing unions can't be nearly as affective for their membership. Unions have at times been their own worst enemies.
"With all their faults, trade unions have done more for humanity than any other organization of men that ever existed"
Clarence Darrow
Unions are not perfect, because people belong to and run unions. And people are not perfect. But the VAST majority of negative union information is VERY well funded propaganda.
Worse Than Union Busting
The over-the-top mudslinging by the Center for Union Facts, the National Right to Work Committee and other anti-union groups is nothing more than an attempt to pull the wool over our eyes, hiding the real crisis in the American workplace. Too many workers in the U.S. still can’t adequately provide basic necessities for their families, protect themselves from workplace hazards or take care of themselves when they get old or sick. The firings, intimidation and harassment that often befall workers attempting to exercise freedoms of speech and association by forming unions are threats to our democracy. When faced with union organizing drives, 30 percent of employers terminate pro-union workers, 40 percent threaten to close a worksite if a union prevails and 51 percent coerce workers into opposing unions with bribery and favoritism.
The motives behind assailing organized workers are both financial and ideological. Union-busting is big business. Just ask Center for Union Facts founder and D.C. mercenary lobbyist Rick Berman. He’s the mastermind behind the ads and has earned a living attacking other public interest groups—like Mothers Against Drunk Driving and the Centers for Disease Control—for clients including the alcohol and fast food industries. Although he won’t reveal who is bankrolling CUF, attacking unions seems to be the source of his latest windfall.
And Berman isn’t the only one profiting from conspiring to bring about the demise of worker-built organizations. Search for “union buster” on Google and peruse over 3 million hits. The proliferation of “union avoidance” consulting has resulted in 82 percent of employers hiring help to fight worker organizing drives.
But the assault on unions goes deeper than the dollar. It is bolstered by a long-standing conservative political objective to eradicate unions. Right-wingers know something the rest of us seem to have forgotten: Workers still want unions because they are a powerful deterrent to poverty and unfettered corporate greed. When conservative political strategist Grover Norquist says, “We’re going to crush labor as a political entity” and ultimately “break unions,” it isn’t because unions aren’t relevant anymore. The right knows that unions act as the nation’s conscience by advancing civil rights, environmental protections and other causes of equality, justice and fair play far beyond the workplace.
If worker-built organizations weren’t powerful, the right wouldn’t invest so much time and money to dismantle them. And Berman’s supporters would be less concerned with obscuring their support from public view.
So the next time you come across a slick television, radio or newspaper ad pedaling anti-union propaganda, ask yourself who benefits when workers are prevented from joining together to represent themselves. Question what’s at stake when democratic rights are limited in the workplace.
The anti-union network’s vision for the workplace is out of sync with what we value in America.
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"We're going to crush labor as a political entity"
Grover Norquist - Republican economic guru and co-author of the GOP's 'Contract with America'
