Article...The Gore Team: Criminal Union Bosses?
Somebody should call them on it.
By Daniel Gray, director of communications for the
National Right to Work Committee
nationalreview.com
It's hard to turn on the news without seeing Democratic presidential nominee Al Gore regaling sympathetic audiences with his pledges to fight "the ones with connections, . . . the ones with power above and beyond what the average family has in this country."
American workers and other citizens have a right to ask just what he means by that.
The fact is, Gore is making campaign vows to expand the already extensive special legal privileges of career union officials, who constitute one of his key constituencies.
Under federal law and 20 state laws, union bosses already enjoy the unique power to collect taxes, commonly labeled as union dues or "agency fees," from workers who choose not to join their private organizations.
Gore is vowing to change labor laws to make it even easier for Big Labor to collect forced dues and "fees."
And he shows no scruples about courting the support of union bosses who have been publicly accused of tolerating lawlessness or personally breaking the law.
The international union bosses with whom Gore has teamed up and who have been tainted by charges of union abuse of workers' rights include:
* * Stephen Yokich and Richard Shoemaker, president and vice president of the United Autoworkers.
On August 7, a group of 21 autoworkers sued the UAW international union for colluding with UAW Local 594 bosses in Pontiac, Mich., to force the General Motors Corp. to hire their unqualified relatives and friends as a condition for ending a 1997 strike.
Among the union cronies that GM agreed to hire shortly after the strike's end were Shoemaker's son, David, and Jason Beardsley, son of Yokich's administrative assistant.
Local 594 negotiators are also charged with demanding $200,000 in bogus "overtime" pay for themselves. The workers claim illegal union-boss demands prolonged the strike by two months, costing 5,900 UAW-"represented" employees $50 million in lost compensation.
* * Richard Trumka, secretary-treasurer of the AFL-CIO.
ABC News reported August 15 that Trumka, a speaker at the Democratic National Convention that week, is being investigated by the FBI on allegations that he helped funnel embezzled forced-dues money into then-Teamster chief Ron Carey's 1996 reelection campaign.
Trumka is accused of agreeing to divert $150,000 in AFL-CIO treasury funds into a nonprofit group tied to Carey, on the understanding that the AFL-CIO would get $150,000 in Teamster treasury funds in exchange.
This is money union-"represented" workers were forced under federal law to pay, or else be fired.
Rather than respond to this serious charge, Trumka has repeatedly taken the Fifth.
* * Gerald McEntee, president of the American Federation of State, County and Municipal Employees. (McEntee also spoke at the Democratic National Convention.)
The largest AFSCME subsidiary, District Council 37 in New York City, became nationally notorious in 1998 as a scandal emerged involving kickbacks, embezzlement, and union election-stealing by dozens of union officials and vendors.
When one local boss began singing to prosecutors, Mr. McEntee professed to be shocked to learn that his fellow union officers had stuffed ballot bags and stolen forced-dues money.
The fact is that dissident workers had long been publicly complaining about these illegal activities, but McEntee refused to act until the Manhattan district attorney's office all but forced him to.
Moreover, New York Daily News columnist Juan Gonzalez reported this summer that, despite McEntee's belated intervention and "reforms," his appointed trustee "has done little to change the system that gave rise to corruption."
Somebody needs to ask Al Gore: How is he "standing up for the little guy" by pushing for new legal perks for the likes of Stephen Yokich, Richard Shoemaker, Richard Trumka, and Gerald McEntee?
Republican leaders may decide not to ask this question. After all, GOP presidential nominee George W. Bush is still apparently hoping to get the endorsement of Teamster President Jim Hoffa, whose union is now being buffeted by fresh corruption and violence charges.
The history of forced unionism in this country has repeatedly driven home one simple point: Lavishing special privileges on Big Labor bosses is no way to help workers. |
