opinion
Cigar buying sprees. Custom-made Napa wine. Months-long opulent golf vacations in private villas tucked away in the hills of Southern California.
These are just a small portion of the millions in lavish expenditures reportedly made by United Auto Workers top bosses, all with money intended to benefit rank-and-file workers. A long-running federal embezzlement probe has already resulted in the convictions of 14 individuals, including 11 linked to the UAW. Union officials at the highest levels of the UAW were found guilty of living large on workers’ dues, including money from workers who would be fired for not paying union dues or fees.
In June, former president Gary Jones pleaded guilty to embezzling more than $1 million in worker funds. Just days ago, his immediate predecessor, Dennis Williams, was indicted in a manner that signals that he too will plead guilty. On top of all this The Detroit News reports that current president Rory Gamble is himself under investigation for allegedly receiving kickbacks after negotiating lucrative merchandise deals with vendors.
To break the deep culture of corruption at the Solidarity House — the UAW headquarters, where a suspicious fire started after Jones was caught on a federal wiretap telling a fellow conspirator he wished they “burned the records” — Justice Department officials recently suggested having a watchdog supervise union reforms over a period of 10 years as a way to avoid a federal takeover of the union.
While a watchdog may help, more substantial reforms to clean up the union must address a basic fact: The root of the UAW hierarchy’s corruption was government-sanctioned compulsory power over workers.
The fact is, UAW union officials perpetrated this abuse using the extraordinary powers granted to them by federal law — primarily their “monopoly bargaining” power over the contracts of every autoworker in a UAW-controlled shop (even over the objections of individual workers), and authorization to cut deals mandating that rank-and-file workers pay union dues or fees or else be fired.
These privileges allowed UAW fat cats to live worker-funded limousine lifestyles knowing that their revenue stream and bargaining power were largely insulated from the popular will of the very workers they claim to “represent.” That’s why any reforms, either as part of or to avoid a federal takeover of the UAW, should empower workers whose trust was so blatantly betrayed to hold union bosses accountable.
To begin with, workers under all UAW union locals touched by the corruption should be immediately allowed to decide via secret ballot whether or not the union deserves to keep representing them. Although the rampant corruption is more than enough reason to give workers a chance to reconsider UAW representation, the fact is most, if not all, of these workers have never had any vote to determine if they actually want UAW “representation.” Each of the Big Three automakers were all unionized by the early 1940s.
Another key worker-centric reform would be requiring UAW officials to cease enforcement of so-called “union security” clauses which mandate workers be fired for nonpayment of union dues or fees, and also to stop seeking such clauses in future contracts. This would let individual workers decide if the union is worthy of their hard-earned money, and make union officials convince each member that they’ve actually cleaned up the corruption.
In addition to those two powerful means of letting workers hold the union hierarchy accountable, federal oversight and expenditure auditing should be made fully public, with any worker under a UAW contract able to not only scrutinize but also challenge any transactions they deem suspicious.
Unfortunately, more accountability to those on the shop floor appears to be the last thing UAW brass are interested in. Rank-and-file UAW workers may be split over which presidential candidate to support, but the union hierarchy is all in on Joe Biden who, if elected, could appoint a new U.S. Attorney to take over the union corruption prosecution and stop meaningful reform.
That’s in addition to the other ways Biden has pledged to give more power to union bosses over those they claim to represent. He’s proposed eliminating all 27 right-to-work laws by federal fiat, meaning every autoworker in America could be forced to pay dues to the union or be fired, including in Michigan, home to the fire-damaged UAW headquarters.
But as the widespread corruption among UAW brass shows, a massive expansion of union boss power is the last thing America’s autoworkers need. Rather, we should be giving rank-and-file workers more tools to free themselves from union “representation” and dues-paying ranks.
Mark Mix is president of the National Right to Work Foundation and National Right to Work Committee.
"Opinion" - Google News
September 05, 2020 at 10:00AM
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Opinion: To address UAW corruption, target how union bosses harm rank and file - The Detroit News
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