LaborPains.org

Unions have always turned to the same trump card when trying to convince employees to unionize: Unions members make more money.

It’s a compelling and appealing argument. But it’s also becoming less true by the year. Bloomberg BNA has released a new report demonstrating that the wage gap is growing smaller—and mainly because union wages are declining.

The drops aren’t staggering, but they’re definitely noticeable. As BNA noted:

[E]ven though union members earned about $1.21 for every dollar earned by nonunion workers in 2012, their mean hourly wage fell for the second year in a row—only the fourth back-to-back decline in the past 30 years. Nonunion workers, on the other hand, saw their wages in 2012 grow for the first time in four years.

These changes are close to historic levels, as they have “ narrow[ed] the gap between union and nonunion pay to its third-lowest point (79.1 percent) since the Data Book started keeping track in 1973.”

Nowhere are these seismic shifts more apparent than in the private sector. For the second time in the last decade, the ratio between union and nonunion pay is higher in the public sector than in the private sector—$1.18 on the dollar to $1.17, respectively. This is a dramatic drop since the 1980s, when “the ratio used to be as high as $1.35 in the 1980s.”

Some industries have even seen nonunion pay exceed union pay. Consider the case of manufacturing where “union members earned just 96 cents for every dollar earned by nonunion workers.”

Oh, and one other thing: None of these numbers factor in union dues. Once those are accounted for, the wage differential grows smaller still. Ouch.

All told, these changes point to something that many union members have known for years: Union officials are no longer serving the best interest of their members. Instead of prioritizing workers’ welfare, they’ve become distracted by the billions they spend on political campaigns, the size of their own paychecks, and other peripheral issues—none of which help the people they claim to represent.

Organized labor knows that employees are leaving it in droves. That shouldn’t be surprising: A history of corruption, forcing employees to pay up for political causes with which they don’t agree, and driving companies into bankruptcy (and employees onto the unemployment line) with unreasonable demands should all be warning signs that unions aren’t the way of the future.

Unions don’t want to be the next corporations unions lead to non-existence, so they’re looking for new ways to shore up their declining ranks. Unions think that avoiding the rules and transparency required by the laws regulating unions — the federal National Labor Relations Act (NLRA) and Labor-Management Reporting and Disclosure Act (LMRDA) — is the way back to relevance, so they’re backing so-called “workers centers” to conduct campaigns that the unions themselves cannot.

A commentator writing at the American Spectator thinks that this isn’t fair to employees. Since these “workers centers” are funded by unions, act sort of like unions, or advocate unionization, they ought to be regulated as “labor organizations” under the NLRA and LMRDA. He explains, using the “workers center” Coalition of Immokalee Workers (CIW) as an example:

CIW does little to hide that it acts as a labor organization — essentially a union. On its website, it includes as its goals promoting “enforcement against those who would violate workers’ rights” and “the right to organize on our jobs without fear of retaliation.”

Those clearly are union goals, yet CIW is not considered a union under current labor law. Officially, it is a “worker center,” which allows it to circumvent oversight and disclosure rules [...] If CIW and other worker centers are truly committed to the pursuit of better conditions for workers, they should have no objection to showing their supporters how they are funded and how they spend their money.

But then again, circumscribing and evading employee rights are longstanding Big Labor tactics. The Employee Free Choice Act (EFCA) would have effectively abolished employees’ rights to secret ballot votes on whether to unionize. Unions fought all the way to the Supreme Court to try to keep forcing public employees to give to their political programs on pain of termination. (They lost, in a case called Knox v. SEIU.)  And when Congress proposed granting workers the right to receive merit raises in unionized bargaining units, unions said, “No way.”

So evading regulations that ensure that unions have majority support and give employees the ability to see where there money goes is no surprise. That’s why real union reform, like the Employee Rights Act, is so necessary.

According to the federal government’s Bureau of Labor Statistics, the proportion of private-sector employees in unions has tumbled to a 70-year low. Only 6.6 percent of private-sector workers were union members in 2012.

Unions’ failure to represent their members’ interests and overzealous defense of unsustainable benefits has hamstrung the airline, manufacturing, and automotive industries, and their numbers are showing the effects of this poor leadership. The most recent prominent victims of union stubbornness were Hostess employees sent to the unemployment line by a Bakers’ Union (BCTGM) strike.

And many former union members are wiser than the declining unions. The Associated Press reports:

Don McGough lost his job as a union steelworker. He found a new position and a decade later, he voted no when the machinists’ union tried to organize workers at his company, JWF Industries, in Pennsylvania. “There are so many companies that just closed their doors because the union wouldn’t budge,” he says.

Unions hope that by expanding organizing efforts to new industries, they can reverse their decline.

While unions representing U.S. manufacturing might — auto and steel — have become smaller, the emphasis in recruiting new members has shifted to the service sector.

The Service Employees International Union, which represents nurses and lower-wage service employees including janitors, security, hospital, home health and child care workers, has doubled in size since 1996, to 2.1 million workers. It says it has added 50,000 workers annually in the last decade.

But unless unions change their ways, such moves might only lead the new industries to follow the traditional unionized industries into bankruptcy court. Instead of clinging to the same old adversarial model on new turf, they should endorse the accountability reform proposals endorsed by 80 percent of union households contained in the Employee Rights Act. Only by reforming themselves and acting in the interests of their members can unions reassert their relevancy.

New York Times: Powerful Leader of Mexican Teachers’ Union Is Arrested
Elba Esther Gordillo, also known as “La Maestra,” stands accused of embezzling $200 million from the funds of the Mexican teacher’s union. The New York Times reports that leader of the largest labor group in Latin America is incredibly powerful –“a bombastic figure viewed as a kingmaker among politicians for her ability to deliver votes and suppress enemies.” Prosecutors say that the embezzled money paid for two homes in California, plastic surgery, art, and credit cards.

Washington Examiner: Ex-Howard University police union leader sentenced for theft
Kevin Jones, former president of the Howard University police union, was sentenced to 20 weekends in jail, four years of probation, and 150 hours of community service for embezzlement. Jones pleaded guilty to stealing $30,000 from the union with improper ATM withdrawals and other payments for sporting events and parking tickets.

KTOO: Former union organizer sentenced for forging signatures
Union organizer Skye Rubadeau McRoberts was convicted and sentenced for forging signatures on union organizing cards.  The Alaska State Employees Association (ASEA) wanted to organize employees in the state university system and attempted to do so via card check. In February 2012, the Alaska Dispatch reported that Rubadeau McRoberts would have personally gained from adding members to the ASEA because the mail service business she operated handled the mailings for the union—and more members would mean more items to print and mail.

We’ve been chronicling the tactics of the Service Employees International Union (SEIU) for years. But David Bego knows what the SEIU is like up close and personal.  In his first book, Devil at My Doorstep: Protecting Employee Rights, Bego details how the SEIU aggressively came after his business in a typical anti-corporate campaign. His company, EMS, was targeted for unionization for years by Andy Stern’s organizers. Bego said he was happy to allow a union in—but only if the employees were able to vote via secret ballot. Not surprisingly, the SEIU was not interested in democracy. Instead, they took to their usual, outrageous tactics, including:

-  Offering money to employees to sign a card.
-  Getting children to hand out flyers in Bego’s neighborhood on Halloween.
-  Filing dozens of unfair labor practice charges.

In his latest book, The Devil At Our Doorstep, Bego, coming off several victories against the union, explains how his battle is but one small part of the larger war that organized labor has waged on the American people. Bego makes it clear, however, that it takes more than just the labor unions to make this happen. He explains that union officials are able to work with others in the far-reaching progressive community, notably the media and politicians. Without that support, unions would be in even worse shape than they are today.

Bego also provides a plan on how to combat the overreach of labor unions and to take the fight to them. For too long, too many people have been happy just to play defense against organized labor. Bego’s account shows that, unquestionably, unions will not rest until they have regained their former power.

Bego’s book is worth a read to get the perspective of someone who has dealt with the SEIU’s bully tactics firsthand—and won.

Turn to page A13 of the Wall Street Journal this morning, and you’ll find our Executive Director Richard Berman alerting readers of the country’s highest-circulation newspaper to our research into union collective bargaining agreements and the minimum wage clauses that can be found in them.

While ranting against Berman’s article, Wade Rathke, of ACORN infamy, admits that United Labor Unions Local 100 also includes the minimum wage provisions in many of its contracts:

On the Waterfront: Terminal operator sues longshoremen’s union for racketeering

The Newark Star-Ledger reports that American Stevedoring, a former operator of shipping terminals in Newark and Brooklyn, has alleged that officials of the International Longshoremen’s Association (ILA) are involved in organized crime. The company sued the ILA and its leadership for $160 million for what American Stevedoring says were efforts by the ILA to push the company out of the terminals because it failed to agree to the ILA’s racketeering. ILA President Harold Daggett was indicted for racketeering in 2005 but later acquitted — but not before crying on the witness stand.

And it’s likely Daggett wouldn’t like appreciate any references to the classic Marlon Brando film: in 2010 he said there was no longer a need for the Waterfront Commission

We don’t need these people anymore. They just keep building this bunch of baloney up, over and over again, like the movie, so they could get paid.

Casino: Ex-teacher gambled $1 million at casinos

Denise Inez Owens, former treasurer of Worcester County (MD) Teacher’s Association (WCTA), pleaded guilty to embezzling over $433,000 from the union. In three years, she went to Delaware casinos over 600 times and gambled $1 million. Owens was sentenced to two years in state prison and must repay $211,545 to the union. She has already repaid $195,000.

The union claims that member dues were not mishandled and insisted that “[a]t no time was there a loss of programs or services to WCTA members due to this issue.” But it also doesn’t appear that the union was particularly forthcoming. Delaware Online reported:

The incident was first reported by The Daily Times in February 2012 after a review of publicly available tax returns revealed that WCTA reported a $110,589 loss for fiscal year 2009.

An unsigned note in that tax paperwork attributed the loss to embezzlement by the former treasurer.

Huffington Post: Armored Car Drivers Try To Unionize In New York City
Labor wants to make greater inroads into security, a field with traditionally low unionization rates.

Bloomberg: N.Y. MTA Labor Talks Drag as Union Fights Part-Time Bus Drivers
Union officials of the Transport Workers Union Local 100 continue to urge ignorance of reality as unionized drivers continue to raise costs with unnecessary overtime pay.

The Indypendent: Christine Quinn & Labor
Progressives take shots at labor and at New York City Council Speaker Christine Quinn, the current frontrunner to be the next mayor.