Will Team Biden Weaponize Workers’ Pensions?
Big Labor abuse of worker pension and benefit funds as a means of advancing union bosses’ self-aggrandizing policy objectives is a familiar phenomenon.
From National Right to Work Committee President Mark Mix’s Newsmax Op-Ed about Biden’s appointment to head the US Department of Labor: union boss and Big Labor politician Marty Walsh.
Department of Labor, or Department of Political Extortion?
In August 2019, two Walsh aides were convicted of extorting a private company to hire forced union dues-paying workers the company didn’t want or need by purposefully holding up the issuance of permits required to conduct a music festival.
But in February 2020 a federal judge overturned the guilty verdicts. His apparent legal theory is that extortion ceases to be extortion when it’s done for political gain.
In his pre-mayoral career as a construction union boss, Walsh himself allegedly used his political connections to pressure contractors to hire union-only labor.
As Fox News’ Thomas Barrabi recalled in January, in an October 2012 conversation “recorded through federal wiretaps,” Walsh informed a fellow union boss “that he had told housing developer AvalonBay Communities that it would face permitting delays if it did not hire union workers [only] . . . .”
Moreover, in December 2012, according to another developer, Walsh “pressured him to rescind building contracts” awarded to union-free contractors. Walsh was never charged.
Mark Mix, read more in Newsmax
Big Labor abuse of worker pension and benefit funds as a means of advancing union bosses’ self-aggrandizing policy objectives is a familiar phenomenon.
What impact does handing a union monopoly power to deal with your employer on matters concerning your pay, benefits, and work rules have on your pay?
Wherever Big Labor wields the power to collect forced union dues, union bosses funnel a large share of the confiscated money into efforts to elect and reelect business-bashing politicians. Employment growth tends to lag as a consequence.