Labor Relations (The Illegal Kind)

While mob influences are probably not what they used to be in organized labor, there is apparently still plenty of corruption out there - especially in some construction trades, and especially in New Jersey. Recently, a business agent for an Operating Engineer's Local and the president of an erector contractor pled guilty to a bribery conspiracy. The case is United States v. Wask.

Why does this kind of bribery happen? Because, for an employer, paying a few thousand (or many thousand) bucks to a labor official is cheaper than a strike. It's also cheaper than complying with the sometimes difficult work rules, high wage rates, and expensive benefit costs set up in collective bargaining agreements. I mean, another recent case involving the same OE Local alleged that an employer paid a union official $750 just to avoid having a union guy man a backhoe.

The reason the government must be constantly diligent in prosecuting these cases is because it is almost always in the employer's economic self-interest to avoid union troubles and union mandates. And, with large enough suitcases or envelopes of money, it is in the individual union official's economic self-interest to do the employer a favor or two in this regard.

So who's ox gets gored? The working man's. The people with the least individual influence, who are paying the union for their services (through dues), and whose muscle (or refusal to use that muscle in the case of a strike), gives the union official so much power. They're being played for patsies, and often they don't know or have no choice. The government needs to keep this from happening. Aggressively prosecuting this kind of corruption is one way to do it.