Ranger Rick: Unions have crooked management history

I was perusing through the Web, looking for information about several things and I came across a UAW and Chrysler story about a Chrysler official, Alphons Iacobelli, paying off a UAW official to help in contract negotiations.

Being a former UAW member, and knowing how the union colluded with my employer at the time, I was not surprised to see a story like this. I didn’t happen to see it in a newspaper article or on any new site before, but I don’t read or view much fake news (ABC, CBS, CNN, NBC, MSNBC, Time, or most TV News programs on national news). This one was kind of buried under other stories deemed more important by the website posting person.

A former Fiat Chrysler executive pleaded guilty to giving more than $1.5 million in cash and gifts to high-ranking members of the UAW, admitting he turned the budget of a company-sponsored training center into a slush fund. He provided them with first-class air travel, designer clothing, jewelry and expensive watches to UAW executives and their spouses.

The main beneficiary was General Holiefield, a UAW vice president who was responsible for negotiating with Fiat Chrysler on the union’s behalf. His $262,000 mortgage was paid off in 2014 with a check from the training center.

I’m not a union man now, though I worked for a UAW company for almost five years. During that experience, I had good benefits and decent pay for the sweat and labor I provided in making auto parts for the Big 3. I didn’t know, since I was a young man and had no prior experience with unions, who was pulling the strings with union leadership and company representatives, but we received a $0.07 per hour raise in the period I was there and contract negotiations were taking place.

The union informed us we could vote to strike, but since Ford had just returned from a lengthy strike, the “strike fund” was depleted, and we would get little to no strike pay during the time we were not working. My antenna went up fully after hearing that and even at my young age, knew a BS story when I heard it. We voted and the majority decided to return to work with a $0.07 raise in pay.

After that, I made sure I watched my union stewards and who they hung out with after work. I found a few of them with supervisors/plant managers in a bar after work. They would go to the Polish Falcon Hall and take a table in the back. These union men always had new cars and plenty of cash to blow on booze, so I always suspected they were on the take. I couldn’t prove anything, and since I was soon going to leave the company anyway, I quit pursuing the seemingly obvious.

Was there anything to my suspicions; maybe, maybe not, but I suspect I was on the right path and my suspicions would bear fruit if I would have pursued them.

The UAW, Teamsters, and others have a history of crooked management. I guess the “little guy” paying union dues is at the will of the UAW leadership, but that doesn’t make it right. You would think people representing the union would be honest and honorable in their dealings with the company and their membership. But evil is alive and well, even within the present labor organizations you would hope would be free of such shenanigans.

I haven’t worked in a union setting for years and have done much better than if I had stayed. I needed a job and given an opportunity at a time I really needed one. For that, I was thankful, but the union experience was not a positive one for me.

I’m sure other union workers will disagree with my assertions — such is their right to do so. But I’m sure these are GM folks, and maybe things were different in their union. I’m sure there were and are a few good union representatives for the workers. I just didn’t have any where I worked.

The rotting of America from within continues…