[lbo-talk] Robert Fitch on ties to employers

[Dennis Claxton]

Maybe this will clarify what I've been asking 
about Freeman.  Fitch thinks there's a logic and 
a problem with what he describes here.   The 
Freeman story is similar, with the sponsoring of 
a golf tournament at a luxury resort and membership in elite club.

http://www.forbes.com/ceonetwork/2006/01/06/fitch-labor-union-corruption-cx_hc_0109labor.html

Talk about the retraining fund in the United Auto 
Workers union and how it influences the union's organizing.

These were ostensibly set up for retraining and 
now involve a whole bunch of different kinds of 
expenditures like childcare funds and so forth. 

 
The administrative expenses are as high as 40%, 
and they generate a lot of opportunities for 
self-dealing. The leadership is able to spend 
these funds to sponsor stock car races 

 you 
know, black tie parties, they get to go out to 
Las Vegas. 

 It ties the union leadership to 
employers in ways that, I think, are really 
unhealthy. The members are able to learn little 
about what's going on with these funds. 

 There's 
nothing really criminal that's been revealed so 
far. I think the funds are corrupting in the 
sense that they tend to promote interests of the 
leadership as against concerns of the membership, but that's not illegal.