During Barack Obama’s tenure in the White House, he has stacked the deck at the National Labor Relations Board with officials sympathetic to unions. (At one point, a unanimous Supreme Court decision ruled that Obama’s recess appointments to the board were illegal.) The NLRB has in turn issued all sorts of new rules to inhibit union the transparency of union officials, tie employers’ hands who want to make their case during unions elections, and give organized labor an unfair advantage during contract negotiations.
While the right to association is enshrined in the Constitution, the lack of a level playing field for employers is a problem given the long and illustrious history of union corruption. On Tuesday, a vivid reminder of this came when a Houston jury ordered the Service Employees International Union, arguably the country’s most politically influential union, to pay $5.3 million dollars to Professional Janitorial Services for legally harassing the company and running a libelous campaign against the company. A press release on behalf of Professional Janitorial Services fairly summarizes the jury’s findings:
Not all unions engage in this kind of illegal activity, but the SEIU has a reputation for reprehensible behavior. But the union also has powerful political allies—the financially troubled union spent $80 million dollars it didn’t have electing Barack Obama twice, and a former SEIU operative, Patrick Gaspard, became Obama’s political director. (Gaspard then conveniently forgot to disclose a $37,000 payment from the SEIU while he was working for the White House.) The SEIU is willing to act so brazenly because most of the time, its friends in the White House and NLRB, allow it to get away with corruption. The judgment for Professional Janitorial Services is a rare and refreshing exception.
