For generations, the leaders who represented American workers in unions earned their positions the hard way, whether it be on the job site, in the classroom, or at the bedside. And that’s because the promise of the American labor union was simple: workers standing together who understood the job, the risks, and what it meant to punch a clock or pull a shift. Skilled tradespeople, nurses, teachers, and electrical workers organized because they had skin in the game. 

That covenant is now a fiction. The leaders running many of today’s major unions didn’t rise from the ranks. They came from political science programs, law schools, and organizing offices. They have never felt the physical toll of the jobs they claim to champion. And because they haven’t, they don’t seem to lose much sleep over the gap between what their members take home and what they collect. That gap, in some cases, is more than $400,000 a year.