In 2020, President Joe Biden campaigned on being the “most pro-union president you’ve ever seen.” Since then, Biden has sought to do just that.
Unfortunately, Biden’s blind loyalty to Big Labor is causing fraud, embezzlement, and other union crimes to flourish. Big Labor has gained influence during the Biden presidency by weaponizing obscure regulatory changes to increase union control over workplaces. For example, Biden’s universal proxy rule recently enabled a militant union coalition to extract new concessions from Starbucks by threatening a hostile takeover attempt of the coffee company’s board. The Department of Labor’s independent contractor and joint employer rules both make it easier to jam workers into unions. The Occupational Safety and Health Administration’s proposed “walkaround” rule would allow union scrubs to tag along with OSHA bureaucrats on worksite inspections.
Not content to grease the skids for Big Labor on the regulatory side alone, the Biden administration has condoned thuggish tactics to help union organizers win through coercion and intimidation. The National Labor Relations Board recently ruled that “profane, vulgar, racist, and otherwise insulting language” is protected union activity so long as it stops short of actual violence. During his State of the Union address, Biden reaffirmed his support for the Protecting the Right to Organize Act, which would legalize union harassment by forcing employers to hand over employee contact information during organizing drives.
Given the Biden administration’s support for union skullduggery, it is no surprise that union corruption is rampant. In 2023, the Office of Labor Management launched 155 criminal investigations into union activity, resulting in 39 indictments and 57 convictions. Over the past decade, the OLMS has reported 725 indictments and 693 convictions of union criminals. Given the OLMS’s limited resources to launch audits and bring criminal charges, there is likely more corruption than what is being publicly reported.
To protect American wallets from Big Labor’s venality, House Education and Workforce Chairwoman Virginia Foxx (R-N.C.) launched a new investigation into 12 unions “representing” 7.8 million American workers. Foxx sent letters to each union providing examples of their corruption and requesting information on internal controls and reporting mechanisms to prevent fraud and corruption, giving them until April 3 to respond.
The unions under investigation have no shortage of corruption problems. Former Teamsters boss John Coli Sr. was recently sentenced to 19 months in federal prison for falsifying tax records and taking more than $300,000 in kickbacks in exchange for not starting strikes. In March 2023, former Service Employees International Union official Attia Little stole more than $500,000 from the union and used her SEIU card for personal expenses. In July 2023, former International Brotherhood of Electrical Workers Secretary Brian Akahuelo was sentenced to 140 months in jail for embezzling, wire fraud, and money laundering to the tune of $3.7 million.
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It is bad enough that union dues go to political activity that workers may or may not agree with. It is worse that some union bosses are stealing money from the workers that they claim to represent. Every dollar that a union boss steals is one dollar less that a worker can put toward sending their children to school, putting food on the table, or building a nest egg.
The Biden administration enables union corruption because union dues overwhelmingly go toward electing Democrats. Biden’s refusal to pull union bosses away from the trough directly harms workers. Unlike Biden, House Republicans are leading the charge to stamp out union fraud and corruption.
Tom Hebert is Director of Competition and Regulatory Policy at Americans for Tax Reform and executive director of the Open Competition Center.