Once upon a time, American workers took pride in the jobs that they did. Quality was a priority, and dedication to excellence was the norm. Unfortunately, those days are gone, with striving for excellence the exception rather than the norm. There are many arguments that can be made for this reversal, but in my opinion the obvious reason is the labor unions. You can’t deny the fact that unions helped improve working conditions and wages for the average working person earlier this century. But the unions have outlived their usefullness. They have become no better than the oppressive industries that they once fought against. The only problem is that even though their numbers are small, they hold the power to bring our economy to a halt; and if you dare speak out against unions, you could find yourself out of work, physically harmed, or, even worse, dead.

Just as big industry had its foot on the working person’s throat, the unions have done the same thing. They deny the right for a person to work if they refuse to join the particular union. Additionally, the unions have removed incentives for an above average worker to thrive and excel. There is no reason for a union worker to put the extra effort into his work, for no matter how good or how bad a worker is, they will receive the same wage. This results in lower quality coupled with lower productivity. If the company dares to question the work habits of a subpar employee, it must face the wrath of the unions. When you remove the incentive for individual achievement, there is no motivating factor to be a more productive worker. These are the consequences of the union’s grip on industry: higher product cost while, at the same time, lower overall production and quality of product.

By now it’s no secret that organized crime has a prominent grasp on a great number of unions, but the even scarier fact is that they have a firm political tie with the Democratic Party. The Democrats and then-Teamster President Ron Carey worked in concert to illegally funnel union members' money into the 1996 election. There were minor rumbles of this in the media, but it managed to dodge major coverage. This escapade helped push new laws that union memebers could opt out of having their dues support political campaigns. This, of course, is a farce, since any member who would dare not to support the candidate of the union leadership would find himself hung out to dry if ever a situation came up; or face harrassment from union thugs and/or co-workers. Presently the unions are finding themselves in the position of losing some of their powers in the form of governors passing laws declaring individual states as "right to work" states. This simply states that a union legally doesn’t have the power to force membership in labor unions in order to secure employment. This, of course, has its loopholes, too. The corruption reaches well beyond the Teamsters members and their present and former leadership.

In 1998 the former secretary-treasurer of the United Food and Commerce Workers Union, Joseph C. Talarico, was sentenced to 30 months in prison for embezzling more than $925,000 from union members. The irony was that his salary was over 1 million dollars per year.

That same year Fredrick Devine, the former President of New York City’s District Council of the United Brotherhood of Carpenters and Joiners, was sentenced to 4 years for wasting $175,000 in union money on personal luxuries. Not to be outdone, Thomas W. Waters and Barbara T. Woods, both district council members of the American Federation of State, County and Municipal Employees in Washington, DC pleaded guilty to embezzling more than $830,000 from the union members.

These people can be considered to be common white collar criminals, but some of the union ploys that have been perpetrated on the public show the true colors of these thugs.

During the UPS strike of 1997, then Teamster President Ron Carey spoke publicly about the "concerns" of the employees, saying that they demanded more fulltime positions; but he failed in all of those public appearances to mention the true reason for the strike, control over the UPS workers pension fund. After the strike was settled, the only agreement that came out of the negotiations was that the pension fund would remain in control of the union, even though the growth potential was invariably greater with UPS in control of it. Carey told of the promises of more fulltime positions, but what he failed to mention was the fact that UPS did not have to abide by this agreement if the amount of business did not warrant the need for more employees. The truth is that the deal was only sealed when Carey secured control over the pension funds. The other under-reported fact was the amount of superfluous violence that was dished out by strikers against the managers who tried to run existing UPS routes during the strike. One of these victims was a man named Rod Carter, who was stabbed with an ice pick for simply trying to do his job.

In 1998, during a President Clinton visit to Philadelphia, union members gathered to harrass, not counter-protest, anti-Clinton protesters. This was the work of Teamsters Local 115’s leader John Morris, who is almost a cult figure amongst Philadelphia Teamsters. At the hearing concerning the beating of school teacher Don Adams by the Teamsters, Morris dissmissed the incident by saying that Adams was a right-to-work supporter who had insulted President Clinton. Morris was ousted and a raid was made on his headquarters, turning up a stockpile of guns, pepper spray, flak jackets, and stun guns.

It seems that union tactics haven’t changed much over the last 50 years. But the coup de gras has to be in Chicago where Teamsters Local 727 has sunk to the lowest depths of all. The bumbling fools of Local 727 represent hearse drivers and undertakers, and were upset at their failure to unionize a family-owned funeral parlor. They had been picketing the home for months in an attempt to unionize the parlor, which employs one non-family member. Finally, on that cold day in January 2000, they decided to step up the efforts to seize control of the situation and picketed a funeral in progress. They marched outside, chanting, "Who are we? We are the Teamsters!" As if this weren’t bad enough, the marchers followed the procession on to the church, where the chants began again. The family of Justine Nespeca, the deceased, were outraged, and thrashed the Teamsters on the evening news. Teamster boss James Hoffa happened to be in Chicago for another "cause" and was pressed by a local reporter on the issue of the funeral march. He arrogantly sidestepped and refused to even express sympathies to the family that had to endured his members' embarrassing behavior. These are just a microcosm of the thugish and unacceptable tactics of unions to try to relive their glory days of yesteryear. We have all of the appropriate legislation in place to act against unreasonable and unfair tactics of business; it’s time to bid adieu to the goons of the unions.