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Solidarity For Sale

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Solidarity For Sale

How Corruption Destroyed the Labor Movement and Undermined America's Promise

Public Affairs,

15 min read
10 take-aways
Audio & text

What's inside?

The biggest obstacle to labor solidarity is union corruption.

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Editorial Rating

8

Qualities

  • Controversial
  • Eye Opening
  • Engaging

Recommendation

getAbstract believes that this gripping, reportorial book will intrigue anyone who is interested in American politics, the labor movement, or social and economic reform. Robert Fitch catalogs trade unions' alleged crimes of corruption, while showing how their organizational structure makes corruption all but inevitable. If you think the U.S. labor movement had only noble origins, it is instructive to reflect on the thugs Fitch says loom so large in its early history. And, if you believe that union corruption belongs to the past, it is salutary to discover how profound and pervasive it is in today's unions, at least, according to this reporter. Fitch strongly explains why he feels union corruption is not just a labor issue, but is a disease that harms society-at-large in many ways, amply explored herein.

Summary

Corrupt at the Root

Corruption pervades the American labor movement and always has. For five generations, organized crime, pension and benefit funds theft, job selling and various forms of labor racketeering have been standard operating procedure in American unions. Corruption means the use of public power for private ends. Some corruption is illegal, but some is within the law, such as nepotism or favoritism in hiring. Corruption in American labor unions is not limited to the leadership. The membership participates. In fact, the structure of American labor unions encourages such corruption. Union locals have the real power in the labor movement. Members pay dues to their locals, whose business agents decide who will not work, who will and for what wages. Like feudal barons, labor union bosses reward their loyal retainers, and the fate of the retainers depends on the fate of their bosses.

It is not unusual for the leader of a union local to earn a half-million dollar salary. It also isn't unusual for a Mafia family to run a union local like a small business, passing it from generation to generation. Labor leaders have been known to demand payments from employers in...

About the Author

At age 15, Robert Fitch joined the Laborers Union, Local 5, in Chicago Heights, Illinois. He eventually traded his shovel for a briefcase and has since taught at Cornell and New York University, organized for the unions, and written for The Village Voice, The Baffler, Newsday, The Washington Post, Los Angeles Times and The Nation.

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