The Real Class War: Jimmy Hoffa, Ohio Union Bosses Won’t Lower Dues to Help Workers

In Ohio, as union bosses have embraced Occupy Wall Street’s (OWS) class war between the “99 percent” and the “1 percent,” it has becomes increasingly difficult not to ask an obvious question:

Aren’t union bosses basically the 1 percent?

Throughout the run-up to Ohio’s Issue 2 election on November 8, in which voters will consider a referendum on the state’s new public sector labor reforms, I’ve met pponents of the bill at Occupy Columbus who say they are fed up with “the rich taking from the middle class.” They direct their class warfare energies at the abstract Wall Street anathema, but the scenario is literally accurate–and not in some obtuse, Marxist form–as a description of the fiscal dynamic between union bosses and rank-and-file members.

I asked one teacher how, being an Occupy demonstrator and opponent of Ohio labor reforms, she justified the $210,000 annual salary of Larry Wicks, executive director of the Ohio Education Association (OEA), of which she is a dues-paying member. She paused for thought–understandably, since that fact would seem to justify class warfare against the “rich” Mr. Wicks. Ultimately, she concurred with my criticism, and even condemned her very own OEA.

Other Ohio teachers are even less hesitant to criticize their union. One teacher (who wished to remain anonymous for her own safety) shared that she had requested a waiver to opt out of paying the union’s political assessments, to which the response was, “We’ll get back to you.” They didn’t.

Recently, fifteen teachers filed a class-action suit in the U.S. District Court in Columbus, claiming the OEA had illegally refused to provide the teachers with independently-audited financial statements disclosing how fees were being appropriated.

Laurie Kipfer, an Ohio teacher brave enough to go on record, wondered aloud why liberal grief focuses on the modest benefit concessions mandated by Ohio’s new labor reforms, and not the unaccounted-for annual dues and random assessments mandated by union bosses who decry such concessions.

Apparently, the union rank-and-file members are caught in the middle of a disagreement over whom they should share more of their costs with–the taxpayers who are literally funding their salaries, or the union bosses who are taking from their salaries.

I brought union members’ concerns to the OEA itself, as shown in the video above, to find out how teachers might find out how their dues are being spent. A representative who answered my call admitted she did not have that information, and directed me towards the union’s magazine–which, according to both my and Kipfer’s reading thereof, offers little to no explanation or breakdowns of expenditures. The representative then insisted that because I’m not an OEA member, she could not divulge any information.

I wondered: since union bosses have wrapped their arms around President “Spread the Wealth Around” Obama, why don’t they, who pack their six-figure salaries with funds collected directly from workers’ paychecks, spread their own wealth directly back to the dues-payers, thus providing more savings to cover the accommodations in new union reform bills?

I ran that idea by Teamsters Union President Jimmy Hoffa, Jr. after his appearance at an anti-Issue 2 rally in Cincinnati. This was shortly after he endorsed Occupy Wall Street, claiming on MSNBC’s (now-discredited) Ed Show that “the system is rigged against [the poor and middle class]“, demanding “equality of sacrifice,” and claiming that “the rich are not paying enough.”

Hoffa made $294,285 in 2010 as Teamsters Union President, according to financial disclosure forms- money made directly from the paychecks of workers he “protects.” His response to my idea:

The answer is we ought to have more taxes on people, and I think we ought to raise the taxes on the rich people in this country, and I think everyone should do that, and I think we should have more taxes, and let’s make sure everybody has equality of sacrifice, and we should be paying more taxes, just like Warren Buffett.

It is understandable why Hoffa would prefer tax hikes on the “rich people” as opposed to cutting his own union-dues-funded salary, inasmuch as his close friend, President Obama, whom he described as his army leader, provided a special exemption for unions from the ObamaCare excise tax on Cadillac health insurance plans. Spread the wealth around–but not Hoffa’s.

What is not understandable is why Hoffa would bemoan the Wall Street bailouts and demand the prosecution of Wall Street CEOs whom he feels caused the collapse, when his own union demanded a $165 billion pension bailout over a collapse he created.

It seems an elementarily simple request, asking union bosses who demand “shared sacrifice”–while decrying the modest amounts requested by taxpayers in helping to pay union members’ benefits–to share in the sacrifice to help those they are “protecting.”

It’s reminiscent of a scene in the 1983 film This is Spinal Tap. After Christopher Guest boasts about his system amplifier going to eleven instead of ten for that “extra push over the cliff,” Rob Reiner innocently asks: “Why not make ten louder and make ten the top number?” Guest blinkingly, gum-chewingly pauses for thought before answering, “These go to eleven.”

Somehow, Hoffa’s Teamsters Union, the OEA, et al. have managed to seduce their dues-payers with possessively protective promises. However, not all of the rank and file have fallen for them–even those active in Occupy Wall Street protests.

The Occupy protestors insist that “corporations are not people.” If “corporations are not people,”  then neither are unions. At least in the former case, shareholders have the choice to not invest in companies that fundraise for political activities with which they disagree. In the latter case, industry-relegated dues-payers do not have that choice. But, of course, not all “progressives” are authentically pro-choice.

Like Rob Reiner’s, these are reasonable points that can be made to the Occupy demonstrators who want the rich to stop “taking from the middle class,” yet want to protect a system whereby rich union bosses literally do take from their middle class workers while claiming to have their backs. But then again, these go to eleven.