Union Shenanigans

Unions are giving their critics plenty of material to work with these days. (WSJ)

ILA: The recent International Longshoreman’s Union strike consisted of 50,000 strikers even though the ports in question only employ 25,000 workers.

• As the Wall Street Journal Editorial Board noted, “only about half of the union’s members are obliged to show up to work each day,” while the “rest sit at home collecting ‘container royalties’ negotiated in previous ILA contracts intended to protect against job losses that result from innovation.”

• Amid the dockworker’s strike drama, a 2019-2020 report by the Waterfront Commission of New York Harbor has resurfaced: According to the report, “590 individuals continue to receive over $147 million in outsized salaries not required by the industry’s collective bargaining agreement and for hours they do not even have to be at the Port.”

• The Waterfront Commission also found that 18% of worker referrals were linked to organized crime.

CTU: Amid an ongoing Chicago Teachers Union controversy (with union ally Mayor Brandon Johnson at the forefront), a new analysis found that 80% of the union’s funding in 2024 went toward “politics, overhead and other union priorities.”

• Less than 20% went toward representing Chicago’s teachers.

• Johnson is currently facing scrutiny over his 2025 budget plan, which one New York Times reporter described as “a $300 million high-interest loan to cover a $175 million pension for staff members in the district who aren’t teachers, and to cover pay increases for members of the union.”

• The tensions led the entire Chicago Education Board to hand in their resignations last week, and Johnson has already named six new members.