Quid Pro Quo. The American Heritage Dictionary defines this Latin phrase as “an equal exchange or substitution.”
Here’s another definition: When 17 United States Senators and Representatives accept contributions in excess of $359,000 during the 2006 and 2008 congressional elections from political action committees (PACs) funded by several major labor unions. Then, these same Member of Congress—hailing from both sides of the aisle—co-sponsor the Employee Free Choice Act (EFCA).
What’s even more troubling than the fact that EFCA’s co-sponsors have all taken money from Organized Labor is that these major unions funding these PACs all suffer from “significant internal corruption problems.”
Since 2001, these unions —the Communications Workers of America; the Boilermakers Union; the International Brotherhood of Electrical Workers; the American Federation of Government Employees; the Paper, Allied-Industrial, and Chemical Energy Workers International Union (PACE); and the Service Employees International Union (SEIU)—have racked up a total of “71 convictions in federal courts…of felonies ranging from embezzlement and mail fraud to falsifying official reports to government and conspiracy.”
As the Washington Examiner notes, “those convicted were division presidents, vice presidents, secretary-treasurers and business managers. The amounts for the embezzlement convictions were from $5,000 to more than $100,000.”
This revelation, of course, begs the obvious question: Who were these Labor bigwigs embezzling from? Not each other, that’s for sure. It was from the rank-and-file workers—the same women and men who unions insist do not need the protection of a private vote when deciding to join a union —whose hard-earned money union officials stole
Given the fact that the heads of these five unions not only promote aggressive recruiting tactics such as SPIN-selling, but also steal from the workers they represent, it is little wonder that Americans are increasingly in favor of protecting these worker’s right to a secret ballot.
