When Occupy Wall Street was protesting, one of its claims was that the ‘fat cats’ on Wall Street were getting richer while everyone else was getting poorer. They claimed to be fighting for a more equitable distribution of wealth. Of course, corporations have always been charged with overpaying their executives while underpaying those in the lower levels of the work force. However, in these protests, one area of ‘unequal distribution of wealth’ has been overlooked.
Today’s Washington Examiner posted an article about the increases in the pay for union leaders that is occurring as union membership decreases.
The article reports:
The only thing keeping Big Labor from becoming an incidental factor in the American workplace is that government employees are five times more likely to be unionized than those in the private sector.
The article further states:
A total of 428 private sector union leaders were paid at least $250,000 annually, and the top 100 of those made more than $350,000, according to a study of Department of Labor data by Media Trackers, a conservative, nonprofit investigative watchdog group. The highest-paid union leaders work for organized professional athletes, with G. William Hunter, executive director of the National Basketball Players Association, who received $3.2 million. The only government employee union leader in the top 10 is Gerald McEntee, international president of the Association of Federal, State, County and Municipal Employees, whose $1.2 million compensation put him fourth on the list.
I have no problem with people being compensated for what they do, but if you are going to complain about what corporate executives earn, you need to also look at what union leaders are paid.
