For the meat industry, the pandemic brought with it another ailment: Labor pains. The United Food and Commercial Workers have grabbed headlines as they seek to organize everyone from meatpackers to food delivery drivers, and COVID provided questions about workplace safety that union organizers could tap into.

Organized labor using pressure points is nothing new. And there’s something else that hasn’t changed over time: When workers take a closer look, they won’t like what they see.

Before I started a public affairs firm 30 years ago, I was a labor attorney. While many on this site know me for my work pushing back against radical animal rights activism, I also run a watchdog group called the Center for Union Facts. CUF recently released a new report analyzing the UFCW’s financial documents over the past five years. If you’re dealing with the UFCW, this information may be valuable for sharing.

Over the past five years, the union has spent an average of $43.2 million dollars a year on salaries and benefits alone. Last year the union’s president made upwards of $340,000 in salary and benefits. During this period, the union also spent a total of $33.3 million on events, travel agents and transportation.

Extravagant spending isn’t isolated to the UFCW’s main office. See UFCW Local 1546 in Chicago, where, according to the local’s most recent filings, union dues can cost up to $582 a year. Around 85% of the dues paid to the local end up being used to pay the salaries of Local 1546’s staff or sent to the UFCW mothership.

A pot of money with little accountability will eventually attract unsavory characters. Last year, 13 incidents on the Department of Labor’s Criminal Enforcement Actions list were related to the UFCW. Most of the crimes were financial in nature and included embezzlement, extortion and racketeering. In addition to being bad financial stewards, union locals often trap employees in what one worker described as “poorly worded” and “practically useless” contracts. In one instance that further highlights the insular management of the union, the UFCW International once sued a shipping clerk because he posted the union’s constitution to his website and referred to the UFCW as “the United Fraud and Corruption Workers." One UFCW official admitted in the court proceedings that he tried to prevent members from obtaining the constitution and bylaws.

The UFCW’s membership has dropped year after year. The pandemic provides an opportunity to make up some of the 25,000 members it lost. One of the biggest examples has been the union’s assault on the meatpacking industry, despite the industry earning praise from the highest levels for its handling of the COVID crisis.

When OSHA hit the meatpacking plants with major fines, the UFCW claimed it wasn’t enough. The truth is no matter what OSHA fined the industry, the union wouldn’t have been happy because it is using this situation to get free publicity and as a recruitment tool. As with a lot of these campaigns, it’s more about the union and less about the worker.

This is why it's important to educate non-union employees now. By the time you realize a union wolf is at your door, it's already too late.

If you build it, they will unionize it

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