The Belly Of The Beast

Who are the people breaking the law in the name of workers’ rights?

I go into detail about how men like Chris Magoulas of Unite Here exemplify the hypocrisy of Trade Unions.

It’s about time people stand up the snakes

In the past few posts I have described the underbelly of unions as they clamor to gain contracts in this climate of desperation. I presented myself as one of the industry’s “pushers” or “enforcers” – spending decades coercing businesses to release their workforce to us for representation. In so doing I came to ruin peoples’ lives, and witness and be complicit in the physical abuse of innocent business leaders. I have admitted and will continue to admit to my regrettable wrong doing. But you should know this.
I was not alone.

Every union has someone like me. But ever since I abandoned my post, their methods have no ethical limit.

Take Chris Magoulas, who now officially serves as the assistant to Donald Taylor, the President of Unite Here (a subsection of the dominant AFL-CIO). He’s one of those guys who we would call a “union baby”. He’s been in the system his entire career, and doesn’t really know a world outside of it. He spends his days verbally abusing and coordinating negative campaigns to personally critique businesses until they capitulate to his demands. Magoulas has been doing this year after year, month after month, day after day. For someone whose entire career has been nurtured by the ideology of a union, his moral judgment is constantly at the whims of his superiors, so one could make the argument that he’s just following orders.

But the nature Magoulas’s malicious attacks on potential clients shows me that he’s a man who knows full well the harm he is doing to society and ultimately, the workers he claims to represent.

In all of my time as an enforcer, I realized that many workers have no idea what goes on behind the scenes to supposedly secure their rights. When I do tell people many of them are shocked, ashamed, and disgraced.

But as mentioned previously in this blog, efforts by men like Chris Magoulas are not about justice or rights. It’s about power. It’s about extracting the maximum amount of money from fear-rendered individuals who just want to run their business in the way they see fit.
Union leaders are always railing again the so-called Wolves of Wall Street, but they overlook the ever-present nature of the Snakes of Labor Street – manipulative, calculating schemers whose goals are just as pernicious and greedy as the fat cats on Wall Street.

Chris is one snake among thousands. I’ve heard stories specifically about him. He starts out with loads of charm – making you feel like he’s doing you a favor. But when you start to ask questions or critique his vision for your company, he shows his teeth. He has a reputation for instilling unprecedented fear in his targets, coercing them through verbal and physical intimidation. He is good at his job, I’ll admit that. But his whole career has been built on the ethical equivalent of a house of cards. He is utterly convinced that each verbal attack, each ominous threat, is for the greater good of his workers. Yet at the same time you can see the craven look in his eyes that screams power hunger.

It’s only a matter of time before Chris Magoulas upends Taylor at the head of Unite Here. His whole career has been preparing for that moment. So what happens when a man like him – even a man like me – takes over for a major union? What happens when a man consumed with power hunger actually attains the power?

It’s not good. For Chris, power already corrupts. But absolute power will corrupt him absolutely.

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