Union Bosses Out Earn Members by Hundreds of Thousands of Dollars

An op-ed in the Washington Examiner made a point I’ve been making for years: there’s a widening gap between what union members earn and what the people running their unions collect.

The author, Gene Hamilton of the Coalition to Protect American Workers, walks through the numbers.

Randi Weingarten has led the American Federation of Teachers since 2008. She’s a lawyer who logged about three years as a full-time classroom teacher before going on union leave a quarter-century ago. Her total compensation now tops $500,000 a year. The teachers paying her dues average roughly $74,000, per the NEA.

Puneet Maharaj runs National Nurses United, representing 225,000+ registered nurses. Per the op-ed, she has never worked as a nurse — no license, no clinical background. Her pay: close to $300,000, about three times what the median nurse makes.

Liz Shuler sits atop the AFL-CIO earning a minimum of $357,000. She came up through union administration, not the trades she represents. That’s roughly four times what a working lineman takes home.

I think the point stands on its own. Dues are a revenue stream, and that revenue funds a professional class that runs the institution.

This is exactly the disconnect that surfaced in that Steamfitters story out of New York — rank-and-file members feeling like leadership isn’t speaking for them anymore.

None of this is a secret. It’s in the LM-2 filings every union submits to the Department of Labor. Anyone can look.

When a union pitches your workforce on solidarity, it’s fair to ask where the dues actually go. The members are asking. Employers should understand the answer too.