Can Teamsters Clean up Own Act? Obviously Not

-By Warner Todd Huston

There is an old joke of a gingerbread man who was running away from a hungry farmer and came to a river. A fox told him he could help the cookie man get across the river and away from the farmer. The cookie asked if the fox would eat him after they crossed, but the fox said he wouldn’t because “he only wanted to help” the gingerbread man. So, the living cookie agreed and sat atop the fox’s nose as they swam across the river. As soon as they got to the other side, the fox ate the cookie man because, after all, the fox is a fox and cannot be trusted.

This little folk tale is a mirror of real life, only in this case the fox is the unions and the gingerbread cookie’s fate is that of the worker under the union thug’s thumb and this tale is a perfect allegory to the situation in Chicago with a corrupt Teamsters union being expected to investigate and punish one of their own corrupt locals.

The fox guarding the hen house is also a fine allegory for this situation.

The full story is at the Chicago Tribune, but here is the key paragraph:

The recommendation came in a sweeping call by the anti-corruption unit for an in-depth look at wrongdoing and mob ties among Chicago-area Teamsters locals. But the group’s report, which was never made public, was rejected by Teamsters officials.

In other words, the union was supposed to take the recommendations of this anti-corruption unit but decided to ignore the report issued from that very unit in their desire to safeguard their own corrupt pals.

Go read the whole mess over at the Trib, but you’ll find that the Teamsters don’t give a hoot about cleaning up their own corruption.

It is also interesting that the union pointed to the existence of the anti-corruption unit as evidence that they were, indeed, cleaning things up. Of course, if you just ignore the report and go on with business as usual, are you cleaning anything up?

Uh, no would be the answer to that.

Just more evidence that the union isn’t interested in lawful operations.

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Warner Todd Huston is a Chicago based freelance writer, has been writing opinion editorials and social criticism since early 2001 and is featured on many websites such as newsbusters.org, townhall.com, New Media Journal, Men’s News Daily and the New Media Alliance among many, many others. Additionally, he has been a frequent guest on talk-radio programs to discuss his opinion editorials and current events. He has also written for several history magazines and appears in the new book “Americans on Politics, Policy and Pop Culture” which can be purchased on amazon.com. He is also the owner and operator of publiusforum.com. Feel free to contact him with any comments or questions : EMAIL Warner Todd Huston