Fair enough, number 6. But your statement is too general. One way to look at whether an organization is corrupt and vulnerable to being ripped off, or overly vulnerable to criminal conspiracy, is to look at a couple of factors. One would be the rate charged to bond its officers. Examination of this data, calculated and tabulated by scientist called actuaries and whose job it is to calculate risk of loss, will show that union officials have the lowest rates available. Much lower than CEO's, business owners, and even members of the clergy. Another would be to contrast the number of indictments for these crimes against the total number of Unions in this country. It is another way of looking at the same data. Again you will find that unions are run very efficiently and in the interests of their members. A third way, oddly enough spawned by Right to Work, is to look at the amount of the monthly dues that unions are allowed to charge non members who are covered by a union contract but choose not to join. This figure is arrived at annually by independent audit. The unions must justify all "chargeable" expenses, and the final figures are subject to review by the Department of Labor. Non chargeable expenses would be money spent on political activities, community service activities, and anything that isn't directly related to the bargaining of contracts and implementation and compliance with the contract. In almost every case the number comes out above 88% and in many cases comes out 95%. So much for the arguments about corruption and wasting money, as well as wasting money on politics.

A sign of intellectual dishonesty is when a person pulls out spectacular examples of something that demonstrates their point, even in the face of empiric evidence to the contrary. They use it to pander to perceptions when the facts fail them. The term for this is demagogery. Either by intent or ignorance, it is what you see when you read Old Guy and DougR's views on this matter. Using the Hoffa story in one example of what I am talking about.

Are unions perfect? Nope. Are they free of corruption? Nope. In both cases there are very few examples of any institutions or leaders in a free society that are. But they are the only real advocates out there for the American middle class. Their special interest is the living and working conditions of the American family in this country, and all over the world. We feel that an injury to a worker anywhere is an injury to all. We feel that someone must stand up against the perceptual onslaught by monied interests on worker representation, which spawns the uninformed or dishonest opinions such as those of Old Guy.