Labor unions are businesses and the people who run them desire to maximize the inflow of dues. Often, they are not much concerned about the ethics of the tactics they employ to do that. Consider this letter in today’s Wall Street Journal:

Wal-Mart Union Posse Is Chasing Us, Too
In regard to your Oct. 18 editorial “The Wal-Mart Posse”: Wackenhut Services Inc. has been battling a similar campaign to the one Wal-Mart is facing. You hit upon the real purpose for both of these “corporate campaigns” — money.Wackenhut is already 85% represented by unions. In fact, we have agreements with 10 different unions and have good relationships with all of them. We also pay between 85% and 90% of our employees’ health-care costs. Our pay and benefits are among the best, if not the best, in the security industry.

Nevertheless, the Service Employees International Union (SEIU) has targeted Wackenhut with a smear campaign designed to get us to give in to their demands or have our reputation systematically ruined. This is the same choice SEIU and other unions have given to Wal-Mart. It has attacked both Wal-Mart and Wackenhut using false information. Both have also been attacked by outside groups funded by SEIU. And both have been battered by people seeking political office who do the union’s dirty work in hope of gaining political support.

The assaults are thinly masked behind what your editorial called “rhapsody-for-the-common-man” slogans. In Wal-Mart’s case it is the union claiming to help “working families.” In Wackenhut’s case, the union claims they are concerned about national security.

The campaign against Wal-Mart is not about working families — it’s about union membership and the millions of dollars that come with increasing that membership. In the same way, the campaign against Wackenhut isn’t about national security — it’s about breaking down obstacles that stand in the way of SEIU gaining thousands of new members and millions in new dues by organizing security officers.

James L. Long III
Vice Chairman and CEO
Wackenhut Services Inc.
Palm Beach Gardens, Fla.

There are a lot of politicians who will gladly fly air cover for Big Labor in return for hefty donations of union cash for their campaigns. American politics is rife with nasty little operations like this that rip people off to benefit well-connected interest groups.