Bumsted: PA Union Bosses Defend High Salaries

Brad Bumsted of the Pittsburgh Tribune-Review has a great article today highlighting the alarming salary levels of the top six public employee union bosses here in Pennsylvania.

In his article, "Pennsylvania union leaders defend top pay", Bumsted points out that Pennsylvania's top union bosses made a combined salary exceeding 1 million dollars according to the figures released in 2009 the last time they were made public.

Wendell Young (pictured right) is the president of a Philadelphia-based union local representing about 2,500 state store clerks makes 233,000 dollars a year. When you compare Wendell's salary to the average state store worker in Pennsylvania who makes only 29,000 a year one can see the lack of balance.

Young tries to defend his salary, but looks like a buffoon doing it. (Remember he is a registered lobbyist)

Young argues that the state store clerks are only some of the 22,000 workers in the public and private sectors he represents as president of United Food and Commercial Workers Local 1776. His job is comparable to that of a CEO in industry, he said, except that he earns much less. He cites multimillion-dollar benefit packages for Philadelphia-area CEOs.

"My salary is not relative to what the members make," Young said. "We look at the jobs, and we try to be comparable to the jobs. We're a democratic organization. We have an executive board. All of it is done through discussion, analysis and comparison, and ultimately the decision is made by the board."

Really Mr. Young? You really think you are deserve a salary compatible to a CEO of a business that actually produces something? In reality you are just an overpaid empty suite that negotiates contracts while running a pyramid scheme that milks hardworking Americans out of their money.

These union bosses are simply slopping it up off the public trough like a bunch of hogs. Every person that pays taxes here in Pennsylvania should be outraged about these salaries not to mention union members themselves. It really ticks me off that my tax dollars are funneled through public employee unions to support these sleazy individuals.