Last week, the New York Times reported that Manhattan Federal District Court Judge Charles S. Haight Jr. ordered a one-year continuation of governmental oversight of the New York City carpenters’ union, citing recent bribery convictions of several local bosses, extensive off-the-books work, and an incident where union militants beat up a worker outside a Catholic school until he was unconscious (because he had the gall to challenge the insiders in a union election).

The union has spent the last 14 years under government supervision after signing a consent decree in a civil racketeering case alleging organized crime figures were favored for high-pay but no-show jobs. Regardless, union officials felt it necessary to argue in court that they do not need supervision. Their thugs all but erased any chance of that when they assaulted a dissident candidate.

Judge Haight agreed with the United States attorney’s argument that supervision would end when the union’s corruption had been eradicated. However, as blogger Warner Todd Huston noted, “The judge did mention that the union had done better since it originally went into government oversight, but that it is way too early to claim that the Mob influence and corruption is excised from the union.”

Indeed, the only reliable way to end this union corruption would be to end compulsory unionism.