Union bosses known for bashing the rich are often millionaires themselves, paid with dues taken from workers' paychecks.
Laborers' International Union of North America president Terry O'Sullivan, who was paid $670,403 in 2014, slammed Charles and David Koch and other critics of big government in a speech last July.
"Today's Republican party has been hijacked, poisoned and taken over by a bunch of Tea Party maggots," O'Sullivan shouted. "These anti-union, anti-worker bastards are not only crazy, they're mean!"
When it comes to taking a huge paycheck from workers he claims to protect, O'Sullivan is in good company. Leaders of the International Brotherhood of Boilermakers, the International Association of Machinists and other powerful unions have done the same for years.
America's union membership rate is in the midst of a decades'-long decline, but labor union officials always seem to get paid. In 2013, 472 union officers and employees were paid more than $250,000 each.
Excluding the MLB Players Association and other unions representing professional athletes, 497 union officers and employees were paid more than $250,000 last year - not a bad haul for representatives of teachers, blue-collar workers and government employees.