There's one consistent principle from Marx to Michael Moore to Bernie Sanders. The more a leftist advocates for the working class, the worse of a boss he is. The entries in the genre are plentiful.
I'll skip over Marx's maid. Let's stop by "crusader" Ralph Nader.
Despite the millions of dollars he commands, he historically paid his professional staff less than minimum wage. Nader, who told Business Week during the last campaign that he offers staff “unlimited sick leave,” ordered staffer George Riley to take a two-week leave of absence to work on a political campaign, refusing him to pay for the time. When I worked for Ralph Nader in 1980-81, he paid us $8,000 a year, hardly enough to get by on even then. We could scarcely afford the time to spend money, though, because Nader expected staff to work around the clock.
How about a little Michael Moore?
He disliked sharing credit with his writers. He would often come in late. He didn’t yell at people: if someone said something he didn’t like, he wouldn’t argue; he would simply not invite that person to the next meeting, or the person would be fired. One senior staffer regularly responded to Moore's abuse by presenting the boss with a big box of doughnuts. He assured co-workers he was not trying to placate Moore. Rather, he figured Mike's intemperate scarfing would hasten the fat man's death.
Or Bernie Sanders?
"As a supervisor, he was unbelievably abusive," says one former campaign staffer, who claims to have endured frequent verbal assaults. The double standard was clear: "He did things that, if he found out that another supervisor was doing in a workplace, he would go after them. You can't treat employees that way."
He’s “a prick” and “an asshole” to his staff, known as “a screamer and a table-banger.”
For these reasons, Jaffe said the word some people used to describe Sanders’ attitude toward his employees was “abusive.”
And, come on down, Mayor Bill de Blasio.
“What do I need to get you guys to follow a direct order? Do you need to experience consequences?” he threatened in one 2015 diatribe.
“He’s condescending and arrogant,” the insider said. “I’ve been in plenty of meetings with him. He’s known to kick staff out of meetings.”
In a follow-up email on Feb. 6, 2015 — with the screaming subject line, “Guys, I’m fed up…” — de Blasio blamed his staff for his verbal stumbles while delivering remarks in Spanish.
Another friend of the workers. Unless they work for him.