I would call that broad special interests as opposed to corruption per se - corruption implies that they are abusing or perverting something for personal gain when it shouldn't be.
Taking your own salary obviously isn't corruption nor even outright banditry - the intended function is personal enrichment. Nor is voting in your interest even if short sighted and likely to cause future problems.
Similarly demanding construction helmets diverts resources but keeping workers safe is a legitimate goal. Even if the demands were extreme and inefficient like demanding the development and manufacturing of power armor to paint a shed in case a piano falls on them or a moose attacks while irrational, terribly inefficient, and stupid wouldn't be corruption per se.
Now the armor demand because of kickbacks? Doing shoddy work for repeat customers or harming others directly for their own gain? Definite corruption.
>>Similarly demanding construction helmets ... wouldn't be corruption per se.
No I wasn't categorizing demands for safety standards as corruption. The safety point was separate from my point about unions.
I was categorizing the misleading of the public to get a political party elected that enables one's own union to fetch above-market wages for oneself as something like high-level corruption, though maybe 'corruption' in the public policy context has a more specific definition that doesn't include this.
Taking your own salary obviously isn't corruption nor even outright banditry - the intended function is personal enrichment. Nor is voting in your interest even if short sighted and likely to cause future problems.
Similarly demanding construction helmets diverts resources but keeping workers safe is a legitimate goal. Even if the demands were extreme and inefficient like demanding the development and manufacturing of power armor to paint a shed in case a piano falls on them or a moose attacks while irrational, terribly inefficient, and stupid wouldn't be corruption per se.
Now the armor demand because of kickbacks? Doing shoddy work for repeat customers or harming others directly for their own gain? Definite corruption.