Right to Work Blog

From the Washington Post:

The Virginia Democratic Party failed to properly disclose a $200,000 donation it received in early September from a labor union, party officials admitted . . . .

On Sept. 4, the Laborers’ Political League Education Fund gave the state party $200,000, which at the time was the largest contribution the state party had received in at least a decade, excluding transfers from candidates or other Democratic committees. But the state party never reported it until Oct. 15, when it filed its quarterly campaign finance report.

After being questioned by the Washington Post, party officials said they mistakenly failed to abide by the law.

“The Democratic Party of Virginia’s compliance operation missed advance reporting on a September contribution,” said Jared Leopold, a spokesman for the Virginia Democratic Party. “The Party acknowledges the error. Today, the Party reached out to the State Board of Elections to report the oversight and remedy the situation.” . . .

Since Sept. 1, the party has collected $570,000 from four labor unions, including $205,000 on Oct. 21 from the National Air Traffic Controllers Association, campaign finance records show.

When workers don’t have a choice whether or not to join a union and pay dues, union bosses take advantage of the situation. Case in point is California’s largest local union that has paid hundreds of thousands of workers’ dues money to firms owned by the wife and mother-in-law of the labor organization’s boss.

The Los Angeles Times discovered:

The Los Angeles-based union, which represents low-wage caregivers, also spent nearly $300,000 last year on a Four Seasons Resorts golf tournament, a Beverly Hills cigar club, restaurants such as Morton’s steakhouse and a consulting contract with the William Morris Agency, the Hollywood talent shop, records show.

In addition, the union paid six figures to a video firm whose principals include a former union employee. And a now-defunct minor league basketball team coached by the president’s brother-in-law received $16,000 for what the union described as public relations, according to the union’s U.S. Labor Department filings and interviews.

Most of the 160,000 people represented by the union, a local chapter of the nation’s fastest-growing labor organization, the Service International Employees Union [sic], earn $9 an hour or slightly more tending to the infirm and disabled in private homes under taxpayer-funded programs. The workers, whose dues fill the local’s coffers, often are described as “the poor caring for the poor.” In its Labor Department filings, the local, headed by Tyrone Freeman, has reported more liabilities than assets for each of the last three years. . . . .

Based on documents filed with the Labor Department and Internal Revenue Service, the Guidestar nonprofit database, business records submitted to several state and local agencies and numerous interviews, a Times investigation has also found that:

* Payments to the company owned by Freeman’s wife were among the local’s largest single expenses last year. Payments by the charity, the Homecare Workers Training Center, to his mother-in-law’s firm represented more than 10% of the nonprofit’s total annual expenditures.

* A housing corporation that Freeman helped found as a nonprofit has not been granted the IRS tax-exempt status it sought and was suspended from doing business in California. It also has claimed on its website to have a “strong relationship” with the prominent California Community Foundation, which says it has no such relationship.

* The union spent at least $123,000 more on the fund-raising tournament at the Four Seasons Resort in Carlsbad than it received in reimbursements, according to Labor Department filings and interviews. Freeman said the event made money for the charity. The union’s expenditures included $100,000 in payments to entities associated with former professional football star Eric Dickerson, which have been suspended from doing business in California. The payments were listed as donations to nonprofits, not as fund-raising expenses.

* The local’s nearly $10,000 tab at the Grand Havana Room, a cigar lounge known for its celebrity clientele and invitation-only memberships, was for “lodging,” according to the union’s annual financial report. A Grand Havana spokeswoman said the club does not provide accommodations. Freeman declined to characterize the expenditure, and after The Times inquired about it, he said he had refunded it.

Some things just never seem to change. Forced unionism continues to breed corruption.

An August 12 article by Steven Greenhouse and William K. Rashbaum in the New York Times is a case in point:

Citing continued corruption, a federal judge has ordered a one-year extension of government oversight of the New York City carpenters’ union, which has spent 14 years under supervision.

Judge Charles S. Haight Jr. of Federal District Court in Manhattan pointed to widespread off-the-books work and the bribery convictions of several shop stewards in ordering the extension in a decision issued on Friday. Under the government’s supervision, Judge Haight and an independent investigator oversee the union.

The union, the New York City District Council of Carpenters, which represents 25,000 carpenters, had asked Judge Haight to end the supervision, saying that the union was no longer under the influence of the Genovese crime family. The union signed a consent decree in 1994 agreeing to court-appointed supervision after federal prosecutors filed a civil racketeering lawsuit alleging that organized crime figures held sway over the union and assigned mob-linked workers to high-paying and no-show jobs at many sites, including the Jacob K. Javits Convention Center.

The carpenters’ request to end supervision was undercut last week when a dissident candidate in a union election was harassed and assaulted at a candidates’ forum that was held in the auditorium of a Catholic school in Manhattan.

According to witnesses and accounts provided to the union’s independent investigator, the candidate [William Davenport] was beaten unconscious outside after the meeting on Aug. 5 by a group of men who had been yelling during the forum.

On Monday, in response to the assault, Judge Haight issued a memorandum urging union leaders to ensure that there would be no more beatings at candidates’ forums. He also directed the union and the United States attorney’s office in Manhattan to inform him of the results of a Labor Department investigation into the attack.

Judge Haight rejected the union’s assertion that the standard for ending court-ordered supervision should be whether mob control of the union had ended. The judge, accepting the arguments of the United States attorney’s office, instead concluded that the standard should be whether all forms of corruption and labor racketeering had been eradicated.

Judge Haight cited federal criminal cases brought against the construction contractors On Par, Boom Construction and Tri-Built, which prosecutors said had saved on wages and benefit payments by employing carpenters off the books, with shop stewards often being bribed to turn a blind eye to the practice. The contractors paid far less into the health and pension funds than they were supposed to, prosecutors said.

Judge Haight wrote that the shop stewards and other union officials “played vital roles in facilitating, enabling or abetting the employers’ fraud” by failing to supervise job sites or keep track of hours worked.

The judge also noted that rank-and-file carpenters had reported serious corruption earlier this decade. Investigators later found that out-of-work political supporters of union leaders were frequently allowed to jump the job-referral line and were assigned jobs before many carpenters who had been out of work longer.

In asking that supervision be continued, the United States attorney’s office cited a “culture of corruption that continues to impede efforts to fight that corruption.”

Read on.

It’s one of the most competitive races for the House of Representatives this year and Democrat Mary Jo Kilroy will do almost anything to get Big Labor to rain money on her behalf – including, perhaps, rig a bid for a union construction company.

The Columbus Dispatch has the story:

Workers for W.G. Tomko Inc. are being blamed for a construction foul-up that undermined a section of the new county ballpark and caused damages of at least $150,000.

But those really to blame are Franklin County Commissioners Mary Jo Kilroy and Marilyn Brown. They ignored their own construction experts’ best judgment, then manipulated the county bid process to reject a well-qualified low bidder and award a plumbing contract to Tomko, all for political reasons.

Tomko, an out-of-state contractor with a shady background, had one thing going for it: It is a union contractor, and the low bidder isn’t. Kilroy and Brown, both Democrats, used the contract award as a political payoff to cement the support of labor as Kilroy runs for Congress.

Tomko workers dug a trench that caused a section of the stadium to sink, but Kilroy and Brown put those workers on the job site.

Before the contract was awarded, ballpark construction manager Turner Construction and owner’s representative Nationwide Realty Investors highly recommended the low-bidding competitor, TP Mechanical Contractors. Awarding the contract to TP Mechanical would have saved private investors and taxpayers $215,000 on the cost of the contract.

To her credit, Commissioner Paula Brooks, also a Democrat, questioned her colleagues’ rejection of TP Mechanical. She said that the county policy that Kilroy and Brown used to justify rejecting TP Mechanical should be a guideline rather than a hard and fast rule.

Kilroy and Brown said that four prevailing-wage-law violations in 2005 disqualified TP Mechanical from bidding on the contract. Those violations added up to a mere $4,000 in wage mistakes in projects for which the entire payroll was $5.3 million.

Yet, Tomko, the winner, previously had been fined $23,000 by the federal Occupational Safety and Health Administration for four serious safety violations related to an accident that killed a worker in 2006.

Tomko also had failed to pay a worker’s pension while he served in the military in Iraq. In 2007, a Pennsylvania court forced the company to pay $48,568 in pension money and attorney fees in that case.

Tomko lost its president in 2004 when he was sentenced to jail for tax evasion. He had been laundering the bills for improvements to his 8,000-square-foot mansion through his company. The president’s son now runs the company.

When the county’s policy doesn’t weigh those transgressions when awarding contracts, something is seriously wrong with the policy. And with the officials applying it.

An audit of the Teachers Association of Long Beach (TALB), California, confirms that workers’ dues money that was to go to the general fund was used for election campaigns, according to the Long Beach Press Telegram.

The audit found that:

Political expenses appeared to have been paid with money designated for the union’s general operations, and not from separately maintained accounts reserved for political causes.

The amount of campaign spending appeared to have exceeded the totals approved by the union’s two governing bodies. . . .

. . . [A]uditors found that TALB appeared to have used $39,629 from its nonpolitical accounts for campaign purposes, according to a copy of the audit, which was based on the firm’s review of financial documents and employee interviews.

Of that total, $10,667, which had been designated for bargaining expenses, apparently was spent on political items such as postage, a banner, campaign photography, legal services and other purchases, the auditors concluded.

They concluded that the money should have been allocated to the union’s separately maintained political fund.

Because union members designated specific amounts of their dues for politics, the use of TALB’s financial resources for political activities “would be considered a misappropriation of funds,” auditors concluded in their written findings.

Also part of the $39,629 total was a nearly $29,000 check from TALB general funds made out in August of 2006 to attorney Fredric Woocher for the payment of legal fees. An invoice from Woocher’s law firm did not specify the exact purposes of the legal services that were provided, according to the auditors. . . .

Workers in California do not have the Right to Work and are coerced into joining the union and paying union dues even after mismanagement of their funds.

The Denver Post ran a column by Al Lewis that questioned the need to enact a Right to Work law in Colorado and the reaction has been visceral. Dozens of citizens have taken it upon themselves to teach Mr. Lewis a thing or two about the unfairness of forced unionism. A sample of the reaction:

* . . . I am 72 years old and had been in the work force for 50 years prior to my employment with the City of Boulder and this is the FIRST time that I have ever been in a union. $10.00 a month is deducted from my pay and to me it is a waste of my money. Don’t feel that I get anything for my money. Can’t even write it off on my taxes. A lot of us are part-time employees, so we don’t make that much anyway and I know most of my peers don’t like the fact that we have to pay union dues. . . .

* I work for Qwest Communications. As a condition of employment with the company, (union requirement) I am forced to pay union dues. I do not have to join the union, however.

I am happily NOT a member but still am forced to pay. . . .

* I was surprised you were unable to find people forced to pay union dues. Perhaps not everyone reads the newspaper. Nonetheless, I do and am grateful to be able to vent about my union dues obligation.

The International Association of Machinists Union (IAM), cover flight attendants employed with our major airline. We are REQUIRED to pay union dues. ([O]ur carrier has a policy against talking to the media, but I can tell you we used to have a large base here - until 1995.) There are still approximately 500 to 1,000 flight attendants residing in the Denver area who commute to work either in Houston, Newark or Cleveland (our three remaining hubs) and must pay dues.

We pay Colorado State taxes, so I’m guessing we all would be covered under Amendment 47 - should it pass.

I unwillingly have $44.75 taken out of my pay check every month. Should I request my employer cease from having the dues paid to the union - contractually they are required to fire me.

My opinion of the IAM union is — we are nothing more than a ‘cash cow’ to them. Their representation is feeble or lame at best.

I hope Amendment 47 passes the vote!

When U.S. Immigration uncovered illegal aliens working in a meatpacking plant in Iowa, the United Food and Commercial Workers asked authorities not to raid the plant while it was trying to unionize the workforce — including the illegal aliens.

Every month, the Department of Labor announces criminal enforcement actions against labor union bosses and officials who put personal gain above the interest of the membership. March was a busy month. Check out what they reported (the information has been rearranged in date order):

On March 4, 2008, in the United States District Court for the Northern District of Oklahoma, Steve Dobyns, former Secretary-Treasurer of Glass Molders Plastics Local 325, was sentenced to three years probation and ordered to pay the balance of his restitution totaling $415 and a $500 fine. On December 3, 2007, Dobyns pled guilty to one count of embezzling union funds in the amount of $865. The sentencing follows an investigation by the OLMS Dallas District Office.

On March 6, 2008, in the United States District Court for the Northern District of Illinois, Robert Walston and Thaddeus Bania, former President and Comptroller, respectively, of Teamsters Local 743 were indicted as part of a 14-count superseding criminal complaint alleging conspiracy, mail fraud, theft of honest services, and embezzlement of union funds arising from multiple schemes involving the local’s voided October 2004 regular election of officers and a rerun election that was held in December 2004. This indictment supersedes the indictment issued by the grand jury on September 6, 2007 and includes three original defendants who were either officers, agents, or employees of Local 743: Richard Lopez, who was an incumbent candidate for Recording Secretary in 2004 and who also briefly held the position of president after Walston; Cassandra Mosley, a former business agent who resigned in December 2006; and David Rodriguez a former organizer who resigned in July 2007. The superseding information includes a forfeiture allegation of over $2 million dollars in salary, expenses, and benefits. A superseding misdemeanor information was also filed against Mark Jones, a former business agent and director of organizing for the local, involving allegations of opening mail not directed to him relating to the voided mail-ballot election in October 2004. The indictments follow an investigation by the OLMS Chicago District Office, the Department of Labor’s Office of Inspector General, and the United States Postal Inspection Service.

On March 6, 2008, in the United States District Court for the Southern District of Ohio, Brad DuBray, former Treasurer of Carpenters Local 113, was sentenced to three years probation, including six months of home confinement, and ordered to pay restitution in the amount of $12,048.11 and a special assessment of $100. On November 14, 2007, DuBray pled guilty to embezzling union funds in the amount of $14,548.11.The sentencing follows an investigation by the OLMS Cincinnati District Office.

On March 7, 2008, in the County Court of Adams County, Colorado, William J. Kohut, former Treasurer of Amalgamated Transit Union Local 1755, pled guilty to a one count felony charge of forgery. On May 23, 2007, Kohut was charged with theft (one count), identity theft (one count), unauthorized use of a financial transaction device (one count), and forgery (one count), in connection with his alleged conversion of union funds totaling $2,839.65. The plea follows an investigation by the Denver District Office.

On March 10, 2008, in the United States District Court for the Eastern District of Michigan, Darren Johnson, former President of National Treasury Employees Union Chapter 78, was sentenced to three years of supervised release, including six months in a community corrections center, ordered to make restitution in the amount of $13,748.50 and attend a substance abuse program. On December 3, 2007, Johnson pled guilty to one count of bank robbery and incidental crimes. The sentencing follows an investigation by the OLMS Detroit District Office.
On March 12, 2008, in the United States District Court for the Southern District of Ohio, an information was filed charging William Day, former Treasurer of Steelworkers Local 1-1462, with one count of embezzlement of union funds in the amount of $11,140.88. Subsequently, Day pled guilty to the offense. The charge and plea follows an investigation by the OLMS Cincinnati District Office.

On March 14, 2008, in the United States District Court for the Western District of Pennsylvania, Deborah Anthony, former Financial Secretary of Steelworkers Local 1196, pled guilty to one count of embezzling union funds in the amount of $1,245.45. The plea agreement requires Anthony to make restitution in the amount of $34,134.47. On November 7, 2007, Anthony was charged with eight counts of embezzling union funds totaling $6,955.18 and one count of preparing false union records. The plea follows an investigation by the OLMS Pittsburgh District Office.

On March 17, 2008, in the United States District Court for the District of Columbia, a criminal information was filed charging Zona Albritton, former Manager of General Services for AFSCME, with one count of embezzling union funds in the amount of $75,446. The charge follows an investigation by the OLMS Washington District Office.

On March 18, 2008, in the United States District Court for the Middle District of Pennsylvania, Joseph Capece, former Business Manager and Financial-Secretary of IBEW Local Union 163, was sentenced to six months imprisonment, two years probation (to include six months in home confinement), fined $4000 and ordered to pay a special assessment fee of $100. On September 11, 2007, Capece pled guilty to one count of embezzling union funds in the amount of $256,000. Capece had previously made restitution of the full amount, plus any other costs associated with his crime. The sentencing follows an investigation by the OLMS Philadelphia District Office.

On March 19, 2008 in the United States District Court for the Western District of Washington, Karimah Bailey, former Treasurer of AFGE Local 3197, was charged with making a false statement and representation of a material fact, knowing it to be false, on the local’s annual financial report. The charge follows an investigation by the OLMS Seattle District Office.

On March 19, 2008, in the United States District Court for the Northern District of Indiana, Norman K. Brown, former Bargaining Committee Chairperson of UAW Local 2911, pled guilty to embezzling approximately $41,478 in union funds. On March 7, 2008, an information was filed charging Brown with one count of embezzlement of union funds in the same amount. The plea follows an investigation by the OLMS Chicago District Office.

On March 31, 2008 in the United States District Court for the Northern District of Ohio, Kurt E. Swanstrom, former Financial Secretary and Treasurer of PACE/USW Local 5-1560, pled guilty to embezzling union funds in the amount of $12,328, falsification of union records, and filing a false financial report with the Secretary. On January 8, 2008, Swanstrom was indicted on one count of embezzling union funds in the same amount, one count of falsification of union records, and one count of filing a false labor organization report. The plea follows an investigation by the OLMS Cleveland District Office.

The Department of Labor (DOL) has confirmed that, over the last year, the number of cases of embezzled union dues has increased.

As reported on CNS News, DOL’s:

. . . Office of Labor Management Standards (OLMS) recently released its enforcement data. The totals for fiscal year 2008 - which began on Oct. 1, 2007 - now stand at 49 convictions, 57 indictments, and court-ordered restitution of $1,251,798.

According to the Labor Department, “The bulk of the cases involved the embezzlement of union funds.

“These totals represent increases of 20 percent (41 to 49) in convictions and 39 percent (41 to 57) in indictments over fiscal year 2007,” the department noted.

“This financial restitution, as well as the convictions and indictments, highlight the vital role OLMS plays in protecting America’s union members,” said Deputy Assistant Secretary for Labor Management Standards Don Todd.

“Organized Labor has a long history with extortion and the mob. Federal prosecutors have put most of those mob bosses behind bars, but unions haven’t renounced using blackmail to get what they want. They simply use more sophisticated methods to do the same thing,” writes James Sherk at the Heritage Foundation.

The new tactic can be called “greenmail,” blackmail with an environmental hue.

Sherk continues: “Take the way unions exploit environmental concerns through Project Labor Agreements [PLAs]. Under PLAs, businesses promise to hire only union members — or else. Why would businesses sign such agreements? Because unions threaten to use environmental regulations to shut them down unless they sign the PLA.”