Income Inequality: Every year the AFL-CIO puts out a grossly misleading but widely covered report on "excessive" CEO pay. But what about top union bosses? Turns out their salaries are actually bigger than that of the average CEO...
Here's what is shocking: Labor union presidents made an average of $252,370 last year, plus another $31,000 in benefits, according to an analysis by the Center for Union Facts. The analysis looked at federal labor filings for 192 national, state and local unions.
That means union bosses make $60,000 more in wages than the average private-sector CEO. -IBD Editorials 
The controllers were the tough and hardy professionals who manned airport control towers and radar centers around the country. Their jobs were stressful, demanding, high stakes. They were federal government jobs and their contract was up. They decided to demand a huge pay increase. Reagan agreed with their argument that the pressures of the jobs justified a pay hike, and he offered an 11 percent pay increase -- substantial in a time of budget cuts. But PATCO was demanding a 100 percent increase. It would cost taxpayers $700 million, and no way would Reagan accept anything even approaching that.
The former president of a union representing more than 300 MBTA workers was sentenced today to six months in jail for stealing $105,812 from the organization's bank account during his tenure. He was the second top official convicted of stealing from the union.
Crime, Union, Education, Greed, Corruption
The wife of a late United Auto Workers union official received an 18-month prison sentence Friday as part of a federal corruption investigation at a training center run by the union and automaker Fiat Chrysler Automobiles.
Monica Morgan, 55, will also serve a year of supervised release and pay a $25,000 fine, a judge decided... She has paid about $102,000 in restitution and still owes $88,000, the Free Press reported.
"This was a cold and calculating effort by her and her husband to use shell companies to conceal bribe payments," Gardey said, according to the Free Press. "She was someone who knew exactly what she was doing and chose to commit this crime."
Hypocrisy, Liberal, Union, Character, Financial, Greed, Jobs
The labor union that led the charge for a $15 minimum wage hike in cities across California is now moving to secure an exemption for employers under union contracts.
The Los Angeles County Federation of Labor buried the exemption on the eighth page of its 12-page proposal for the Santa Monica City Council to review... The loophole would allow employers with collective bargaining agreements to sidestep the wage hike and pay their union members below the proposed $15-per-hour minimum wage.
Hypocrisy, Union, Greed, Jobs
Labor leaders, who were among the strongest supporters of the citywide minimum wage increase approved last week by the Los Angeles City Council, are advocating last-minute changes to the law that could create an exemption for companies with unionized workforces.... For much of the past eight months, labor activists have argued against special considerations for business owners, such as restaurateurs, who said they would have trouble complying with the mandated pay increase. But Rusty Hicks, who heads the county Federation of Labor and helps lead the Raise the Wage coalition, said Tuesday night that companies with workers represented by unions should have leeway to negotiate a wage below that mandated by the law.
Hypocrisy, Editorial, Union, Greed
The American Federation of Teachers pays big money to travel in luxury vehicles, according to its federal financial disclosures. The union, which represents more than 1.5 million teachers, spent nearly $120,000 on a Connecticut limousine service last year...
The luxury travel budget isn’t the only perk labor honchos have enjoyed since President Randi Weingarten took control of the union in 2008. Weingarten, a public opponent of the 1 percent, drew nearly $560,000 in compensation last year—enough to pay the salaries of ten school teachers or three private sector CEOs.
Hypocrisy, Crime, Union, Fraud, Greed, Corruption, Convict, Theft
A former local union official was convicted by a federal jury Thursday of embezzling about $40,660 in union funds, the U.S. Attorney's office said. Anthony Davis, 51, of O'Fallon, Ill., was president of Mail Handlers Local 314 in Hazelwood, and defrauded the union by submitting fake invoices for payment, prosecutors said. Davis could face up to five years in prison, they said.
Hypocrisy, Liberal, Union, Character, Financial, Greed, Corruption, Convict, Theft
On March 27, Robert Lewis, former treasurer of American Federation of State, County and Municipal Employees Local 3585, was charged in U.S. District Court for the Central District of Illinois in a criminal information count with embezzlement of $77,469 in funds from the Canton (near Peoria), Ill. union. Less than three weeks later, on April 14, he signed a waiver of indictment and pled guilty.
Hypocrisy, Crime, Union, Greed, Theft
More than 44,000 home-based healthcare workers parted ways with SEIU Healthcare Michigan after learning they did not have to join the union or pay dues, according to reports the union filed with the U.S. Department of Labor. Thousands of the employees were allegedly forced into the union under a plan the SEIU successfully lobbied for that classified even unpaid family members caring for their elderly parents as "home health care workers." Dues were then automatically collected from the care recipients' Medicare or Medicaid checks.
Hypocrisy, Union, Financial, Greed
Susie Watts has paid Service Employees International Union (SEIU) more than $5,000 over the past eight years for representation she never asked for and does not need. The union withdraws more than $60 each month from the stipend that Watts’ physically disabled daughter, Libby, receives to help cover the cost of home care. “They’re profiting from the disabled,” Watts, 57, said. “They are taking money that my daughter is entitled to and repurposing it. We’re paying $700 [per year] for collective bargaining that we don’t want to be a part of.”
Crime, Election, Union, Financial, Fraud
The Service Employees International Union settled on paying close to a $200,000 fine for illegally funneling millions in contributions into a 2012 Michigan ballot campaign over collective bargaining for home health workers. Michigan Secretary of State Ruth Johnson charged the SEIU with a whopping $199,000 fine for committing several campaign finance violations in laundering $9.36 million in campaign contributions through a nonprofit corporation to support the passage of state Proposal 4 in 2012.
Earlier this year, the United Auto Workers decided to sell its money-losing 1,000-acre resort and golf course. Now, while GM files for its IPO, new UAW leadership is pulling the resort off the market. Here's a look inside.
Hypocrisy, Union, Character, Greed
Striking workers for San Francisco's Bay Area Rapid Transit system are expected to vote down the latest contract proposal to end their strike, according to local union officials. The proposal would preserve a base salary 75 percent higher than the region's median household income. The workers have been on strike since Thursday, the latest action in the long-running talks. The strikers demanded a 23 percent raise.
Liberal, Union, Government, Incompetence, Financial, Fraud, Waste, Lie, Corruption, Debt
The Internal Revenue Service pays over 200 full-time employees not to conduct audits or process tax returns but to work for a federal employees’ union, according to documents released by the agency in response to a Freedom of Information Act request by the advocacy group Americans for Limited Government. Forty-three of those employees are earning six-figure salaries, the documents show. Oddly, the employees working for the National Treasury Employees Union have titles that suggest they perform work in behalf of the American taxpayer, among them “Tax Examining Technician,” “Internal Revenue Agent,” and “Tax Specialist.”
Hypocrisy, Crime, Union, Financial, Fraud, Greed, Corruption
The 380,000-member International Union of Operating Engineers likes to tout a history stretching back to the 1890s of bringing skilled labor to construction projects and the operations of large buildings across the nation. But a group of dissident members from the southern reaches of California and Nevada say that proud record has been tainted by union bosses they allege have engaged in embezzlement, kickbacks and intimidation.
Crime, Union, Fraud, Lie, Corruption
Skye Rubadeau McRoberts, the former union organizer charged with forging signatures and altering documents in 2010 to garner support for the unionization of about 1,500 University of Alaska employees, was convicted Monday of forgery in the second degree in Anchorage.
Hypocrisy, Liberal, Union, Financial, Greed, Corruption, Convict, Theft
Last week, a federal court in Los Angeles, California convicted former United Long Term Care Workers (ULTCW) President, Tyrone Freeman, of 14 criminal charges, including mail fraud, tax evasion and embezzlement of thousands of dollars from the union. The US Attorney’s Office argued that Freeman diverted reimbursement payments from a public-sector union that had close ties to the SEIU local.
Hypocrisy, Crime, Union, Financial, Fraud, Greed, Corruption, Convict, Theft
The former president of California’s largest union local was found guilty by a federal jury in Los Angeles on Monday of stealing from the low-wage workers he represented. Tyrone Freeman, who led Local 6434 of the Service Employees International Union, was convicted on 14 criminal counts, including embezzlement of union funds, violating tax laws and mail fraud. As president of SEIU Local 6434 -- the second-largest SEIU chapter in the nation -- Freeman, 43, represented 160,000 low-wage healthcare workers who cared for the elderly and people with disabilities.
Hypocrisy, Liberal, Union, Character, Greed
While city public-school teachers have gone without a new contract or regular pay raises for three straight years, their union, its staffers and political cronies have been living large off their union dues, a Post review found. Included in the United Federation of Teachers’ $166.5 million in spending last year was a hefty $33.4 million in salary for union staffers — a slight increase from the year prior. More than 90 staffers earned six-figure salaries between July 2011 and June 2012, the records show — including President Michael Mulgrew, who took home $275,000... The union also spent more than $1 million for one company, Lackmann Culinary Services, to cater food for its various meetings and events.
Liberal, Crime, Election, Union, Fraud
Prosecutors believe a Service Employees International Union (SEIU) organizer fraudulently voted in a 2011 election in Wisconsin, according to documents provided to the Daily Caller by the Wisconsin-based government watchdog group Media Trackers. An investigation by the Milwaukee County District Attorney’s Office has led to a subpoena of SEIU’s Washington, D.C. headquarters and has implicated the prominent labor union in a voter fraud case that threatens to lead to criminal prosecution.
Democrat, Union, Greed
Traditionally, criticism of public employee unions has come from politicians on the right. That's still true. But in Los Angeles and San Francisco, two progressive politicians have gained attention and prominence by taking on pensions and other expensive perks of such unions.
Mr. Griffin, one of three Democratic NLRB recess appointments that Mr. Obama made in January 2012, previously worked as general counsel for the International Union of Operating Engineers. A federal racketeering lawsuit accuses Mr. Griffin of complicity in covering up an embezzlement scheme. The lawsuit, which names dozens of union officials as defendants, details an alleged scheme to defraud a union local out of money through kickbacks and extortion. The complaint was filed by 10 members of the union's Local 501 in Los Angeles.
Crime, Union, Violence
Teamsters Union President Jackie Presser encouraged violence against dissident Teamsters in 1983 and took part in a "highly suspect" Cleveland theater investment that he said made him a millionaire, the President's Commission on Organized Crime charges in a draft report.
Commission sources said Tuesday that Presser invoked the Fifth Amendment privilege against self-incrimination when the panel asked him about both incidents.
Union
Most of the findings focused on a group called Houston Votes, a voter registration group headed by Steve [Sean] Caddle, who also works for the Service Employees International Union. Among the findings were that only 1,793 of the 25,000 registrations the group submitted appeared to be valid.
Crime, Election, Union
Former Service Employees International Union (SEIU) member Steve Caddle of Houston, Texas has been caught registering 23,207 fake voters in Harris County alone due to the hard detective work of Catherine Engelbrecht and her “True the Vote” project.
Union, Violence
A state worker is recovering after a bloody brawl at a union hall. He says members of the local SEIU 1000 beat him up and sent him to the hospital all because he wanted to expose alleged corruption within the union.
Ken Hamidi is a state worker at the California Franchise Tax Board. Last night he walked into a union hall in Sacramento for an SEIU local 1000 meeting.
Hypocrisy, Crime, Union, Character, Sex, Degeneracy, Fraud, Greed
As the leader of the national union representing Border Patrol agents, Terence J. Bonner traveled often... Bonner has been indicted on 12 federal counts of wire fraud and conspiracy to commit wire fraud, according to court documents released Thursday. Prosecutors say he also submitted expense vouchers for meals, car rentals, luggage, books and other union-related activities when he was traveling for personal reasons. "Siphoning hundreds of thousands of dollars from hard-working Border Patrol agents, many of whom put their lives on the line every day to protect this country, is a particularly troubling form of corruption that must be addressed," said Laura Duffy, the U.S. attorney in San Diego... The false claims cover periods when he was visiting his mistress in Chicago, his family, hockey games and other sporting events unrelated to the union.
Union, Sex, Degeneracy
A Queens teacher who collects a $100,000 salary for doing nothing spends time in a Department of Education "rubber room" working on his law practice and managing 12 real-estate properties worth an estimated $7.8 million, The Post found.
The DOE can't fire him.
"We have to abide by the union contract," spokeswoman Ann Forte said. So Rosenfeld simply collects his $100,049 salary -- top scale for teachers -- plus full health benefits and the promise of a fat pension, about $82,000 a year if he were to retire today.
Hypocrisy, Union, Fraud, Greed
They're hired feet, or, as the union calls them, temporary workers, paid $8 an hour to picket. Many were recruited from homeless shelters or transitional houses. Several have recently been released from prison. Others are between jobs. "It's about the cash," said Tina Shaw, 44, who lives in a House of Ruth women's shelter and has walked the line at various sites. "We're against low wages, but I'm here for the cash."
Crime, Election
Wayne Dibofsky, the associate director of the New Jersey Education Association, candidly tells a story about voter fraud in NJ.
Crime, Union, Fraud, Corruption, Convict, Theft
Assistant U.S. Attorney Russell T. Ippolito, Jr., who handled the case, stated that the defendant devised a scheme to defraud the Buffalo Educational Support Team ("BEST"). BEST is a union representing more than 900 teacher's aides and assistants in the Buffalo school district. While working as the elected President of BEST, Woods was provided a union issued credit card. Between November 18, 2008, and February 7, 2011, Woods used the union credit card to pay for personal expenses, including gambling expenses that he incurred at local area casinos. In total, Woods stole $44,987.70 in union funds.
Mariam Noujaim shook her head at the things her labor union had spent money on, from a $300 meal at Sacramento's Kru restaurant to the Holiday Inn conference room where she spent four hours Tuesday reading some of the organization's financial records.
Tax, Crime, Union, Fraud, Greed, Corruption, Convict
On May 31, Aurecchia, a former vice president of the United Association of Plumbers and Pipefitters and former business manager of the East Providence, R.I.-based Plumbers Local 51, was sentenced in U.S. District Court for the District of Rhode Island to six months home confinement, three months of probation and 150 hours of community service for acts of fraud and tax evasion totaling about $125,000 over a four-year period. He also was ordered to pay a $40,000 fine following his payment of $107,515 in restitution prior to sentencing. Aurecchia, who pleaded guilty in January, had faced up to 23 years in prison and a $350,000 fine.
Crime, Union, Fraud, Greed, Corruption
NEW YORK (AP) - Hundreds of Long Island Rail Road employees may have cheated their way to big pensions through a $1 billion fraud by paying off doctors to say they were unable to work, authorities said Thursday as they revealed that some supposedly disabled retirees were spotted regularly playing tennis and golf, shoveling heavy snow and working out for hours at a gym.
Election, Union, Fraud
MILWAUKEE - In March, Dan Shansky left Wisconsin for California to take a job with a union there, but that didn’t stop him from casting a ballot in the June 5th recall election. The community organizer, who lists the Milwaukee-based Community Action Now as a recent employer, was heavily involved over the past year and a half in the protest and recall movement in Wisconsin. Shansky’s Facebook comments announcing his new job and the move to California in March were greeted with congratulations by various liberal organizers employed by many of Wisconsin’s most high profile left-wing groups. Wisconsin state law requires that before a person cast their ballot in a Wisconsin election they be a resident of the state.
Crime, Union, Fraud, Greed, Corruption
Retiring Long Island Rail Road workers were coached by a former union president and retirement board office manager on how to file disability claims, paid doctors who administered "unnecessary medical tests" and claimed benefits allowing them to earn as much income as they had pre-retirement, according to a 74-page complaint by the U.S. attorney for the Southern District.
Hypocrisy, Liberal, Crime, Union, Greed, Corruption
Most city workers spend decades in public service to build up modest pensions. But for former labor leader Dennis Gannon, the keys to securing a public pension were one day on the city payroll and some help from the Daley administration. And his city pension is more than modest. It's the highest of any retired union leader: $158,000. That's roughly five times greater than what the typical retired city worker receives.
Hypocrisy, Union
All it took to give nearly two dozen labor leaders from Chicago a windfall worth millions was a few tweaks to a handful of sentences in the state's lengthy pension code. Twenty years later, 23 retired union officials from Chicago stand to collect about $56 million from two ailing city pension funds thanks to the changes, a Tribune/WGN-TV investigation found.
Crime, Union
FORT LAUDERDALE – A former official with one of South Florida’s most powerful labor unions remains in federal custody after being arrested during a court hearing on Friday. Torrence Little, immediate-past recording secretary of local 1526 of the International Longshoremen’s Association (ILA) in Fort Lauderdale, is accused of failing to comply with a subpoena to turn over documents to a grand jury probing a range of allegations against the union.
Crime, Union, Fraud, Greed, Corruption
DETROIT—
A former Michigan Carpenters Council official has been charged with accepting kickbacks from a casino consultant. The Detroit News reports Friday the fraud charge against Walter Mabry was made Friday in federal court in Detroit.
Crime, Union, Fraud
Detroit— The former head of the Michigan Council of Carpenters was accused today in federal court of accepting kickbacks from a casino consultant and a Chicago businessman who donated $10,000 to ex-Mayor Kwame Kilpatrick's nonprofit foundation. The former union official, Walter Ralph Mabry, was charged with fraud in connection with kickbacks he received from April 2004 through September 2006.
Union, Fraud, Greed, Jobs
The Real Estate Board of New York, a major developers' group, says antiquated rules let a cadre of crane and heavy equipment workers pocket six-figure paychecks for little more than showing up. In the next three years the no-work jobs, controlled by Locals 14 and 15 of the Operating Engineers, could add $96.2 million to the cost of World Trade Center projects, the REBNY says.