LaborPains.org

Steven Greenhouse of the New York Times gives organized labor an outlet to deny that the emperor has no clothes.  In his follow-up piece on the unquestionably devastating drop in union membership last year, Greenhouse highlights labor’s gains in California and among Latinos. But even with this outlet, Greenhouse is quite fair in highlighting the collapse of labor in the Midwest and refuting the claim that union households would reluctantly respond to the survey by Bureau of Labor Statistics.

Although former speaker of the Connecticut House of Representatives Christopher Donovan came up short in his run for Congress, the Hartford Courant reports that he’s being encouraged to campaign to be the next head of the state’s AFL-CIO. Donovan has a great prerequisite: he’s already involved in a serious scandal.

A few months before the Democratic primary, seven people were indicted by a federal grand jury for conspiracy in directing illegal campaign contributions to Donovan. Among those were Donovan’s campaign manager and long-time aide, his finance director, and a union leader. According to the Wall Street Journal:

Prosecutors also disclosed that Ray Soucy, a former union official and a key figure in the probe, pleaded guilty Tuesday to conspiracy charges in the scheme, which supplied straw donors with cash so they could write checks to Mr. Donovan’s campaign committee.

In exchange, according to court documents, Mr. Soucy assured the co-conspirators that Mr. Donovan would kill legislation to close a loophole allowing roll-your-own tobacco shops to avoid collecting cigarette taxes. The bill didn’t come up for a vote in the state Legislature.

Since his defeat, not much has been heard from Donovan. And although he has not been accused of wrongdoing, the swirling scandal around him is par for the course for union officials.

In Minnesota, a father-son duo has been accused by the International Teamsters of embezzlement, bank fraud, racketeering, and other financial crimes. Bradley Slawson Sr. and Bradley Slawson Jr. of Local 120 are currently on unpaid leave from the union. The pair is said to have received payments from a Teamsters-owned bar — payments adding up to $140,000 between the two of them. Another teamster, Todd Chester, helped to coordinate those payments from the bar and has also been charged. Chester, described in the Star Tribune as “a family friend of the Slawsons” and “the father of one of Slawson Sr.’s grandchildren,” also received a questionable finder’s fee of $90,000 for the construction of a new union hall. The Star Tribune reported in December that the Independent Review Board (IRB) report included an “unsettling allegation… that one of the bar managers wanted to hold a fundraiser for a ‘nonexistent fake sick baby’ and direct the funds instead to a bar the union owns in Fargo.” The bar, the Teamsters Club in Fargo, North Dakota, hosted a victory party for Democratic now-Senator Heidi Heitkamp.

The Slawsons claim that this is just a “witch hunt” because the family broke away from Jimmy Hoffa Jr. in 2010. But this isn’t the first time the Slawsons have been in the news for misconduct. In 2009, the Department of Labor conducted an audit of Local 120’s records under its Compliance Audit Program (CAP) of the Labor-Management Reporting and Disclosure Act (LMRDA) and found that Slawson Sr.’s chapter committed recordkeeping and reporting violations. In 2000, a press release from Overnite Transportation Co. reveals that Slawson Jr. pled guilty to disorderly conduct charges for his actions at a strike of the company. The release says:

Slawson was found in contempt of court on May 8 for his self-admitted threats and coercion in connection with unrefuted claims that he struck one Overnite driver with a picket sign and locked another Overnite driver in a trailer while the driver was attempting to make a delivery at a customer’s facility. Slawson was ordered to keep away from Over[ni]te property and that of the trucking company’s customers for the purpose of assisting the union in any labor action against Overnite. He was also ordered to pay $500 to compensate Overnite for attorneys’ fees and costs.

Not surprisingly, Junior was also a big fan of EFCA.

Labor should go no further than its own backyard if it is looking to blame anyone for its declining numbers. Rampant crime and corruption are just line-items on the long list of reasons why organized labor slides deeper into irrelevancy.

NBA Players Association Releases Report On Union Director

For example, the report noted problems of self-dealing—such as when Hunter accepted $1.3 million from the union for vacation time that was not adequately tracked—and nepotism—notably his hiring of his daughter and other relatives.

The NBA players should continue digging into their executive director’s activities—or at least announce that being their union executive director is the greatest job in the world.

The president of United Food and Commercial Workers (UFCW) Local 5, Ron Lind, is the newest board member of CalPERS, the state agency that handles state employee pensions. Lind is the sixth board member, out of a total of 13, who is a current or former government union employee. Lind is particularly notable, however, because his union led a strike against the grocery store, Raley’s, in November.

WSJ Calls for Explanation on IUOE/Griffin Lawsuit

As we detailed yesterday, National Labor Relations Board member Richard Griffin, who never went through a Senate hearing prior to his “recess” appointment to the NLRB, is a defendant in a civil suit involving the union he used to legally represent. The story is gaining some serious steam: The Wall Street Journal editorial board is now calling for some pro-active action by Griffin:

As a lawyer, Mr. Griffin was an officer of the court with legal obligations beyond his union duties. At the very least, he should respond to the charges in the complaint and publicly explain everything he knew about the events that led to his role in terminating these employees.

Chamber of Commerce and AFL-CIO Teaming Up?

In what seems like an unholy alliance, Tom Donohue of the U.S. Chamber of Commerce said that his organization is teaming up with Richard Trumka of the AFL-CIO to work on immigration reform. The Chamber outlined its 2013 agenda but has yet to name specific legislation that both groups would support—if such a thing exists.

Rumor Mill Churns on Solis Replacement at DOL

With Hilda Solis’s recent resignation as Secretary of Labor, commentators are starting to speculate about possible replacements. New Hampshire media outlets want Sen. Jeanne Shaheen, while David Macaray, writing at the Huffington Post, considers former Congressman Dennis Kucinich, Randi Weingarten of the American Federation of Teachers, and Donald Fehr of the NHL Players Association as potential Obama picks. We recommend someone who won’t unduly favor unions, unlike the outgoing Solis.

Union President Proposes Medieval Punishment for Political Foe

On Wednesday, we reported that Karen Lewis of the Chicago Teachers Union recalled the days where labor leaders shouted “off with their heads.” Labor leaders in Toledo favor similarly archaic forms of incapacitation. The Toledo Blade reports that Dennis Duffey, secretary-treasurer of the Ohio State Building Construction Trades Council, said that City Council President Joe McNamara should be ‘removed, tarred and feathered, or de-nutted.” How charming.

One of President Obama’s contested recess appointees to the National Labor Relations Board (NLRB) is facing a lawsuit where he and several others have been accused of violating the law written to prosecute mobsters.

Although Richard Griffin became a member of the NLRB over a year ago, the President’s decision to appoint him without the constitutionally-required advice and consent of the Senate means that we may never be able to fully vet his record.

Lachlan Markay, writing for the Washington Free Beacon, reports that Griffin, the former general counsel to the International Union of Operating Engineers (IUOE), has been named in a civil lawsuit that invokes the Racketeer Influenced and Corrupt Organizations (RICO) Act and the Labor Management and Disclosure Act (LMRDA) to claim that union leadership helped perpetrate a cover up by threatening and firing union members who were investigating embezzlement in a union local.

The union member plaintiffs allege that another member of IUOE Local 501 in California was embezzling union funds by improperly spending the money on “expensive lunches with his mistress” and other unauthorized expenses. The business manager investigated, and after an independent audit, ordered that the accused repay $4,000. But the general president of the union, Vince Giblin, ordered the business manager to end the investigation. Giblin then threatened to put Local 501 under the control of the international union unless the business manager and his associates resigned.

The complaint alleges that Griffin, in his role as counsel to the international union, relayed this and other threats against the Local 501 investigators on behalf of Giblin.

This isn’t the first time that Griffin’s association with the IUOE has been in the headlines. A year ago, Griffin’s financial disclosures indicated that he would continue to receive pension payments from the IUOE while he serves as a member of the NLRB and decides cases that affect federal labor law.

Although Griffin hasn’t been found guilty of anything — he’s only been named as a defendant in a civil lawsuit — the dispute has been long-running and ongoing, even though the lawsuit was only served on Griffin in December. But since Griffin is a presidential appointee, shouldn’t we have heard about it sooner?

Information is trickling out, in fits and starts, because Griffin was a “recess” appointment to the NLRB who faced no scrutiny.

While Congress was still in session in early 2012, President Obama appointed Griffin, along with Sharon Block and Terence Flynn, to the NLRB. Unlike President Obama’s claims to the contrary, Senate Republicans had not “stalled” Griffin’s or Block’s appointments. The pair was only tapped as nominees to the NLRB on December 14, 2011. Obama “appointed” them on January 4, 2012. The process from nomination to appointment was so quick that the tech-savvy White House wasn’t even able to post their nominations on its website before they allegedly took office.

Legal scholars, including Former Attorney General Ed Meese, have criticized Obama’s appointments, and there are several pending cases challenging their validity. In the meantime, expect to hear no more than dribs and drabs about Griffin’s history and his fitness to serve as an NLRB member. Parties before the Board deserve better than that. President Obama refused to let the Senate look into Griffin’s record, and we are slowly finding out why. The President favored political expediency over the constitutional process, and this is the result.

Former NLRB Member Joins Ogletree Deakins 

Robert Lauermann , the former secretary-treasurer of the Brotherhood of Locomotive Engineers and Trainmen (BLET) Division 682 in Whiting, Indiana was convicted but able to avoid jail time for his theft from the union. Lauermann was indicted for embezzlement in April 2011 and pleaded guilty a year later. Lauermann has to pay $5,743 in restitution to BLET Division 682 and another $500 for a fine.

Lauermann is at least the third BLET secretary-treasurer subject to Office of Labor-Management Standards embezzlement investigations since last October, joining union officials in Iowa and Virginia.