Earlier this year, Njoke Woods, a worker at the Service Employees International Union’s second largest local, United Healthcare Workers West (SEIU-UHW), accused the union of having a “culture of sexual misconduct, favoritism, and backroom dealing against the members.” She was ultimately fired for speaking out.

Now, to add insult to injury, she is being sued for defamation by the union and the SEIU International Vice President Dave Regan.

But the same union is also facing a sexual misconduct lawsuit that was brought by SEIU organizer Mindy Sturge. According to the Payday Report, the lawsuit brought by Sturge corroborates the same accusations made by Woods.

The allegations have certainly ruffled feathers at the SEIU—Vice President Regan has since made public warnings against employees who might plan to come forward with their own negative experiences. As Woods put it, “They want other people to be afraid of speaking up, they have a lot of secrets that they don’t want people to know about.”

Unfortunately, ongoing cases of sexual misconduct within today’s labor unions don’t stop with the SEIU. Amid the broader #MeToo movement, workers have been empowered to come forward with stories of workplace abuse, often at the hands of union officials. How their unions handle these accusations is a different story.  As the New York Times recently reported, several unions “including the United Auto Workers have come under fire for seeming to do more to protect the jobs of the accused than the women who were their targets.”

As more employees undoubtedly come forward, let’s hope union officials put less emphasis on protecting their own skin, and more effort into protecting workers.

The United Auto Workers union might like you to forget that some of its top-ranking executives have been implicated or plead guilty in a federal corruption investigation. A new series of billboards ensures this won’t happen anytime soon.

For the next phase of a national education campaign on corruption in the ranks of the UAW, the Center for Union Facts has launched a series of high-profile billboards in Chattanooga, TN, and a mobile billboard in Detroit, MI, near the UAW headquarters. The billboards are part of an ongoing effort to educate the public and hold the UAW accountable for its “culture of corruption” and anti-worker tactics.

The billboards in Chattanooga are located along heavily-trafficked routes and feature the following facts about the UAW:

UAW officials admitted guilt in a federal corruption investigation. 

Thousands of auto jobs have been lost on the UAW’s watch.

The UAW built a luxury home for its former president with non-union labor.

A series of digital billboards in Chattanooga will rotate through facts that readers of this website are well-acquainted with, including the “culture of corruption” identified by the Justice Department and the UAW’s huge drop in membership in 2018. And in Detroit, a mobile billboard featuring similar messages will travel between downtown and the UAW’s headquarters at Solidarity House.

If sunlight is truly the best disinfectant, perhaps these billboards are a small step towards UAW leadership seeing the error of its ways.

On Monday, the Center for Union Facts launched a new project www.PublicUnionFacts.com. The first of its kind, the website compiles 20 years of data on public-sector union political spending in one place. The site includes over 385,000 political contributions from nearly 5,000 labor unions.

Unlike most private unions, public-sector unions are not currently required to file financial disclosures with the Labor Department. The best source of information on public-sector union spending habits is its political giving. Unfortunately, this information is often spread across multiple difficult-to-access state databases. With PublicUnionFacts.com, employees can simply type in the name of their union to find its political spending history.

The site also highlights the disproportionate amount of member dues unions have sent to Democratic causes over the last 20 years. Of the $1.5 billion that was sent directly to Republicans or Democrats, 90 percent went to Democrats with only 10 percent going to Republicans. Additionally, Democrats in just five states—California, New York, Illinois, Pennsylvania, and Oregon—received more money from public unions than Republicans did nationwide.

After the Supreme Court’s landmark decision in Janus vs. AFSCME, public-sector union members are no longer forced to financially support their union as a condition of employment. Now, workers can choose to keep the portion of their dues that would have gone to support predominantly left-leaning causes. In fact, early data from the Labor Department shows many workers are doing just that.

There is a growing disconnect between how unions are spending money and what workers really want. Now, with access to more facts, employees can start to hold their representatives accountable.

Last week, Representative Phil Roe, M.D. (R-Tenn.) reintroduced the Employee Rights Act (ERA). The bill, which garnered over 180 co-sponsors in the last Congress, would bring our current labor law into the 21^st century by providing protections for the 7.6 million private-sector union members in the U.S.

Right now, about 40 percent of union certifications bypass the secret ballot election. This means union leaders can hold public votes, relying on coercion and intimidation to maintain the status quo. To combat these scare tactics, the ERA would ensure secret ballot elections—a method over 80 percent of union households support. It would also guarantee periodic recertification votes to make sure current union members actually get the chance to vote for their representation.

The ERA would bring much-needed reform to the process by which unions can deduct members’ dues from their paychecks and use them to support political causes. Right now, dues are automatically withheld from workers’ paychecks. While employees can request a refund, the method for doing so is often vague and arduous. The ERA would put an end to this out-dated process by instead requiring workers to opt in to making dues payments that go to support their union’s political agenda.

This is good news for the 40 percent of union households who vote Republican in any given election, even though unions have given over $1.3 billion dollars—or 99 percent of their total political spending—to liberal groups and causes.

As Rep. Roe put it, “The ERA will restore workers’ faith in unions because it is neither pro- nor anti-union. It will simply make unions more accountable to the workers they serve.”

It’s time for Congress to get on board with the over 70 percent of Americans who support the ERA’s provisions.

Once again, the United Auto Workers has found itself in hot water. Federal investigators have launched a probe into the union’s so-called “flower funds.” Allegedly intended to collect money to provide flowers at the funerals of auto makers, these funds may have a more nefarious purpose.

Investigators are looking into the possibility that senior UAW officials who control the funds—including presidents, vice presidents, and regional directors—were threatening high level staff into contributing to them. If these staff members refused to donate, they could fear being demoted back to the assembly lines. Even worse, it looks like UAW officials were funneling money from the flower funds into their own bank accounts.

Let’s not forget that this investigation is just the latest probe in an ongoing corruption scandal at the union. Last year, federal investigators found that over $9 million was funneled to UAW officials through the union’s training centers. Fiat Chrysler Automobiles (FCA) officials bribed UAW staff with extravagant vacations and presents, including “a $30,000 party for a UAW official, complete with ultra-premium booze, $7,000 worth of cigars and $3,000 in wine with custom labels honoring the union boss.” So far, this probe has resulted in the conviction of seven high ranking UAW and FCA officers.

To make matters worse, during the investigation the union was constructing a luxury cabin in Michigan for former UAW president Dennis Williams–who was also implicated in the scandal. Williams’ residence was financed with money from the union’s $721 million strike fund—which is funded by worker dues. To top it all off, the cabin was built using non-union workers.

Erik Gordon, a professor at the University of Michigan, explained how the flower funds scandal could be the final straw for UAW employees: “This positions the union not as the workers’ friend but as a big powerful thing that would extort money from its own members.”

Any union looking for an example of “what not to do” need look no further than the UAW. Members would be wise to take notice.

A LaborPains post from December 2017 stated that Roderick Bennett, former Chief of Staff for the Laborers International Union of North America (LIUNA) was charged with “one count of embezzling $141,335 from the union.” Since then, Bennett has plead guilty to this charge. He has also volunteered new information regarding what he describes as an “extremely loose and lax ‘fiduciary management environment’ that has long existed within the union’s leadership team.”

According to a press release from the public affairs firm representing Mr. Bennett, the former LIUNA employee “wishes to ‘go public’ with what he knows to be inappropriate behavior on the part of his former colleagues with regard to the use of the LIUNA-issued credit card.” 

Bennett provided statements for this credit card—spanning from January 2014 to December 2016—that denote personal expenses made by union officers. From lavish steakhouse dinners to international travel for non-employees, below are some of the most egregious purchases:

• William Bergfeld April 9, 2016, Joe’s Stone Crab purchase of $4,491.48 in the District of Columbia
• William Bergfeld May 5, 2016, Best Buy purchase for $4,769.97
• Armand Sabitoni  February 18, 2015 purchases of Hilton Hotel services totaling $3,456.91
• Armand Sabitoni  May 21, 2015, purchase of four airline tickets to Rhode Island costing a total of $1,972.20
• Sandra Khoury November 11, 2014, Bobby Van’s Steakhouse purchase for $11,515.52
• Sandra Khoury, July 14, 2014, purchase of an airline ticket to Germany (for someone named Sylvia Khoury, believed not to be a LIUNA employee) for $1,874.50
• Sandra Khoury, July 14, 2014, purchase of a second airline ticket to Germany (for someone believed not to be a LIUNA employee) for $1,874.50

Apparently, it was common practice for employees to put expenses, both personal and business, on the union credit card in order to earn American Express points. Since there was no protocol for how these points were spent, employees would then use them freely.

Bennett admits to participating in this system, but claims the “federal government should be looking at the entire culture of mismanagement that was occurring at the union.” It’s unclear whether or not this information will result in a separate investigation, but this insight into LIUNA’s questionable financial practices should be a red flag for union members. 

The International Brotherhood of Electrical Workers (IBEW) Local 98 faces several charges of conspiracy, embezzlement, and fraud after an FBI investigation led to the indictment of Philadelphia’s most notorious union boss Johnny “Doc” Dougherty and members of his crew.

Below are some of IBEW’s latest rackets and the recent sentencing for Rocco Fazzolari of NY, who plead guilty to embezzling union funds back in September:

In Pennsylvania, John Dougherty, Business Manager of IBEW Local 98 was charged in an indictment with one count of conspiracy to embezzle from a labor union and employee benefits plan, 34 counts of embezzlement of union funds, 23 counts of wire fraud theft from the union, two counts of wire fraud theft from political action committee, two counts of filing a false LM report, two counts of falsifying union records, five counts of filing false federal income tax returns, one count of conspiracy to accept unlawful payments from an employer, eight counts of accepting unlawful payments from an employer, one count of conspiracy to commit honest services fraud and federal program bribery, 11 counts of honest services wire fraud, and one count of honest services mail fraud.

In Pennsylvania, Brian Burrows, President of IBEW Local 98 was charged in an indictment with one count of conspiracy to embezzle from a labor union and employee benefits plan, 14 counts of embezzlement of union funds, two counts of filing a false LM report, two counts of falsifying union records, and five counts of filing false federal income tax returns.

In Pennsylvania, Michael Neill, Apprentice Training Director of IBEW Local 98 was charged in an indictment with one count of conspiracy to embezzle from labor union and employee benefits plan, four counts of embezzlement of union funds, one count of theft from an employee benefit plan, and four counts of filing false federal income tax returns.

In Pennsylvania, Marita Crawford, Business Agent and Political Director of IBEW Local 98, was charged in an indictment with one count of conspiracy to embezzle from a labor union and employee benefits plan, four counts of embezzlement of union funds, three counts of wire fraud theft from the union, two counts of wire fraud theft from political action committee, one count of filing a false LM report, and one count of falsifying union records

In New York, Rocco Fazzolari, former President of the International Brotherhood of Trade Unions Local 122 (an independent union located on Long Island, N.Y.), was sentenced to 37 months in prison and three years of supervised release, and he was ordered to pay $1,288,810 in restitution. On September 26, 2018, Fazzolari pleaded guilty to embezzlement of union funds, embezzlement of benefit plan funds, and conspiracy to embezzle plan funds.