Posts tagged bribes
UAW watchdog faults Fain, portrays him as angry foul-mouthed leader who targeted underling
June 18, 2025 // United Auto Workers President Shawn Fain illegitimately retaliated against the second most-powerful leader of the union in stripping her of power after threatening to "slit" the "throats" of anyone who "messed" with his inner circle, a government watchdog said late Tuesday. The watchdog, lawyer Neil Barofsky, leveled the allegation in a quarterly report delivered to U.S. District Judge David Lawson, who gained broad control of a deal to oversee the UAW in 2020 following a years-long public corruption scandal. The scandal sent two former union presidents, Gary Jones and Dennis Williams, to federal prison along with several others convicted of breaking labor laws, stealing union funds and receiving bribes, kickbacks and illegal benefits from contractors and auto executives.
NYPD’s ‘get out of jail free’ cards are real — and they’re wrong
September 27, 2024 // Bianchi was repeatedly scolded by fellow officers and told by his union that the courtesy card system was customary and that it wouldn’t protect him unless he honored it. In addition to complaining to his supervisors, he filed formal complaints with his union and with internal affairs. The only action the NYPD took in response was to pull him off the day-shift traffic unit and re-assign him to a night-shift patrol unit. Eventually, Bianchi filed a lawsuit in federal court, which the NYPD agreed to settle for $175,000, blandly claiming that “resolving this case was best for all parties.” I’m sure it was. It was certainly better for the NYPD, as an actual trial would have been embarrassing beyond belief.
NYCHA corruption means it’s time to privatize
February 9, 2024 // In the one vote conducted to date, in December at Brooklyn’s Nostrand Houses, residents chose to stick with NYCHA management, 464 to 163. Here’s one possible explanation for the curious choice: A great many NYCHA residents are also employed by the authority. NYCHA’s largest union, Teamsters 237, reports that a full third of its 8,000 members are NYCHA residents.
Ex-New York Building Trades Chief Sentenced in Bribe Scheme
May 25, 2023 // Prosecutors say Cahill took more than $140,000 in cash plus other benefits such as appliances and free labor on a vacation home from an unidentified contractor while he was president of the New York State Building and Construction Trades Council. Additionally, Cahill introduced the contractor to leaders at plumbers’ and pipefitters’ union Local 638 in New York City, where he had been a business agent, and at Local 200 on Long Island, who also accepted bribes from the contractor, prosecutors say. In exchange, the union leaders would support the contractor’s bids on projects, consider labor agreements that were favorable to the firm and allow it to falsely claim it employed union workers.
U.S. Supreme Court Dismisses GM’s Lawsuit Again Fiat Chrysler
April 24, 2023 // However, a federal judge in Michigan dismissed the lawsuit in 2020, ruling that FCA’s actions were not legally responsible for the alleged injuries suffered by GM. The 6th Court of Appeals of the United States Circuit based in Cincinnati agreed, stating that “even accepting GM’s theory as accurate, the chain of causality between FCA’s bribes and GM’s damage is still to FCA’s conduct had not legally caused GM’s alleged injuries he lower-grade court’s ruling is a blow to the automaker’s efforts to seek compensation from Stellantis. GM had demanded an estimated $6 billion in compensation from FCA. The decision is also a positive development for Stellantis, which has been embroiled in a separate federal investigation into corruption involving the UAW union. The research has resulted in at least 17 criminal convictions, including former FCA employees and two former UAW presidents, after FCA and UAW officials admitted that they had embezzled funds for their benefit.
Puerto Rico was ruined by public unions | Opinion
March 7, 2023 // He writes that public employee unions are, in fact, unconstitutional. “The operating machinery of American democracy is now in the grips of public unions. Voters elect officials who have been disempowered by union controls.” This, he writes, violates the U.S. Constitution, which prohibits elected officials delegating, giving away (in this case to unions) sovereign powers to govern. My short career as a “union leader” led me to the conclusion that the Puerto Rico government and the Puerto Rico economy have deteriorated so badly primarily because of the huge mistake of giving enormous power to public employee unions.
11 Plead Guilty in Construction Union Bribery Scheme
December 23, 2022 // Cahill was the ring leader of the scheme, accepting envelopes stuffed with cash in restaurant restrooms from a construction contractor whose name was not revealed by the attorney’s office. Cahill introduced the contractor to many of the 10 others who pleaded guilty. Some of the other union officials accepted anywhere from thousands to tens of thousands of dollars in illegal payments. Cahill also directed the contractor on how to win union favors yet not have to hire union workers. According to the attorney’s office, the contractor would pay the bribes to the union officials to win projects in the jurisdiction of Steamfitters Local 638 in New York City and Long Island and Plumbers Local Union 200 in Nassau and Suffolk counties.
The FBI informant in John Dougherty’s inner circle recorded more than 30 conversations with him
April 29, 2022 // In a court hearing Wednesday, U.S. District Judge Jeffrey L. Schmehl expressed concern that the government had waited until earlier this year — four months after Dougherty was convicted on federal bribery charges in his first trial — to disclose that they had a mole working from within Dougherty’s union, the politically powerful Local 98 of the International Brotherhood of Electrical Workers.
Mistrial in Case of City Councilman Charged with Corruption
April 21, 2022 // Johnson and Chavous were charged with allegedly accepting bribes in exchange for political favors and influencing the work of Philadelphia city business.
Judge eyes shorter sentence for ex-NYC jails union boss
April 20, 2022 // But he also said the former head of the New York City Correction Officers’ Benevolent Association did not deserve a new trial. Prosecutors said he accepted $60,000 in bribes in 2014 to funnel $20 million in union funds to a risky hedge fund.