Posts tagged IBEW
Opinion: Big Labor Bullies
September 3, 2024 // For many unions, the corruption isn’t even in the past. The United Auto Workers today operates under the watch of a court-appointed monitor, who is currently investigating president Shawn Fain for financial misconduct and workplace retaliation. This summer, the IBEW Philadelphia local had its longtime president and business manager each sentenced to federal prison for bribery and embezzlement. This isn’t a case of a few bad apples ruining the bunch. Corruption is systemic to American unionism, and it has been for over 100 years. For a long time, these bullies had disproportionate economic and political power, and that rubbed many Americans the wrong way.
Union Reactions to Biden’s Exit
July 23, 2024 // Notably, many unions released statements in response to President Biden’s announcement without officially endorsing Vice President Harris.
3 former Local 98 employees sentenced after pleading guilty to stealing union assets
February 23, 2024 // PHILADELPHIA - The fate of three former Local 98 employees' futures was set by a U.S. District Court judge this week after they previously pleaded guilty to stealing union funds for their personal use. United States Attorney Jacqueline C. Romero announced Michael Neill, 57, Marita Crawford, 54, and Niko Rodriguez, 32, all former employees of Local 98 of the International Brotherhood of Electrical Workers (Local 98) were sentenced this week by United States District Court Judge Jeffrey Schmehl.
“They Should Fear Us”: Teamsters & IATSE Link Arms For March Contract Talks With Studios
February 2, 2024 // To put some numbers to those crew, the Matthew Loeb-run IATSE represents 170,000 technicians, artisans and craftspeople in North America. With 1.3 million members nationwide, the Teamsters have 6,500 members in Local 399. The other Hollywood Basic Crafts have a combined 1,500 members. So do the math: That’s 178,000 union members sitting at the table at the AMPTP’s Sherman Oaks offices. All things considered, in the first such united front by the unions in 25 years, maybe the studios should be a little scared.
The Year of the Union…Corruption?
February 1, 2024 // According to an annual report by the Office of Labor Management Standards (OLMS), over 155 criminal investigations into union-related activity were completed over the past year. As a result, the OLMS distributed 39 indictments and collected 57 convictions for numerous offenses ranging from petty theft to labor racketeering. While these findings are certainly disturbing, they likely only represent a drop in the bucket of national union corruption. This is because, according to the Department of Labor, it is simply “not feasible” to audit every union. Instead, forced to optimize limited resources against widespread corruption, the OLMS has developed an auditing methodology for unions whose “metrics suggest the possibility that there may have been criminal activity.” In 2023, the OLMS conducted 222 of these targeted audits, ultimately finding that 18.3% of these cases warranted criminal action. With nearly 1/5 of audits uncovering some form of wrongdoing, even in the limited sampling size permitted by OLMS resources, it is fair to say that corruption is entrenched within the American labor movement.
Ex-Philly labor leader John Dougherty found guilty in embezzlement trial
December 7, 2023 // Former Philadelphia labor leader John "Johnny Doc" Dougherty and his co-defendant Brian Burrows were found guilty on multiple counts in their federal embezzlement trial. Federal prosecutors had alleged that Dougherty -- the former business manager of IBEW Local 98 and the Philadelphia Building and Construction Trades Council -- spent the money on home renovations, meals, concerts and groceries for himself and his family and friends.
As Obscure as an Extra, She Has a Lead Role in Hollywood’s Labor Fight
August 30, 2023 // Wanted or not, the spotlight has found her. Many union members blame her for the negotiating logjam that has brought almost all movie and television production in Hollywood to a halt. Partly because of her woman-of-mystery persona and partly because she’s an easy target, Ms. Lombardini has become an avatar for the grievances of tens of thousands of striking workers. “Carol can go kick rocks,” Caroline Renard, a striking writer, said this month on X, the social media platform formerly known as Twitter. With her public personality absent, actors and writers have invented one. In May, someone started a parody account on X that has portrayed Ms. Lombardini as a crass tyrant declaring, “I’m a goddess of chaos!” (Yes, she has seen it, an associate said. No, she is not amused.) Another group of screenwriters have mocked Ms. Lombardini online as a fuddy-duddy who hangs out at chain restaurants, the taunt being that no Hollywood person would be caught dead in one. (Her office is near a Cheesecake Factory in suburban Los Angeles.)
32 Knowledge Tracker How New York’s Democratic Socialists Brought Unions Around to Public Renewables
June 20, 2023 // ince they did not initially have access to state-level union leaders, the DSA organizers started by building relationships with local utilities unions across the state. Public Power New York recruited hundreds of volunteers to help steer the victories of numerous DSA-endorsed state legislators in 2020 and 2022. One successful candidate was climate organizer Sarahana Shrestha, now a state assemblymember from the Hudson Valley. She unseated her long-tenured Democratic primary opponent, in part, by highlighting his opposition to the BPRA. The bill began to move in Albany in a real way when unions outside of the utilities sector, like the New York State United Teachers, the New York State Nurses Association, and the Service Employees International Union, endorsed the bill. Once the bill passed the state Senate in the summer of 2022, the utilities unions took a more serious interest in the plan. The BPRA’s labor provisions include prevailing-wage assurances and require that all the NYPA’s renewable projects include collective-bargaining agreements for every employee, including contractors and subcontractors. These agreements must be in place before work can start on a project. The law creates a $25 million just-transition fund to retrain fossil fuel–sector workers who could lose their jobs, and specifies that union leaders must be consulted in this process. It also prioritizes hiring these retrained workers for the NYPA’s renewable projects.
For ILWU, West Coast port deal to be union-ratified, here’s what has to happen next
June 16, 2023 // West Coast port management and the labor union representing port workers reached a tentative deal late on Wednesday after the intervention of California labor market pro and Biden acting Labor Secretary Julie Su in the negotiations in San Francisco, but it could be months before the full union votes to approve the deal. The tentative agreement was a welcome development after weeks of escalating tensions between workers and port management, resulting in delays in vessel servicing, congestion at ports, in containers and out to trucking, as well as some port shutdowns. But the proposed labor deal is a far way from being fully approved, according to the International Longshore & Warehouse Union. While the union statement on the deal was positive, it laid out a process that still has several steps to go before the deal moves ahead.
OREGON LEGISLATIVE STAFF OPPOSED TO FORCED UNIONIZATION GET THEIR DAY IN COURT
June 6, 2023 // “We have an executive agency, the Employment Relations Board, interfering in the business of the legislative branch of government by making itself the authority on the wages, hours and working conditions of legislative assistants,” said Freedom Foundation attorney Rebekah Schultheiss. “By placing all Legislative Assistants — regardless of political party — into the same bargaining unit, ERB has destroyed the essential trust between Legislators and their Assistants.” Earlier on in the litigation, twenty-eight Oregon Lawmakers and staffers additionally filed an amicus brief supporting the Freedom Foundation’s efforts to get the Employment Relations Board ruling overturned, claiming that the certification of a political union as representative of legislative assistants “will have a paralyzing effect on Legislators.”