Posts tagged Los Angeles Fire Department

    Research ● Corruption Labor Unions

    Unveiling Financial Transparency Failures in Labor Organizations

    July 24, 2025 // In 2024 alone, the DOL recorded 177 union enforcement actions involving fraud, embezzlement, wire fraud, and falsified records. These are only the crimes that rise to the level of federal prosecution. Far more ethical violations, financial misuses, and questionable behaviors fall below the radar leaving union members in the dark and are quietly buried through internal repayments, hush resignations, or legal threats — all without any formal DOL investigation or public accountability. Despite 16 years as a union official, I did not become aware of the existence of LM-2 financial disclosure filings until our local filed a lawsuit against our state affiliate. Imagine that: even as a union president and past treasurer, I was unaware that both our state and national unions were required to submit LM-2 forms to the Department of Labor. If someone like me — deeply engaged in union governance — was kept in the dark, how can we expect average members to know their rights, much less exercise them?

    AFL-CIO Fire Fighters Local 7 AFL-CIO Teachers AFSCME Local 2620 AFT Connecticut American Postal Workers Union audit finances Burbank bureaucratic California charities Connecticut DOJ DOL Edward Kelly embezzling Fairness Center FINANCES financial abuse financial misconduct Fire Fighters AFL-CIO firefighters grant money IAFF IAFF-FC indicted insurance International Association of Fire Fighters International Union of Operating Engineers International Union of Operating Engineers Local 465 Kurt Becker labor organizations Labor-Management Reporting and Disclosure Act LM2 LMRDA Los Angeles Fire Department Muscular Dystrophy Association PAC fund balances pay to play Pennsylvania rank and file retirement planning secrecy Securities and Exchange Commission taxpayer money Texas Transparency Uniformed Professional Fire Fighters of Connecticut Union union membership unions United Steelworkers UPFFA Local 7 vendors wire fraud

    News Article ● Corruption

    LA firefighters union leaders suspended after audit finds $800,000 in undocumented spending

    May 6, 2025 // A more extensive audit was ordered, revealing that Escobar had spent more than $300,000 on his union credit card between July 2018 and November 2024. Kelly said there was no way to determine that the funds were used for “legitimate union expenditures.” Auditors had warned union leadership in March 2024 there were “significant deficiencies” in the local's financial practices. Escobar spent more than $70,000 without submitting a single receipt that year. A former treasurer, Domingo Albarran, was also found to have spent more than $300,000 over about five years without documentation of the expenditures, according to the letter.

    Audit California credit card Edward Kelly firefighters Freddy Escobar IAFF Los Angeles Los Angeles Fire Department United Firefighters of Los Angeles City

    News Article ● Corruption Labor Unions

    LAFD union boss who blamed lack of funds for limited response to wildfires took home $500,000 in pay and overtime

    May 1, 2025 // But even as Escobar was denouncing reductions in workforce and budgets, he was pulling in more than $500,000 a year. He had also helped secure four years of pay raises for the city's 3,300 firefighters with Los Angeles Mayor Karen Bass. He saved the cushiest carve-outs for himself and other top union leaders, a new report from the Los Angeles Times claimed. Most of the union's top brass padded their paychecks with overtime on top of six-figure union stipends.

    base pay benefits budget firefighters Los Angeles Fire Department Los Angeles Police Department overtime salary UFLAC union leaders workforce reductions