Posts tagged top story
Labor Union to Congress: Our Embezzlement Problems Got Bigger
June 30, 2026 // The Seafarers International Union told a House committee that the daughter of the union president allegedly embezzled from four union-linked political committees, double the number initially reported by NOTUS, according to a committee spokesperson. The acknowledgement comes after NOTUS reported that the union suspected Chelsea Diab — daughter of the union’s president — of embezzling hundreds of thousands of dollars from two federal political committees the union controlled.
WATCH: Washington state ordered to repay $120 million in skimmed teacher pension funds
June 30, 2026 // More than 26,000 Washington state public school teachers finally won a decades-long class action lawsuit last week, in a fight over their retirement accounts. Thurston County Superior Court entered a final order last Thursday, June 25, siding in favor of the teachers in their case against the Washington State Department of Retirement Systems. The order requires DRS to return about $120 million of skimmed interest and investment returns into the retirement accounts of current and former teachers enrolled in the state retirement plan called TRS Plan 3.
The Name Game: How Connecticut Teachers Union (AFT) Keeps Dues Spending in the Dark
June 29, 2026 // That reality helps explain why Congress passed the Labor-Management Reporting and Disclosure Act of 1959 (LMRDA), Public Law 86-257. Enacted by a bipartisan Congress in the wake of well-publicized union corruption scandals, the law was designed to protect rank-and-file workers by requiring financial transparency and accountability from labor organizations. Its centerpiece was the Form LM-2, a detailed annual financial report that larger unions must file with the U.S. Department of Labor, disclosing assets, liabilities, salaries, receipts, expenditures, loans, political spending, and significant disbursements. Filing false information carries criminal penalties under federal law. The promise was straightforward: union members should always be able to see how their dues are spent.
Commentary: The House Sides With Unions Over Workers
June 26, 2026 // Last year, I participated in a Senate hearing in which a union shop steward was asked about government-appointed arbitrators unilaterally imposing contracts. He said that would be “removing the democracy from the workplace.” He said such democracy “is the whole point of the union” because it gives workers a say. The shop steward’s own union was in the process of voting down several contract proposals, further emphasizing the importance of letting workers vote.
Op-ed: Congress is fast-tracking a bill to bring Europe’s failing labor union model to US shores
June 23, 2026 // While FLCA does not establish sectoral bargaining, it moves labor relations to a necessary first step: the creation of a centralized apparatus to determine the terms of private labor contracts. And, to be sure, Big Labor and its allies have their eyes on sectoral bargaining as a means of boosting union rosters. But either way, FLCA signals a significant departure from the traditionally decentralized American model with voluntary bargaining — and toward a more centralized, Euro-bureau approach to labor relations.