Behind a U.A.W. Crisis: Lavish Meals and Luxury Villas .....

[The Purge]

(perks like a $6,500 steak dinner and golf outings and gear costing $80,000)

On a single day in December 2015, Gary Jones, who resigned last month as president of the United Automobile Workers, spent more than $13,000 of the union’s money at a cigar store in Arizona. His purchases included a dozen $268 boxes of Ashton Double Magnums and a dozen boxes of Ashton Monarchs at $274.50 each. “Hi Gary, Thank you & Happy New Year,” read a handwritten note from the store.

The purchases, documented by a federal complaint filed against a union leader in September, were part of more than $60,000 in cigars and cigar paraphernalia that Mr. Jones and other U.A.W. officials expensed to the union between 2014 and 2018. And the cigar purchases were in turn just a small portion of the roughly $1 million in union money that court filings say U.A.W. officials spent on golf outings, four-figure dinners and monthslong villa rentals during regular retreats in Palm Springs, Calif., and elsewhere.

The scandal comes on top of an investigation into company and union officials’ improper use of millions of dollars from a joint Fiat Chrysler-U.A.W. training center. Mr. Jones’s predecessor as president, Dennis Williams, is accused of encouraging the use of Fiat Chrysler funds meant for worker education as a way to pay for the extravagant spending in Palm Springs and other places.

In direct financial terms, the scandals don’t approach the scale of the corruption that plagued organized labor in the 1960s and ’70s.

But the stakes are nonetheless enormous, given the U.A.W.’s outsize influence over auto manufacturing, a pillar of the United States economy that generates hundreds of billions of dollars in annual revenue and employs hundreds of thousands of workers. The union’s 40-day strike against General Motors this year cost the automaker an estimated $3 billion in profit.

(Excerpt) Read more at nytimes.com ...

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DemonRATS want to get rid of right-to-work laws and push more workers into unions, which would increase the corruption described in this article.....No wonder that these high profile union thugs keep there unions donating and protesting for the party of INFANTICIDE, and, of course. Feathering their leaders pockets with a BILLIONAIRES STYLE living conditions!

 

[Polishprince]

Big Labor used to be a lot bigger and badder back in the day, before Mr. Giuliani decimated the 5 families. It was easy money taking a taste and wetting their beaks on the paychecks of actual workers.

Although a lot of employers, especially in less competitive enterprises, appreciated the stability that the labor bosses provided.

 

[Penelope]

Infanticide is illegal in the US, and the right to work laws, people need civil rights, when an employee can get fired for being pg, female, black, Hispanic, transsexuals, gay, they need laws to protect them.

 

[toobfreak]

(perks like a $6,500 steak dinner and golf outings and gear costing $80,000)

On a single day in December 2015, Gary Jones, who resigned last month as president of the United Automobile Workers, spent more than $13,000 of the union’s money at a cigar store in Arizona. His purchases included a dozen $268 boxes of Ashton Double Magnums and a dozen boxes of Ashton Monarchs at $274.50 each. “Hi Gary, Thank you & Happy New Year,” read a handwritten note from the store.

Damn. If I had 13K to blow on cigars, boxes of Ashtons would not even be within my top 10 choices!

 

[August West]

(perks like a $6,500 steak dinner and golf outings and gear costing $80,000)

On a single day in December 2015, Gary Jones, who resigned last month as president of the United Automobile Workers, spent more than $13,000 of the union’s money at a cigar store in Arizona. His purchases included a dozen $268 boxes of Ashton Double Magnums and a dozen boxes of Ashton Monarchs at $274.50 each. “Hi Gary, Thank you & Happy New Year,” read a handwritten note from the store.

The purchases, documented by a federal complaint filed against a union leader in September, were part of more than $60,000 in cigars and cigar paraphernalia that Mr. Jones and other U.A.W. officials expensed to the union between 2014 and 2018. And the cigar purchases were in turn just a small portion of the roughly $1 million in union money that court filings say U.A.W. officials spent on golf outings, four-figure dinners and monthslong villa rentals during regular retreats in Palm Springs, Calif., and elsewhere.

The scandal comes on top of an investigation into company and union officials’ improper use of millions of dollars from a joint Fiat Chrysler-U.A.W. training center. Mr. Jones’s predecessor as president, Dennis Williams, is accused of encouraging the use of Fiat Chrysler funds meant for worker education as a way to pay for the extravagant spending in Palm Springs and other places.

In direct financial terms, the scandals don’t approach the scale of the corruption that plagued organized labor in the 1960s and ’70s.

But the stakes are nonetheless enormous, given the U.A.W.’s outsize influence over auto manufacturing, a pillar of the United States economy that generates hundreds of billions of dollars in annual revenue and employs hundreds of thousands of workers. The union’s 40-day strike against General Motors this year cost the automaker an estimated $3 billion in profit.

(Excerpt) Read more at nytimes.com ...

-----------

DemonRATS want to get rid of right-to-work laws and push more workers into unions, which would increase the corruption described in this article.....No wonder that these high profile union thugs keep there unions donating and protesting for the party of INFANTICIDE, and, of course. Feathering their leaders pockets with a BILLIONAIRES STYLE living conditions!

The $40 or so I paid to the USWA every month was the best investment I ever made. Retired at 54 with a 40K buyout with pension and medical. This steel company has done well with their union workforce. They built the world`s most advanced hot rolling mill for $1.2 billion and they did it with cash, not bank loans. I recognize union envy when I see it and I see it here.

 

[depotoo]

Infanticide is illegal in the US, and the right to work laws, people need civil rights, when an employee can get fired for being pg, female, black, Hispanic, transsexuals, gay, they need laws to protect them.

Which has what to do with the corruption of the UAW?

 

[toobfreak]

(perks like a $6,500 steak dinner and golf outings and gear costing $80,000)

On a single day in December 2015, Gary Jones, who resigned last month as president of the United Automobile Workers, spent more than $13,000 of the union’s money at a cigar store in Arizona. His purchases included a dozen $268 boxes of Ashton Double Magnums and a dozen boxes of Ashton Monarchs at $274.50 each. “Hi Gary, Thank you & Happy New Year,” read a handwritten note from the store.

The purchases, documented by a federal complaint filed against a union leader in September, were part of more than $60,000 in cigars and cigar paraphernalia that Mr. Jones and other U.A.W. officials expensed to the union between 2014 and 2018. And the cigar purchases were in turn just a small portion of the roughly $1 million in union money that court filings say U.A.W. officials spent on golf outings, four-figure dinners and monthslong villa rentals during regular retreats in Palm Springs, Calif., and elsewhere.

The scandal comes on top of an investigation into company and union officials’ improper use of millions of dollars from a joint Fiat Chrysler-U.A.W. training center. Mr. Jones’s predecessor as president, Dennis Williams, is accused of encouraging the use of Fiat Chrysler funds meant for worker education as a way to pay for the extravagant spending in Palm Springs and other places.

In direct financial terms, the scandals don’t approach the scale of the corruption that plagued organized labor in the 1960s and ’70s.

But the stakes are nonetheless enormous, given the U.A.W.’s outsize influence over auto manufacturing, a pillar of the United States economy that generates hundreds of billions of dollars in annual revenue and employs hundreds of thousands of workers. The union’s 40-day strike against General Motors this year cost the automaker an estimated $3 billion in profit.

(Excerpt) Read more at nytimes.com ...

-----------

DemonRATS want to get rid of right-to-work laws and push more workers into unions, which would increase the corruption described in this article.....No wonder that these high profile union thugs keep there unions donating and protesting for the party of INFANTICIDE, and, of course. Feathering their leaders pockets with a BILLIONAIRES STYLE living conditions!

The $40 or so I paid to the USWA every month was the best investment I ever made. Retired at 54 with a 40K buyout with pension and medical. This steel company has done well with their union workforce. They built the world`s most advanced hot rolling mill for $1.2 billion and they did it with cash, not bank loans. I recognize union envy when I see it and I see it here.

Impressive. We have gone from American built Mesta 4-highs to German made rolling machines with a designed obsolescence lifespan, and you were bought out at 30 years and out for 40K to unload you off the workforce because you were too expensive to keep to be replaced by far fewer people doing far more work. Meantime, the cost of all that has been passed onto every steel consumer, including you, who pays for it all invisibly, unseen, in the cost of every steel product we buy. That's not envy (I worked in the steel industry, too), that is simple fact.

The good news is that you retired at 54 and will probably need that medical care a lot as you stand a very good chance of needing it after being in a foundry all your life, what life you still have.

 

[jasonnfree]

(perks like a $6,500 steak dinner and golf outings and gear costing $80,000)

On a single day in December 2015, Gary Jones, who resigned last month as president of the United Automobile Workers, spent more than $13,000 of the union’s money at a cigar store in Arizona. His purchases included a dozen $268 boxes of Ashton Double Magnums and a dozen boxes of Ashton Monarchs at $274.50 each. “Hi Gary, Thank you & Happy New Year,” read a handwritten note from the store.

The purchases, documented by a federal complaint filed against a union leader in September, were part of more than $60,000 in cigars and cigar paraphernalia that Mr. Jones and other U.A.W. officials expensed to the union between 2014 and 2018. And the cigar purchases were in turn just a small portion of the roughly $1 million in union money that court filings say U.A.W. officials spent on golf outings, four-figure dinners and monthslong villa rentals during regular retreats in Palm Springs, Calif., and elsewhere.

The scandal comes on top of an investigation into company and union officials’ improper use of millions of dollars from a joint Fiat Chrysler-U.A.W. training center. Mr. Jones’s predecessor as president, Dennis Williams, is accused of encouraging the use of Fiat Chrysler funds meant for worker education as a way to pay for the extravagant spending in Palm Springs and other places.

In direct financial terms, the scandals don’t approach the scale of the corruption that plagued organized labor in the 1960s and ’70s.

But the stakes are nonetheless enormous, given the U.A.W.’s outsize influence over auto manufacturing, a pillar of the United States economy that generates hundreds of billions of dollars in annual revenue and employs hundreds of thousands of workers. The union’s 40-day strike against General Motors this year cost the automaker an estimated $3 billion in profit.

(Excerpt) Read more at nytimes.com ...

-----------

DemonRATS want to get rid of right-to-work laws and push more workers into unions, which would increase the corruption described in this article.....No wonder that these high profile union thugs keep there unions donating and protesting for the party of INFANTICIDE, and, of course. Feathering their leaders pockets with a BILLIONAIRES STYLE living conditions!

Part of the problem I saw when I was a union member (operators, boilermakers) was union members not taking part in union activities and meetings. Don't use it, you lose it while the oligarchy and most of all the republicans never sleep in keeping wages as low as possible. Not that the corporate demorats are much better nowadays. Right to work? We used to call it right to work for less, which is what it is.

 

[jknowgood]

Infanticide is illegal in the US, and the right to work laws, people need civil rights, when an employee can get fired for being pg, female, black, Hispanic, transsexuals, gay, they need laws to protect them.

Lol, in New York the lit the new world trade center celebrating infanticide. You need to catch up with your party, or the will kick you off the plantation.

 

[HereWeGoAgain]

(perks like a $6,500 steak dinner and golf outings and gear costing $80,000)

On a single day in December 2015, Gary Jones, who resigned last month as president of the United Automobile Workers, spent more than $13,000 of the union’s money at a cigar store in Arizona. His purchases included a dozen $268 boxes of Ashton Double Magnums and a dozen boxes of Ashton Monarchs at $274.50 each. “Hi Gary, Thank you & Happy New Year,” read a handwritten note from the store.

The purchases, documented by a federal complaint filed against a union leader in September, were part of more than $60,000 in cigars and cigar paraphernalia that Mr. Jones and other U.A.W. officials expensed to the union between 2014 and 2018. And the cigar purchases were in turn just a small portion of the roughly $1 million in union money that court filings say U.A.W. officials spent on golf outings, four-figure dinners and monthslong villa rentals during regular retreats in Palm Springs, Calif., and elsewhere.

The scandal comes on top of an investigation into company and union officials’ improper use of millions of dollars from a joint Fiat Chrysler-U.A.W. training center. Mr. Jones’s predecessor as president, Dennis Williams, is accused of encouraging the use of Fiat Chrysler funds meant for worker education as a way to pay for the extravagant spending in Palm Springs and other places.

In direct financial terms, the scandals don’t approach the scale of the corruption that plagued organized labor in the 1960s and ’70s.

But the stakes are nonetheless enormous, given the U.A.W.’s outsize influence over auto manufacturing, a pillar of the United States economy that generates hundreds of billions of dollars in annual revenue and employs hundreds of thousands of workers. The union’s 40-day strike against General Motors this year cost the automaker an estimated $3 billion in profit.

(Excerpt) Read more at nytimes.com ...

-----------

DemonRATS want to get rid of right-to-work laws and push more workers into unions, which would increase the corruption described in this article.....No wonder that these high profile union thugs keep there unions donating and protesting for the party of INFANTICIDE, and, of course. Feathering their leaders pockets with a BILLIONAIRES STYLE living conditions!

Part of the problem I saw when I was a union member (operators, boilermakers) was union members not taking part in union activities and meetings. Don't use it, you lose it while the oligarchy and most of all the republicans never sleep in keeping wages as low as possible. Not that the corporate demorats are much better nowadays. Right to work? We used to call it right to work for less, which is what it is.

What I like about right to work states?
If your good at what you do you make good money,if you're a slacker or ill prepared to do your job you get less money.
As it should be.

 

[Eric Arthur Blair]

Infanticide is illegal in the US, and the right to work laws, people need civil rights, when an employee can get fired for being pg, female, black, Hispanic, transsexuals, gay, they need laws to protect them.

WTF kind of rambling drivel is this? I guess you will go on about anything to keep from discussing rampant corruption
at the UAW. Obama threw his buddies a life line using TARP taxpayer money to bail their fat corrupt asses out of trouble and look at how they behave! Their product still is performing poorly and their stock is down while they live it up like Roman emperors.

All the UAW leadership are corrupt crooks and hallelujah the feds are coming after them. Thanks Obama for perpetuating their criminal ways.

 

[Penelope]

Infanticide is illegal in the US, and the right to work laws, people need civil rights, when an employee can get fired for being pg, female, black, Hispanic, transsexuals, gay, they need laws to protect them.

WTF kind of rambling drivel is this? I guess you will go on about anything to keep from discussing rampant corruption
at the UAW. Obama threw his buddies a life line using TARP taxpayer money to bail their fat corrupt asses out of trouble and look at how they behave! Their product still is performing poorly and their stock is down while they live it up like Roman emperors.

All the UAW leadership are corrupt crooks and hallelujah the feds are coming after them. Thanks Obama for perpetuating their criminal ways.

There is a reason Unions were created. Get rid of the crooks and not the unions. Women started the Unions, give a major thank you to them.Women's Rights | Unions Making History in America

 

[Eric Arthur Blair]

There is a reason Unions were created. Get rid of the crooks and not the unions. Women started the Unions, give a major thank you to them.Women's Rights | Unions Making History in America

And there's a reason why unions fell into disrepute and public disapproval and that word is "corruption" as the big unions became a rat's nest for organized crime. Watch "On the Waterfront" some time.
Mafia/Union Ties Still Strong | Labor Relations Institute

Until the unions clean themselves up they will remain a subject of suspicion and antipathy. And as a former union officer I can tell you the rank and file member is not in favor of the progressive direction unions are headed in.

 

[Penelope]

There is a reason Unions were created. Get rid of the crooks and not the unions. Women started the Unions, give a major thank you to them.Women's Rights | Unions Making History in America

And there's a reason why unions fell into disrepute and public disapproval and that word is "corruption" as the big unions became a rat's nest for organized crime. Watch "On the Waterfront" some time.
Mafia/Union Ties Still Strong | Labor Relations Institute

Until the unions clean themselves up they will remain a subject of suspicion and antipathy. And as a former union officer I can tell you the rank and file member is not in favor of the progressive direction unions are headed in.

Like I said, get rid of the corrupt, not the unions , there are corrupt people in all walks of life. White collar crime affects every one of us.

 

[HereWeGoAgain]

There is a reason Unions were created. Get rid of the crooks and not the unions. Women started the Unions, give a major thank you to them.Women's Rights | Unions Making History in America

And there's a reason why unions fell into disrepute and public disapproval and that word is "corruption" as the big unions became a rat's nest for organized crime. Watch "On the Waterfront" some time.
Mafia/Union Ties Still Strong | Labor Relations Institute

Until the unions clean themselves up they will remain a subject of suspicion and antipathy. And as a former union officer I can tell you the rank and file member is not in favor of the progressive direction unions are headed in.

Like I said, get rid of the corrupt, not the unions , there are corrupt people in all walks of life. White collar crime affects every one of us.

Unions have been corrupt since 1881.
What makes you think thats going to change after 139 years?

 

[Eric Arthur Blair]

Like I said, get rid of the corrupt, not the unions , there are corrupt people in all walks of life. White collar crime affects every one of us.

Draining the corruption out of the big major unions is about as easy as draining the Washington DC swamp.

 

[initforme]

Employers and employees exist in a perpetual conflict. It has to be that way. It works best this way. It's a mutual disdain for each other.

 

[initforme]

It's up to the average workers to police their own unions.

 

[22lcidw]

A balance must be achieved between ownership and employee. We find it or can see it as we move in directions then pass it one way or the other when there. The goal is for the employee to live as comfortable as one can without putting a company out of business.