Union Corruption Is Constant

“Corrupt union boss” might sound like an outdated trope. Jimmy Hoffa has been dead for decades, the major organized-crime families got busted up in the 1980s and 1990s, and unions now are mostly known for far-left political activism rather than criminal behavior. But the fact that unions have a much lower profile than they did decades ago, with only 6 percent of private-sector workers claiming union membership today, doesn’t mean the criminality of union leaders has changed.

John Dougherty, longtime business manager of the International Brotherhood of Electrical Workers Local 98 in Philadelphia, was sentenced on Thursday to six years in prison for bribery and embezzlement. He stole about $600,000 from the union over nearly three decades in power.

“Known as ‘Johnny Doc,’ Dougherty was a longtime power broker in Democratic politics, steering tens of millions in union campaign contributions to candidates for office, including his brother, who was elected to the state’s high court in 2015,” the Associated Press reports.

The nature of the corruption was exactly what you’d expect:

Federal prosecutors said Dougherty also used the union’s money to buy groceries, restaurant meals, tickets to concerts and sporting events, and other personal items. He paid contractors with union funds for work on his house, his relatives’ houses and a neighborhood bar he owned, and arranged for friends and family members to be on the union payroll, according to the indictment.

Dougherty isn’t the only one to be sent to prison from IBEW Local 98. The union’s former president, Brian Burrows, was sentenced to four years in prison last month for embezzlement. Burrows was unrepentant. In a 45-minute speech to the court, he claimed that he delivered the goods for union members through better pay and benefits and that he didn’t know about Dougherty’s corruption.

The prosecutor noted that he was essentially saying that so long as the union could point to wins for its members, “it was okay to steal from them.” The judge “criticized Burrows not only for an ‘egregious breach’ of the trust of union members but for failing to stop wrongdoing by others, saying he had ‘clearly ignored the warning signs by auditors and other union officials,'” the AP reported.

This kind of thing doesn’t just happen in local unions in big cities. We’re currently in the midst of yet another United Auto Workers fraud investigation, which is being conducted by the independent fraud monitor that a federal judge appointed in 2021 as part of a consent decree with the Department of Justice after more than a dozen UAW officials were convicted of crimes.

UAW president Shawn Fain is under investigation for allegedly asking the UAW vice president in charge of negotiations with Stellantis, Rich Boyer, to take actions to financially benefit his fiancée and her sister. Fain’s fiancée is a financial analyst at the UAW-Chrysler National Training Center (Chrysler is a Stellantis brand). Fain is accused of retaliating against Boyer, after Boyer refused to comply, by removing the Stellantis contract from his purview.

Fain faces similar accusations from Margaret Mock, the UAW secretary-treasurer. She, too, says Fain directed her to commit financial impropriety and, after she refused, retaliated by removing responsibilities from her.

The UAW has stonewalled investigatory efforts by the court-appointed monitor. It has completely changed its tune on compliance since Fain became a target of investigations. As recently as December, Fain urged complete compliance with the monitor, who, under the consent decree, is supposed to have the same access to union records as the union president. Since February, when the investigations into Fain began, compliance has been slow and partial. Between February and April 2024, the UAW had produced only 18 of 116,000 potentially relevant documents to the monitor’s investigation.

Fain was supposed to be the “reformer” when he defeated then-president Ray Curry in 2023. The third candidate in that race was Will Lehman, a socialist. With those choices, it’s no wonder voter turnout was only about 10 percent of the UAW’s national membership.

And it’s no wonder that most workers want no part of labor unions. Politicians like to talk a big game about how unions stand up for workers, but, in addition to not supporting much of the political activism unions engage in, workers don’t like being stolen from. It’s good that men like Dougherty and Burrows are being brought to justice, but they’re both 64 years old and have gotten away with their misbehavior for decades. Don’t think workers didn’t notice that.