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Punt, pass or go to jail   (Union corruption)

Bluegrass Institute

Let’s rid Kentucky of union mischief

Sharon Rosenthal of Appleton, Wis. had a choice: Turn over her Green Bay Packers’ tickets to charity or go to jail for stealing more than $3,000 from union accounts to pay her household expenses. She chose a football-free season.

Judge Scott Woldt gets credit for the amusing sentence. However, there is nothing amusing about the widespread corruption in today’s labor unions. Plenty of fraud can be found in Kentucky’s union halls.

Brian Payne, former office manager for the Laborers International Union of North America, plead guilty last October to embezzling thousands of dollars in western Kentucky. Timothy Aldridge was sentenced last July to spend 33 months in prison and repay the $112,525 he stole while serving as president of the local United Steel Workers at Mubea Inc. in Florence.

A contributing factor to such dishonesty is our union-friendly public policy, which makes the term “union corruption” seem redundant to many Kentuckians.

“The problem is that federal law for decades has given unions the privilege of requiring new employees to join,” said a recent report by the National Institute for Labor Relations Research. “In that sense, the law has been an unwitting accomplice to corruption in labor unions, whether the pile of money lay in operating revenues or member benefit plans.”

Not surprisingly, there is much less corruption in the 21 states with right-to-work laws, which offer employees the choice of whether to join a union.

Kentucky workers deserve that same choice.

Sources:

Union corruption: Why it happens, how to stop it” by Carl F. Horowitz, The National Institute for Labor Relations Research

“Ex-President Sentenced in Ky. Fed. Court,” National Legal and Policy Center Organized Labor Accountability Project

“Go to jail or give up Packers tickets? Judge’s sentence lets woman choose” by Jim Collar, Gannett Wisconsin Newspapers

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