Municipal union thefts justify boosting workers’ power

LAST July, a man who had spent many years as president of the union that represents Oklahoma City’s municipal workers pleaded guilty to four counts of embezzlement. William Dale Bryles was ordered to pay nearly $12,000 in restitution and was sentenced to three years’ probation.

Prosecutors alleged Bryles had stolen more than $15,000 between 2011 and 2015 from Local 2406 of the American Federation of State, County and Municipal Employees. He was accused of writing checks for basketball teams and tournaments, which had no ties to the union, and making other unauthorized purchases, including flowers for his wife, and tires.

Other unions across the country know the feeling. Documents from the U.S. Department of Labor show embezzlement from hundreds of union offices during the past decade. More than 300 union locations have turned up theft in the past two years alone, resulting in 143 leaders and staff members pleading guilty or being convicted of crimes.

As USA Today reported, “Cases involved unions representing nurses, aerospace engineers, firefighters, teachers, film and TV artists, air traffic controllers, musicians, bus inspectors, bakery workers, roofers, postal workers, machinists, ironworkers, steelworkers, dairy workers, plasterers, train operators, plumbers, stagehands, engineers, electricians, heat insulators, missile range workers and bricklayers.”

One of those machinist cases came from Oklahoma City. Kathleen Marie Smith, former treasurer for Local Lodge 850 of the International Association of Machinists and Aerospace Workers, pleaded guilty in January 2017 to embezzlement. Smith, who said she had a gambling addiction, was ordered in June to pay more than $20,000 in restitution.

Many of the cases identified by the Labor Department were far costlier. Two involving the United Auto Workers and one involving longshoremen exceeded $1 million. In Pittsburgh, a former business manager for a boilermakers’ union pleaded guilty last year to embezzling at least $1.5 million, spending about a third of that on Louis Vuitton purses.

Wayne State University law professor Peter Henning, a former federal prosecutor, said that “unions are not unique. … You can’t train people to be ethical. It’s just access to money.” Certainly that’s true.

On the other hand, The Wall Street Journal argues that one problem may be a lack of adequate financial controls, “especially given how much money unions get in member dues,” and suggests national union groups such as the AFL-CIO provide education and technology to help locals track their revenue.

That’s a sensible idea, particularly if unions want to stem the decline in workers joining their ranks when they have a choice. Figures from the Bureau of Labor Statistics showed that in 2016, just 10.7 percent of the U.S. workforce was unionized. In the private sector, the figure was 6.4 percent.

Too much union dues already gets spent on causes that many of the rank and file don’t support, which is why dozens of Republicans in Congress support a bill to give union workers additional rights. Organized labor is fighting that effort tooth and nail, although these corruption stories provide fodder that could help get the bill to the president’s desk.