More Power For Corrupt Union Bosses?

Firefighters Local Chiefs’ Growing Rap Sheet May Hinder Kennedy Bill

 National Right to Work Newsletter – May 2002

Staunch opposition by Committee members and proven cases of embezzlement in IAFF union locals are now jeopardizing IAFF czar Harold Schaitberger’s scheme to federalize public-safety forced unionism.

On March 21, Patrick Stiles, former secretary-treasurer of Local 99 of the International Association of Firefighters (IAFF/AFL-CIO) union, became the latest IAFF local officer to plead guilty to embezzling union treasury funds.

According to the police in Aurora, Ill., home of Local 99, Mr. Stiles stole a total of some $350,000 from forced-dues treasuries and the firefighters’ relief fund.

Mr. Stiles, whose plea bargain included two years in prison and payment of restitution, reportedly spent workers’ forced dues to pay off extensive personal

credit card debts and phone bills.

He also allegedly spent over $5000 in union funds at an embroidery firm and over $1400 at a flower shop.

The guilty plea was hardly an aberration for an IAFF local officer. Just since the beginning of 2000, media reports indicate that IAFF local bosses not just in Illinois, but also in Missouri, Virginia, Ohio, California and Michigan, have pleaded guilty to theft or embezzlement of union funds.

Currently, IAFF local officials in yet another state, Florida, are being investigated by the police.

While all of the above cases made the newspapers, experts on union corruption have long recognized that the vast majority of perpetrators are never caught.

Over the past few months, as reports on IAFF union corruption were making headlines in newspapers like the Chicago Tribune, Norfolk’s Virginian-Pilot, and the Press-Enterprise in Riverside, Calif., U.S. Sen. Ted Kennedy (D-Mass.) has been fighting to give IAFF satraps even more power over their potential victims.

Kennedy Bill’s Real Aim:

Forcible Unionization

Of Police and Firemen

Sen. Kennedy’s falsely labeled “Public Safety Employer-Employee Cooperation Act” (S.952) and its U.S. House companion bill (H.R.1475) are designed to corral public-safety employees in all 50 states into the IAFF and other government unions. S.952/H.R.1475 would by federal fiat force public-safety officers, including many who have chosen not to be union members, to accept union officials as their “exclusive” negotiators in employment-contract talks.

Effectively, Organized Labor would obtain a monopoly over public-safety employees’ participation in the bargaining process in thousands of jurisdictions where it doesn’t yet have one.

No wonder union propagandists gloat that this bill is “one of the most far- reaching expansions” of forced unionism that “Congress has considered in decades.”

“Being forced to submit to decisions made by a union you didn’t seek, and don’t want, is no ‘benefit,’” noted Mark Mix, executive vice president of the

National Right to Work Committee.

“Especially not when, as recent history suggests, there is a significant danger that the union decision-maker is a crook.”

Last fall, S.952/H.R.1475 appeared poised to sweep through both chambers of Congress with large, possibly even veto-proof majorities.

Since then, however, a flood of petitions, letters, and phone calls to Congress from Committee members and the strong opposition of groups like the National Association of Counties, the National League of Cities, and the National Sheriffs’ Association have slowed the measure down.

Facing Stiff Opposition,

IAFF Czar Has Begun

Talking ‘Compromise’

Heightened public awareness of official corruption in IAFF union locals and other government unions could now sink S.952/H.R.1475.

“In a last-ditch bid to pull off his power grab, IAFF General President Harold Schaitberger is now calling for a ‘compromise,’” said Mr. Mix.

“House Education & Workforce Chairman John Boehner [R-Ohio] and other avowed foes of the Kennedy Police/Fire Monopoly Bargaining Bill should ignore this siren song.

“The federalization of forced unionism for public-safety officers is wrong in principle and should simply be stopped.

“The victims of S.952/H.R.1475 or any ‘compromise’ intended to achieve the same objective would be not just independent-minded police and firemen, but also taxpayers and small communities across America.”

Mr. Mix urged Committee members across the country to keep intensifying their lobbying efforts against S.952/H.R.1475. You can reach your senators and congressmen through the Capitol Hill switchboards, 202-224-3121