A powerful United Food & Commercial Workers local union (348s) in New York was closed for business on Thursday as police arrested three family members who run the union local.

Police arrested the president, former president, and treasurer of Local 348 United Food and Commercial Workers International Union (UFCW) on Thursday. Anthony Fazio Sr., John Fazio Jr., and Anthony Fazio Jr. were charged with racketeering, extortion, money laundering, and witness tampering.

The Fazios used their positions in the union to extort money from employers unionized by the UFCW. They stole more than $2.4 million from union members and employers over the course of 16 years, according to the indictment.

According to Courthouse News Service:

The indictment accuses the Fazios of “extorting, soliciting and obtaining cash payments, in violation of federal and state labor law, from business owners who employees were represented by Local 348,” to enrich themselves and others. (more…)

There’s an internal war going on in one of the Communications Workers of America’s largest locals, New York City’s Local 1101.  Accusations of poor, absentee leadership has caused a group of rank and file stewards and chief stewards to start a campaign to reform the local. Now, the issues have involved the CWA International in Washington, which has placed a monitor over the local due to an investigation’s findings that revealed the local’s union bosses have been fattening themselves on their members’ dues.

CWA Local 1101 has nearly 7,000 members—most of whom work for telecom giant Verizon, as well as a handful of other companies. In 2010, local 1101 took in over $5.3 million in dues and agency fees. In addition, because New York is not a right to work state, Local 1101 is legally permitted to charge its members 1.9% of their pay as a condition of employment. If they don’t pay, the union can order them to be fired. As such, some members pay over $1400 per year in union dues to enable the local’s officers to rake in over $150,000 a year in compensation.

This is, perhaps, one of the reasons the local membership is up in arms over the alleged financial improprieties of a number of the local’s officers [via Labor Notes]: (more…)

From the Associated Press:

The FBI and the U.S. Labor Department are investigating prominent labor leader Andy Stern in their probe of corruption at the Service Employees International Union, according to two people who have been interviewed by federal agents.

The two organized labor officials met with federal agents this summer to answer questions about a six-figure book contract that Stern landed in 2006 and his role in approving money to pay the salary of an SEIU leader in California who allegedly performed no work.

Both officials spoke on condition of anonymity because of the sensitive nature of the investigation. The FBI and the Labor Department’s office of inspector general declined to comment for the record.

The disclosure about the federal inquiry of Stern—who abruptly resigned as president of the 2.2-million member SEIU in April—comes just weeks ahead of contentious congressional elections in which the union is spending an estimated $44 million to support its favored Democratic candidates.

(more…)

In November BigGovernment.com, sounded the warning – here’s the update.

As 2009 fades away, President Obama has decided to let disclosure of hundreds of millions of dollars in forced-union-dues disclosure fade away too. Under current law and regulations valid until December 30th, union bosses were supposed to carefully document the billions of dollars they extract from workers as a condition of employment that they in turn pour into front groups and other “funds” each year.

A large part of the billions were about to be made public and reported on a Department of Labor disclosure form known as the Form T-1 Annual Report. But, that won’t happen now!

(more…)

From CBS 13 in Sacramento:

A state worker is recovering after a bloody brawl at a union hall. He says members of the local SEIU 1000 beat him up and sent him to the hospital all because he wanted to expose allegedl corruption within the union. 

Ken Hamidi is a state worker at the California Franchise Tax Board. Last night he walked into a union hall in Sacramento for an SEIU local 1000 meeting.

“We had every right to be here, very simple; it wasn’t anything private or anything exclusive,” said Hamidi.

But Hamidi says the union members did not want him there.

(more…)