The ghost of Jimmy Hoffa: How corruption has cast a shadow over the labour movement
David Witwer is a professor of history and American studies at Penn State Harrisburg and the author ofTwo recent scandals have jolted the Canadian labour movement and raised the spectre of alleged union corruption. Last month, the Ontario Public Service Employees Union of improperly taking $5.75-million out of union funds. The issue came to light after the union’s executive board became suspicious about certain unexplained expenditures and ordered a forensic audit.
In recent decades, that kind of mob-connected corruption has faded in the U.S. as the power of traditional organized crime has waned. By the end of the 1980s, a Department of Justice co-ordinated offensive had decimated Italian-American organized crime in the country, with 2,500 indictments. The convictions swept through the ranks of Mafia families from New York and Chicago to Las Vegas, including 19 family bosses and 13 underbosses.
Just last fall, a similar scandal rocked the union that represents New York’s municipal workers, the American Federation of State, County, and Municipal Employees . The national union alleged that a local union official had improperly pocketed hundreds of thousands of dollars from the organization’s funds. An even bigger scandal had tarred the same organization in 2002, when 20 AFSCME leaders in New York’s District Council 37 were convicted of embezzlement, vote fraud and taking kickbacks.
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