New York Times: Say, Let's "Fix" the Janus Decision By Empowering the Government to Directly Thieve Money Away from Public Sector Employees' Checks, and Send That Stolen Money Straight to Unions

Yes! Let's have the government turn to straight-up theft to take citizens' money to deliver it to their clients!

Let's get this Revolution started!

How many public sector employees will stop paying dues now that they're free to do so? It could be a lot. The Wisconsin NEA had a 70 percent decline in membership, once that state got rid of compulsory union dues.

This might be part of why people are bailing on unions, unless they're forced to belong: While union leadership looting member funds for their own benefit is as old as the Democrat Party itself, there's actually an epidemic of it recently.

But what is happening to the declining sums of money the unions are taking in as their membership shrinks? Aside from sizable political contributions, it appears there is a national epidemic of embezzlement by union leadership grifters. Let's take a closer look at what’s been going on around the country.

First stop is New York. Meet Aaron Collington: he's the former president of the Troy, New York Police Union. Collington was accused of stealing $6,200 from the union bank account to pay his rent and was charged with third-degree grand larceny. The money he allegedly stole came from the Troy Police Benevolent Association’s bank account. Collington has pled not guilty.

Moving over to Massachusetts, we find Henry Clay Green, Sr. who was the former secretary treasurer of Unite Here Local 26 between 2011 to 2016. Mr. Green has pled guilty to embezzling more than $170,000 from his union...

Perhaps you have loftier aspirations of grift. In that case, Raymond Ventrone of Pennsylvania might be your guy. Ventrone, a business manager for the International Brotherhood of Boilermakers Local 154, was charged with embezzling almost $1.5 million of union funds....

Raiding union assets is not only an East Coast phenomenon. Say hello to Edward Padilla, former secretary-treasurer and business manager for the Bakersfield, California, office of a construction workers union. Padilla, who also served as president of his union, embezzled more than $160,000 according the federal court documents....

And on, and on, and on.

posted by Ace of Spades at 07:06 PM

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