National Legal and Policy Center -- Organized Labor Accountability Project
 
UNION CORRUPTION UPDATE
 
October 11, 1999 -- Vol. 2, Issue 21

 
For Influential Leaders & Important Decision Makers:
Information on America's most corrupt & aggressive unions

IRON WORKERS (BSOIW)
International Boss Indicted for Stealing $50,000
FBI agents arrested Int'l Ass'n of Bridge, Structural & Ornamental Iron Workers boss Fred. G. Summers Sep. 30 at Reagan Nat'l Airport on union embezzlement charges. Summers allegedly used the union's credit card to ring up over $50,000 in personal expenses. The indictment alleges that Summers had been embezzling from BSOIW for nearly five years, treating family members and friends to meals, entertainment and other benefits on over 150 occasions. The indictment says expenses included trips to the Indianapolis 500, a Wash. Redskins game in Chicago, a golf vacation in Palm Springs, and a weekend trip to Las Vegas. The expenses also included travel  for his 1998 wedding, meals on his Miami honeymoon and birthday parties for his daughter.

Summers pled not guilty in U.S. Dist. Court in Wash., D.C., to a 76-count indictment accusing him of embezzling from a union and making false entries in union records. Summers is BSOIW's executive director of organizing. He is the second boss charged in the federal probe. Ex-boss Michael J. Brennan pled guilty in Mar. 1999 to using BSOIW funds for personal entertainment. The probe grew out of allegations involving D.C. police corruption. The probe's focus is whether BSOIW president Jake West used union money for favors to ex-police chief Larry D. Soulsby. [Wash. Post 10/2/99; Wash. Times 10/5/99]

Union Corruption Update is made possible by the generous contributions from readers like you. Thank you.

In addition to the unions and organizations covered in this Union Corruption Update, readers can look forward to news and information on other corrupt and abusive unions in future editions.

All back issues of the Union Corruption Update can be viewed at NLPC's website (www.nlpc.org).  Also available is a union-by-union and state-by-state index of all Union Corruption Update articles.

If you have story ideas or suggestions for future editions of Union Corruption Update, please email NLPC at nlpc@nlpc.org.  Thank you.

Union Corruption Update is part of NLPC's Organized Labor Accountability Project which is investigating and exposing corruption and extremism in the Teamsters, LIUNA, AFL-CIO and many other union organizations. NLPC is a nonpartisan, nonprofit foundation promoting ethics and accountability in government through research, education and legal action.

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