A former executive of Fiat-Chrysler, Alphons Iacobelli, has been indicted by a grand jury on charges of stealing millions of dollars from a union employee training center account while he worked with the automaker. He used the money for lavish gifts for himself and his United Auto Worker (UAW) main negotiating partner, General Holiefield. Holiefield was a vice president at UAW who led the negotiations with Fiat-Chrysler from 2008 to 2014. He passed away from cancer in 2015.
Monica Morgan, Holiefield’s widow who benefited from Iacobelli’s illegal payments of $1.2 million, and Fiat-Chrysler accountant Jerome Durden have also been charged with the crime. Three other Fiat-Chrysler employees were mentioned in the indictment, but their names have been withheld.
Although negotiations between unions and companies are often portrayed as adversarial, the industry has seen cases where union representatives and executives crossed lines to create illegal and private relationships. Volkswagen saw a similar case a decade ago, when an employee and union executive used funds for personal gain.
Both UAW and Fiat-Chrysler say they are cooperating with investigators.
Read more about the indictment here.
Labor Related Articles
On Sunday, 7/23/17, RWP Labor Vice President, Rusty Brown, testified before the Texas Senate Committee on Business and Commerce for a bill to end the practice of unions using the government to collect union dues for its public employee members. The bill ultimately passed with a vote of 6-3 and now heads to the Senate floor. Because of current technology, which provides safe and efficient ways to schedule automatic deductions, the union practice is outdated. Unions, fearing they will lose many members if they don’t have the state serving up a de facto endorsement, have pushed back against this progress. It’s easier for them to hold on to legislation that guarantees their revenue stream than it is for them to go out and earn their money by bargaining for the better pay and benefits that they promised to their members in the first place. In addition, government sector unions are exempt from the Labor Management Reporting and Disclosure Act, which requires unions to file financial transparency reports with the department of labor. Because government unions have no accountability to the members they represent, this revenue hit would impact their dark money pool. This pool is often used to support worker centers and political agendas the majority of their members would likely oppose.
Perhaps the saddest part of the hearing was the parade of union activists testifying that the majority of government employees in Texas don’t have bank accounts. They claim this is the way it must continue for these people to have access to union representation. That is a good old-fashioned lie! While there may be government employees without bank accounts, they would be the exception, not the rule. Paying bills is not convenient for anyone, but it’s a fact of life. People without bank accounts still manage to pay their bills and other necessities every month, without the government deducting these expenses from their paychecks. It is not appropriate or necessary for the state of Texas to serve as the unions’ debt collector any longer. We support the passing of SB 7 and 94.
GM has cut shifts at several of their plants this year in response to decreased car sales. Representatives say this could be the start of larger cutbacks, resulting from shrinking production in small and mid-sized sedans. United Auto Workers (UAW) has stated they are “talking to (GM) right now about the products that they currently have” at car plants in Michigan and Ohio, and whether they might be able to produce more popular vehicles, like crossovers, at those locations. In addition, UAW has planned a “Buy American” campaign for Labor Day weekend.
GM dealers ended June with a six month supply of some of their models, which is four months more than ideal. The slump in sales, due in part to reduced gasoline prices driving up demand for larger vehicles, has impacted nearly all United States auto manufacturers. However, GM’s decline in sales for June at 36% far exceeded the industry-wide decrease of 14% for the same month.
Currently, GM is considering cutting six vehicles from their line, including the Chevy Volt, which would be replaced by a gasoline-electric crossover in 2022. The plant most likely to be impacted by these cuts is the Hamtramck plant in Detroit, which opened in 1985. Sales have been down 32% at Hamtramck from the same period in 2016.
Read more about GM’s production shifts here, and UAW’s “Buy American” campaign here.
After nearly two years with National Labor Relations Board (NLRB) vacancies, the Senate labor committee has approved the nominations of Marvin Kaplan and William Emanual to fill vacant spots. Committee Chairman Lamar Alexander has called on the Senate to quickly confirm the nominees and “restore the stability that American workers deserve.”
Mr. Kaplan is currently Chief Counsel for the Occupational Safety and Health Review Commission, and Mr. Emanuel is a labor and employment attorney.
Chairman Alexander’s full prepared remarks and more detailed bios on the candidates can be found here.
In the first six months of President Trump’s term in office, he has fulfilled his promise to cancel foreign agreements that hurt American businesses. Now he needs to push Congress to revamp maritime laws that provide unfair advantages to international shipping companies. One such legislation is the Shipping Act, a century-old law that provides antitrust immunity to ocean carriers who work together to negotiate service terms.
While the Shipping Act was initially designed to protect American ocean carriers, today there are no U.S. companies within the three big shipping alliances. In order to rectify this imbalance, lawmakers need to give the Federal Maritime Commission (FMC) more power under the Shipping Act so they can challenge anti-competitive practices and monitor the broader effects of collusion by foreign alliances.
Read more about this antiquated law and several solutions to fix it in the Washington Examiner article I authored here.
President Trump has sent the names of four new nominees to the Senate this week. Those nominations included Anna Maria Farias for Assistant Secretary of Housing and Urban Development, Marvin Kaplan for Member of the National Labor Relations Board, Patrick Pizzella for Deputy Secretary of Labor, and Lance Allen Robertson for Assistant Secretary for Aging, Department of Health and Human Services.
Read the official White House press release here.
Articles by the RWP Team
