Roughly 14 years after a Kansas City Star investigation exposed in detail how top bosses of the International Brotherhood of Boilermakers (IBB) union were living the high life at forced dues-paying rank-and-filers’ expense, some degree of justice has finally been served.
On June 5, a federal jury in Kansas convicted former Boilermakers President Newton Jones, who had headed the union from 2003 until 2023, his wife, Kateryna, and two other IBB bosses of embezzling millions of dollars in union dues extracted from workers as a condition of employment.
In the words of Assistant Attorney General A. Tyson Duva of the U.S. Justice Department (DOJ), union-“represented” workers’ money was “wasted on lavish trips and dinners, and unearned vacation payouts” for top union officials and their cronies.
After the union bigwigs’ convictions on racketeering, fraud and embezzlement counts were announced, U.S. Attorney for the District of Kansas Ryan Kregshauser decried the “absolute hubris and entitlement” with which the defendants had stolen from workers.
According to a recap of evidence presented at the trial in a DOJ news release, funds embezzled from the union hierarchy’s forced dues-laden treasuries financed, in part:
• “Over $5 million” in “unnecessary luxury international travel”;
• “Nearly $2 million” in salary and benefits for Kateryna Jones and others for “no-show jobs, at which they were not required to work,” including payment of “two years of salary” for a period when the future Mrs. Jones was “still residing in Ukraine” and dating Boss Jones;
• “$7 million in unauthorized loans” from the IBB to a “bank” at which Boss Jones and then-IBB Secretary Treasurer William Kreeden had “supposed full-time jobs that required little work.”
Robert McCall, president of the IBB-founded “Bank of Labor,” testified that Boss Jones had raked in $498,000 a year from this “bank” while visiting it only three or four times annually!
National Right to Work Committee Vice President Greg Mourad commented:
“In 1965, U.S. Sen. John McClellan [D-Ark.], who had from 1957 to 1960 chaired a select committee investigating corruption in labor-management relations, said these words to his colleagues as he defended Right to Work protections:
“‘I can tell the Senate without hesitation that there is still much corruption in some labor unions today and, moreover, that compulsory unionism and corruption go hand in hand.’
“The Boilermakers crimes illustrate how Sen. McClellan’s words are truer than ever today. For more than a decade after top IBB bosses’ exploitation of the union treasury as their personal piggy bank was publicly exposed, no indictments or internal shakeups happened. Arguably, Boss Jones would still be running the operation today had not he and others on the union board begun publicly quarrelling in 2023 about how the loot would be divided up.”
Mr. Mourad added that, even today, a couple of years after Boss Jones and several other since-convicted crooks were finally forced out of office, some rank-and-filers believe unindicted coconspirators continue to hold top union positions.
Mr. Mourad specifically cited a complaint filed this February by two members of Kansas City-based IBB Local 83 that alleges “at least four current members” of the IBB executive board are “reportedly under active federal investigation and face potential indictment.”
“Compulsory unionism emboldens Big Labor criminals. They know workers who suspect their money is being misused can’t fight back by quitting the union and cutting off all financial support for it,” said Mr. Mourad.
“Meanwhile, pro-forced unionism politicians like Missouri U.S. GOP Sen. Josh Hawley keep pretending they have never even heard of union corruption.
“The fact is, the IBB is based in Missouri. How can Mr. Hawley be unaware of what’s going on in his own backyard?”
This article was originally published in our monthly newsletter. Go here to access previous newsletter posts.
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