Politicians Accelerate Chicago’s Race to Ruin
Chicago's financial crisis deepens due to reckless union-backed legislation increasing pension liabilities, with leaders failing to take corrective action.
Union Boss Under Federal Scrutiny
Sean Harrigan, a union boss with the United Food and Commercial Workers, is under scrutiny by the Securities and Exchange Commission, ProPublica reports.
In a nutshell, it appears that financial firms showered nearly $1 million in political cash on the United Food and Commercial Workers union in California while Harrigan sat on the boards of big public pension funds in the state. Harrigan’s union pulled about a third of the $3 million it raised from 2001 to 2006 from players in the financial industry. About $500,000 came from donors who had business dealings with CalPERS, then the nation’s biggest pension fund. Campaign contributions have figured in a wide-ranging investigation of pension fund kickbacks in New York, where Attorney General Andrew Cuomo issued an indictment naming several prominent investment firms that allegedly took part in a vast pay-to-play scheme.
