Union Treasurer Gambling with Elder and Child Care Dollars?

According to The Oregonian, something appears to be fishy at the Amalgamated Transit Union Local 757:

Two years ago, TriMet [Tri-County Metropolitan Transportation District of Oregon] filed an unfair labor complaint after it couldn’t find out whether a union-run program for elder and child care that the agency had been pumping money into even existed.

The union’s treasurer eventually produced paperwork tracing the $375,000 in public money TriMet had contributed up to that time, and the agency dropped the complaint.

But now officials suspect that the evidence they saw was falsified to hide an embezzlement scheme.

Leaders of the Amalgamated Transit Union Local 757 have accused Thomas V. Wallace, the local’s elected treasurer, of embezzling money from the elder and child care account to feed a gambling addiction.

Far too many federal and state laws empower union officials to the point of corruption. The ability to demand forced funding from unwilling, and often unknowing participants (non-members and taxpayers alike), along with the special judicially-created exemption in the Hobbs Anti-Extortion Act for union-related violence and extortion, help corrupt union officials avoid the public scrutiny and response necessary to protect the interests of America’s workers and taxpayers alike.

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