While Democrats fumed over a handful of pilfered artifacts in Baghdad last month, the son-in-law of a top Washington, D.C., teachers' union official pleaded guilty in federal court to money laundering charges involving nearly half a million dollars' of union funds. Michael Wayne Martin created a bogus company and funneled more than $480,000 in checks from the Washington Teachers Union into a bank account for the fake firm.
Martin kept some of the money for himself to cover personal expenses including his home mortgage, credit card bills, car notes, vehicle maintenance, home improvement projects, his kids' school bills, Washington Redskins tickets, and limo service. The rest of the booty was repaid to former union president Barbara Bullock; her aide, Gwendolyn Hemphill (Martin's mother-in-law); and former union treasurer James Baxter.
I would rather think of this story as Enron from the other end. Unions have the power to abuse as much as any big business, but rarely get the same flak. Whereas you can choose where you work, in many states you can't choose membership in the Union, it's decided for you.
Somehow unions get cover because they are there to “protect” the workers, but in reality, they are just as self-serving as any other organization. What I think bothers me most is that they take your money under the guise of collective bargaining and then they give it to political candidates that support higher taxes. In effect, workers have their money forcefully taken to promote the pillaging of more of their money.
Why do we allow this in a free country?
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