DETAILS ABOUT THE UNITED FOOD AND COMMERCIAL WORKERS INTERNATIONAL UNION
UNITED FOOD AND COMMERCIAL WORKERS UNION CORRUPTION
Certainly, corruption can exist in any institution, corporation or government agency. Like any other organization, unions are not immune to it and, in fact, have many instances of corruption and other crimes in their history.
Unfortunately, it is the members who have been hurt by those actions.
Union officers stealing members' money is one of the most common forms of corruption. Every year the U.S. Department of Labor publishes a list of the ones they caught (of course, there's no way of knowing how many they didn't catch).
Here are just a few examples:
United Food And Commercial Workers Union
In the International Union
The United Food and Commercial Workers has been rocked by corruption scandals, some reaching into the highest ranks of the International Union. In the late 1990s, the union’s number-two man, Secretary-Treasurer Joseph C. Talarico, went to prison for embezzling nearly $1 million from UFCW Local 1, which he had previously headed. Members of Talarico’s family held numerous other union positions, and some were also charged and sentenced for corruption offenses.
The corrupt ethics embodied by Talaricos have not been entirely rooted out of the UFCW. Recently, Daniel Rush, the head of the union’s “marijuana organizing division,” was charged by federal prosecutors for taking kickbacks from marijuana businesses for his assistance in securing various operating permits from California’s marijuana dispensary regulators. Rush had been on a six-figure salary from the International Union before he was fired after charges were filed. Rush would plead guilty to three felony counts of money laundering in 2017.
In Local Labor Unions
Corruption and other bad behavior by officers continue to dog UFCW local unions. In San Diego, California, Mickey Kasparian, who heads UFCW Local 135, has been sued by two former employees for sexual harassment and sex discrimination. Kasparian was sacked as head of the San Diego and Imperial Counties Labor Council, a local AFL-CIO group, by AFL-CIO President Richard Trumka after the allegations became public.
Proven financial corruption has also been uncovered in recent years. In 2011, federal prosecutors charged three members of the Fazio family, who controlled UFCW Local 348-S, with numerous counts related to labor racketeering that involved the extortion of employers whose workers were UFCW 348-S members. At trial, evidence was introduced suggesting the Fazios had enabled their extortion schemes by claiming to be involved with organized crime. The Fazios were all convicted, with two sentenced to over ten years’ imprisonment each and the third sentenced to five years’ imprisonment.