Union using nonunion labor to build retirement home for former president...shouldn't he have to declare the house usage as income? Time for unions to pay Federal taxes!

Union using nonunion labor to build retirement home for former president

by Sean Higgins

 | November 02, 2018 09:49 AM

 

The United Auto Workers has contracted with a nonunion builder to make the foundation for a Michigan retirement home for its former president, Dennis Williams. The home will be owned by the union, but provided free of charge to Williams, who stepped down in June amid a widening scandal regarding misuse of union funds. 

The union, through its nonprofit education center, hired Robiadek & Sons Excavating in Cheboygan, Mich., to lay the foundation and install the septic system for a three-bedroom, 1,885-square-foot home for Williams. 

"We are nonunion... I know the union is out there and everything, but to find a union contractor around this area, there are no union excavators and the bigger ones wouldn’t tackle that size of a job," President Chuck Robiadek told the Detroit News.

The UAW claims they just couldn't find a good union contractor in the area who could submit a reasonable bid for the project. So they were obliged to use a nonunion one. 

"The UAW always hires union members and contracts with union contractors when available," UAW spokesman Brian Rothenberg said in a statement provided to the Washington Examiner. "None of those bids – all of which were from union contractors – were accepted as the UAW believed those bids were too high for the cabin construction. Instead, the UAW is using members of the United Steelworkers, who work full-time at Black Lake, as the general contractor and builders of the new cabin, along with their work on other projects at Black Lake." 

Federal prosecutors have been probing for over a year whether officials at UAW and Fiat-Chrysler America siphoned off funds from a jointly-run worker training center for their own use. The U.S. attorney's office has obtained seven convictions, including that of Nancy Johnson, a former top UAW contract negotiator. Johnson reportedly told prosecutors in July that Williams was involved in siphoning off the funds. Williams has not been charged in relation to the probe. 

In a statement at the UAW's June constitutional convention, Williams said he and other union leaders were unaware of any wrongdoing. 

At the same constitutional convention, the UAW granted Williams free use of a cabin for the rest of his life as thanks for his "steadfast dedication and commitment to the principals and ideals of the UAW... [A]s a gesture of our appreciation, as we have historically done for our past retiring presidents, we hereby honor Dennis further by authorizing the availability of a cabin at the Walter and May Reuther Family Education Center at Black Lake for his use – at no personal cost – whenever he is staying at the facility."