I am a little late to the party on this (the website says it went up in 2005), but I saw for the first time today a great site by a lady named Linda Sexton. Linda was elected president of CWA Local 9509 in a secret ballot election. Except the CWA didn’t like how the vote turned out. Instead of installing their new president, Sexton was denied her office. The union was fined several thousand dollars for refusing to pay Sexton wages due (oh, by the way, this money came out of union dues). As of now it appears that Sexton still has not been awarded the seat she won in the election – 2 years later!
Small wonder unions like the CWA are opposed to secret ballot elections. Makes things too messy, when it is just so much easier to just put your cronies into power.
This case also illustrates how difficult it is to prosecute union corruption. Take a look at my monograph on union corruption published by the National Legal Policy Center’s labor accountability project for more information on this problem.
