A United Auto Workers official has been hit with charges related to wire fraud and money laundering as part of the United States Department of Justice’s ongoing investigation into the worker’s union.
The official, Michael Grimes, is the first non-Fiat Chrysler UAW representative to be charged as part of the Justice Department investigation into the worker’s union. Grimes worked under the UAW’s General Motors department, serving as an administrative assistant before retiring abruptly last year.
Federal prosecutors allege Grimes received $1.99 million in illegal kickbacks between 2006-2018 after he organized UAW apparel and accessory contracts with companies owned by associates of his. His arrest could lead to the charges of more UAW GM employees as well, with the indictment against him alleging he worked under the direction of other senior officials.
Grimes’ scheme allegedly involved taking bribes in exchange for valuable union contracts for clothing – some of which were purchased through the UAW-GM Training Center. In one instance, he received a kickback worth $250,000 in exchange for a contract for over 50,000 UAW-branded watches. The watches were never delivered and are still sitting on UAW-GM Training Center property.
In a statement, the UAW said Grimes “benefitted only himself, not the UAW membership, and should be fully prosecuted to the extent of the law.”
“We are committed to continue putting in place more strong, enforceable reforms and more stringent financial controls throughout the Union,” the statement also said.
GM said it was co-operating with the federal investigation into the matter.
It’s expected that other GM UAW officials will be investigated going forward as well.
According to MLive, Grimes was a Democratic National Convention delegate in 2016 and was described by the UAW as “one of our own,” in a profile on its website.
“Mike has spent a lifetime helping and representing brothers and sisters in the UAW,” the profile said. “He has done everything from being a committeeman from ‘Down in the Hole’; to being Cindy Estrada’s (administrative assistant) during her past tenure being the VP for GM. Mike has been a lighthouse for all the UAW, and especially here at his home Local 659.”
The charges against Grimes carry a maximum sentence of up to 30 years.
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Comments
Trigger said back in January…
“I was taught a long time ago, garbage rolls downhill. Any incidents of this nature should have warranted a vising from the VP of HR to the plant and a full-scale investigation regarding the police and federal agencies. If this incident reached Barra’s desk when it first happened and nothing was done about it, she should be fired immediately.”
Source: http://gmauthority.com/blog/2019/01/lawsuit-details-several-racist-incidents-at-gm-toledo-plant/#comment-799982
Garbage still rolls downhill, Trigger. Everyone has blood on their hands. Your “Yeah, but…” comments won’t mean anything if people in position of authority, be it GM management or UAW brass, are all equally capable of being corrupted by power and money.
Funny how the whole mess was on UAW branded uniforms for the office and that they couldn’t even get proper professional looking uniforms on their line workers.
First I am flattered that you remembered a comment I posted in January!
Second, you may be surprised to know that I agree with you. There needs to be accountability in any organization in which there is a corruption be it a church, school, or government.
With that being said, with this mess, why weren’t these activities audited by GM since this was a joint program? I have thought in the past that the UAW was in bed with GM especially considering the crappy 2015 contract in which virtually no new product commitment was made for GM plants like they were at FCA and Ford.
In all truth, the phrase “garbage rolls downhill” stuck with me. Since then, I’ve been examining thing around me looking for examples of top-down corruption, or things open to corruption that might suffer from organizational inertia that would otherwise become unaware of corruption. My eternal pessimism and the principals of entropy make it easy to think of the best organized efforts of anything as being subject to slow erosion by innate human behavior of greed and pride which contributes to organizational corruption.
It’s scale, really. Corruption exists everywhere and can scale up or down, with the ramifications of such as negligible at best or world-ending at worst.
When are people going to realized that these days, most unions are just bullies with greedy, power/money hungry bosses. There was a time in America when they were needed, and they did used to help workers out quite a bit. These days, Most have corrupt bosses with workers that bully non-union members. Our local electricians union (IBEW 98) had a boss that was just indited on corruption charges and there is an investigation into whether other local unions were involved. That same union along with the local carpenters union recently started a fight with non union workers outside of a job. In the end, about $4200 worth of tools were damaged, and 6 guys were sent to the hospital. Didn’t even make the local news.
UAW branded watches. Lol.