Officers of a 190-member support staff union in New York allegedly whisked away more than $112,000 in dues, according to a fidelity bond claim filed by New York State United Teachers and obtained by the Albany Times Union.
Union representatives of the tiny BOCES Rensselaer-Columbia-Greene Special Support Services Federation stand accused of writing themselves checks, attending AFT conferences they couldn’t legitimately afford, and holding “holiday parties that no one attended.”
Where the dues were spent make for great headlines, but the key aspect of the incident is how such a small local union had access to so much money.
It is standard practice for school districts to extract all levels of union dues — national, state and local — from each members’ paycheck, then deliver that lump sum to the local union. The local union then keeps its share, and passes the rest to the state union. The state union keeps its share and passes the rest to the national union. So, for a period of time the local union holds a full amount of dues.