Ex-UAW President Dennis Williams
Talk about poor optics.
The United Auto Workers is using nonunion labor to build a lakefront home on Black Lake, near Cheboygan for retired President Dennis Williams, a money saving move, reports Robert Snell of The Detroit News:
"Interviews with contractors and bid documents help pinpoint the original cost of a construction project being built amid an FBI investigation into whether union leaders' have spent membership dues and money from Detroit's automakers on personal luxuries...
"The UAW has provided homes at Black Lake for generations of retired presidents, but the Williams home is the first being built during a federal investigation into union spending."
To save money, the union has hired a nonunion electrician, a nonunion excavation company and is in talks to hire a nonunion plumber to work on the three-bedroom, three-and-a-half bath, 1,885-square-foot stone home at the UAW Walter and May Reuther Family Education Center in Onaway, Snell reports. The 1,000-acre retreat in northern Michigan is financed with interest from the union's $721 million strike fund, which is bankrolled by worker dues, Snell notes.
UAW spokesman Brian Rothenberg tells the paper the union is using members of the United Steelworkers, who work full time at the education center, as general contractor on the Williams home.
"The UAW always hires union members and contracts with union contractors when available," Rothenberg writes in an email to The News.
Williams has not been charged in the ongoing FBI probe into the union and automakers. But federal prosecutors have accused him of directing subordinates to use funds from Detroit’s automakers, funneled through training centers, to pay for union travel, meals and entertainment.
