According to financial reports on file with the U.S. Department of Labor, a local Michigan Teamster boss took in nearly $90,000 in 2011.
Obviously, though, the income Al Sprague made from his members’ dues wasn’t enough for him because, the Jackson (MI) Teamster boss decided to file for unemployment compensation.
What’s worse is that the State of Michigan apparently granted his request for unemployment compensation.
This, as well as other alleged transgressions were outlined in a January 30th letter from the Teamsters General President Jim Hoffa to Local 164’s officers and membership as Hoffa put the local into trusteeship:
The national organization has found that local president Al Sprague has served as a business agent but has also applied for and received unemployment compensation from the state of Michigan, among other discrepancies, according to a letter from the organization’s general president James P. Hoffa.
Hoffa also said in the letter that secretary and treasurer William Bernard claims that the union owes him about $150,000 in accumulated unused vacation pay. Local 164’s total liquid assets are less than $39,000, the letter stated.
Taking unemployment while drawing a Teamster salary is probably taboo from a PR standpoint for any union.
Hoffa, however, is not necessarily opposed to Teamster bosses taking multiple salaries, as the Teamsters for a Democratic Union point out each year.
Nevertheless, Sprague is proclaiming his innocence, stating that a recent lawsuit resulted in his local union being short of funds and, therefore, he convinced his union’s executive board to lay him off temporarily.
via MLive:
Sprague told the board that if they put him on temporary layoff, he would receive no earnings from the union, but would continue his presidential and limited business agent duties. This way, the union could use those savings to build the treasury back up, he said.
Sprague said the board approved of laying him off, starting in March 2012, for 20 weeks.
During that time, he applied and received state unemployment benefits, he said.
“I went off unemployment, and I continued not to receive a paycheck,” Sprague said. “I never filed for an extension.”
Whether or not Sprague’s actions were appropriate or fraudulent will be decided by the union’s headquarters in Washington, DC and, perhaps, the State of Michigan.
[Note: It is unknown, however, whether the state is investigating the Teamster local’s actions at this time.]
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“Truth isn’t mean. It’s truth.”
Andrew Breitbart (1969-2012)
