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Teamsters’ Vegas Convention Calls for CEO Prosecutions & Union Pension Bailout

Posted by LaborUnionReport (Profile)

Monday, July 4th, 2011 at 8:00PM EDT

Despite the bribery scandals, the dancers, and the jokes about the millions of their members’ dues that Teamster bosses spent in Las Vegas last week at the union’s 28th international convention, delegates did accomplish one thing of note: The delegates passed a resolution that, among other things, calls for a “financial rescue package for struggling union pensions” (also known as the $165 billion union pension bailout).

Following last year’s failure of Democrats (and a few Republicans, like new GOP-presidential hopeful Thad McCotter) to get taxpayers to shell out up to $165 billion to prop up union pension funds, unions have continued to bemoan the fact that they have been unable to dip their beaks into the public treasury as Wall St. fat cats did in 2008.

Meanwhile, as hundreds of union pension funds are listed in critical status, union bosses (including the Teamsters) continue to misleadingly blame the financial meltdown of 2008 for their ills. The fact of the matter is, many union pension funds were already underfunded before the economy tanked.

For example, the Teamsters notorious Central States Pension Fund (ironically, the same pension plan that helped build the Las Vegas strip) was estimated to be only half funded in 2007 when Teamsters president James P. Hoffa reportedly allowed UPS to withdraw from the fund in exchange for unionizing UPS Freight.