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2 Year Olds On Payroll
Posted by Raven on June 9th, 2005
Hmm let’s use some little kids for Union purposes. Unbelievable.
Massport’s union longshoremen have been placing kids as young as 2 years old on the payroll in a long-running scheme to give them bogus seniority that fattens the wages they fetch as adult dock-workers years later, investigators contend.
“We believe the fraudulent activity went on long enough so that people appearing on payroll records as children are now receiving the benefit of the fraud and working there as adults,” said David Guarino, a spokesman for Attorney General Tom Reilly, last night.
But one longshoreman defended the practice as a way to keep generations of the same families on the job.
Defending this practice?? Excuse me?? How can they even be serious?
“How is that bad if they can get their son a job?” said the longshoreman, who declined to give his name. “I wish my father had done it for me because I am not getting the full pay rate.”
Buddy, consider yourself lucky you even have a job. And I know how much you get paid…stop whining.
But prosecutors suspect the practice – allegedly perpetrated by the powerful International Longshoreman’s Association for more than a dozen years – goes far beyond reasonable family loyalty and may have cost Massport and its customers millions of dollars.
By showing up on payroll records as young as 2, employees could have falsely claimed years’ worth of wages inflated by several dollars an hour.
Massport officials said the scheme began to unravel two months ago when they noticed a large discrepancy in payroll records.
“We were absolutely shocked,” Massport spokeswoman Danny Levy said. “When Massport was made aware of the discrepancy, we contacted the attorney general and began our own internal audit.”
Reilly’s office has launched a grand jury investigation into the scheme and plans to call witnesses in coming weeks, according to a statement by Kurt Schwartz, chief of Reilly’s criminal bureau.
Massport pays longshoremen hourly union wages on a seniority scale to offload ships at Conley Terminal in South Boston. Officials said fewer than 100 longshoremen are members of the union that performs work for Massport.
Of course this has cost people money. How could it not?
June 9th, 2005 at 8:21 am
You gotta love the longshoreman’s logic – kinda like if I steal a bike for my son – what’s so wrong with that if it helped my little guy get a bike??
Arghhh!
June 9th, 2005 at 8:43 am
Oh corruption and the unbelieveable rationalizations behind it. Like GSR said above, the logic just doesn’t work, much like a 2 yr old. If you aren’t working, usually you don’t get paid. Call it my crazy work ethic. :mrgreen:
June 9th, 2005 at 9:47 am
No Duncan…since when does one have to actually be at work, working, in order to make money?? You live in such a conservative world. :mrgreen:
June 14th, 2005 at 6:46 am
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