President of United Transportation Union faces executive board trial

[Zeb]

By DAN MARGOLIES - The Kansas City Star

The executive board of the United Transportation Union has decided to try the union’s Kansas City-based president for allegedly misleading members about a proposed merger with another union.

The board informed Paul C. Thompson on Tuesday that it had voted to proceed to trial on various charges, which concern the union’s pending combination with the Sheet Metal Workers International Association.

The trial, an internal union proceeding, is to take place Dec. 13 at the union’s headquarters in Cleveland.

The United Transportation Union has about 80,000 members, with more than half in the rail industry, including many in Kansas City. The union was formed through the merger of four rail unions in 1969 and bills itself as the largest railroad operating union in North America.

In August, union members overwhelming approved the merger with the Sheet Metal Workers, which is scheduled to take effect Jan. 1. The merger will create a 230,000-member organization called the International Association of Sheet Metal, Air, Rail and Transportation Workers, or SMART.

Among other allegations, Thompson is accused of intentionally withholding an important merger document from members and lying about a SMART constitution that he allegedly knew didn’t exist.

The charges were brought by Roy Arnold, an international vice president of the union. Arnold also made the same allegations against Rick Marceau, the union’s assistant president.

Arnold did not return calls seeking comment.

Thompson, who lives in the Kansas City area, could not be reached for comment. Frank Wilner, a spokesman for the union, confirmed that charges had been filed against Thompson and Marceau and that the union would hold a trial on Dec. 13.

“As far as what the charges are, we are not discussing them, and we are not commenting further,” Wilner said.

Although more than 71 percent of union members ratified the merger with the Sheet Metal Workers, a faction calling itself “Save Our Union” has emerged to oppose it. The faction claims that the merger will leave the UTU with no treasury of its own and that the union’s constitution will be gutted.

The charges against Thompson and Marceau were posted on Save Our Union’s Web site, www.freewebs.com/savetheutu.

Thompson and Marceau are retiring Dec. 31. But if the union’s executive board upholds the charges, they could be removed from office before that date, which, in theory, could allow Thompson’s successor to scuttle the merger.

Earlier this year, Thompson’s hand-picked successor lost the election to replace him.

Thompson became president in 2004 after two former presidents of the union pleaded guilty in Houston to conspiracy charges for extorting money from attorneys Byron A. Boyd Jr. and Charles L. Little, were each sentenced in 2004 to two years in prison.

The case centered on charges that lawyers had paid them as much as $30,000 in return for being allowed to represent injured union members. The case was brought in Houston because five of the lawyers who paid money were from the Houston area. The lawyers cooperated with prosecutors.

[Zeb]

Below is a reply to the article from UTU VP Roy Arnold


Dear Mr. Margolies,

I wish to respond to the following statement made by UTU President Paul Thompson.
"Moreover, UTU Vice President Roy Arnold, who brought the charges against me and Mr. Marceau, is disgruntled, as he was defeated in a re-election bid and also ordered to pay the UTU the value of a UTU-owned computer that he destroyed. When the damaged hard-drive was analyzed by a hard-drive recovery firm, it was found to contain pornography, in violation of UTU policy."

I have no vested interest in harming Mr. Thompson or Mr.Marceau. However I do care about the UTU membership and feel like they were lied to about the merger. This is the only reason I submitted the charges.
I had recently purchased my own laptop.The laptop Mr. Thompson talks about was turned in voluntarily by me and it was working when I left it in my office to be picked up by the staff.
Mr. Thompson contacted me several days later by calling me to his office and acussed me of posting anti administration articles on a website and threating me that if I did "not pay for the computer he would see to it that I never worked for UTU again." Naturally, this was a shock to me and for arguements sake I payed his bill that he was upset about.
I told him that I did not post any such article to a website although I may have visited them. Nothing was mentioned about porongrapy!
If there was pornography sites on the laptop, its because of constant pop-ups by such sites. Several UTU office employees experiece the same. UTU does not have a popup or anti spam for its server because it interferes with the other programs they have installed. Even today when on line at work such pop-ups from these porn sites still happen.
Mr. Thompson trys to destroy the integrity of any person who does not agree with him.

*
Posted by: Roy Arnold