One of nation’s most powerful public sector unions shelled out thousands of dollars to watch the World Series champion Boston Red Sox in 2013, according to federal filings.
The headquarters of the National Association of Government Employees (NAGE), a partner organization with political powerhouses SEIU and AFL-CIO, spent more than $15,000 on season tickets to Fenway Park on Dec. 7, 2012. The itemized report listed the tickets as "general overhead."
"First I’ve heard of it," an SEIU press officer said in an email to the Washington Free Beacon. He did not respond to follow-up emails. NAGE did not respond to requests for comment.
Labor watchdogs, including Workforce Fairness Institute spokesman Fred Wszolek, said that such luxurious expenses are "hardly shocking" given the amount of money coming into unions through dues payments.
The union represents more than 40,000 members, who contribute an average of $9 to the union every week, according to the Center for Union Facts.
"There’s no reasonable explanation for why this is justifiable," Wszolek said. "They’re crusading against the ‘One Percent’ who are holding the rest of us down, but they’re speaking out of both sides of their mouth. As long as they’re well taken care of, they’re good."
Union officials benefit from generous compensation packages, according to the Office of Labor-Management Standards filings. NAGE national president David Holway received nearly $280,000 in total compensation to run the union in 2012, while a dozen other officials earned more than six figures in compensation.
The season tickets purchase came several years after the union was embroiled in a scandal involving the baseball team. A high-ranking NAGE member was accused of accepting Red Sox tickets in 2008 from a contractor who later received lucrative contracts related to Boston’s Big Dig. A state ethics panel later cleared him of wrongdoing.
Labor critics said that the ticket purchase boils down to a lack of transparency at the local and national level.
The Obama administration relaxed union disclosure standards in 2009 following complaints from some of the nation’s largest labor unions, including SEIU President Andy Stern. The new Labor Department regulations allowed unions to use less detail when reporting how they spend revenue collected from dues.
"If there’s one thing unions hate more than any other, it’s transparency. Thus it’s of little surprise that one of Obama’s first gifts to organized labor was relaxing reporting requirements under the [Labor-Management Reporting and Disclosure Act]," said Richard Berman, executive director of the Center for Union Facts.
NAGE provides union officials with talking points to justify high dues rates.
"Dues are a touchy topic in any union. And when times are tough, almost any expense can seem burdensome to workers," the script reads. Officials are also supposed to focus on wage negotiations, "winning improved legislation and public services," as well as, "office rents, travel, supplies, and administration."
No mention is made of Red Sox tickets.
Wszolek said that bringing back the detailed expenditures that existed under the Bush-era department could help protect workers from seeing their money spent on luxury goods, rather than representational activities.
"If they had to itemize in great detail, their members would be shocked at how much of their money is spent on the care and feeding of the bosses," Wszolek said.