BostonHerald.com - Union put kids on payroll in seniority scam

It will be interesting to see how this shakes out...

From a June 9, 2005, article written by Casey Ross for the Boston Herald:

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...

I feel obliged to add that, regardless of what the newpaper's headline says, at this point we are dealing with allegations which are being investigated, and for which there apparently is some evidence. Don't go convicting anybody just yet. But...

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."

Full article

Hat tip: Political Capital