Jones would meet with graduate students, according to two Region 5 officials, he would often joke that “my major was partying” as a way to belittle their academic experience.
Jones feared that adding members in higher education would threaten his power base among blue-collar workers. He blocked a promising effort to organize thousands of research assistants within the University of California system, according to two officials. Jones, by contrast, appeared to be more conservative and less interested in new organizing opportunities. Jones acquired a few humidors for the regional headquarters in Hazelwood, Mo. Williams after becoming regional director. Jones, who was not previously a regular cigar smoker, turned himself into a cigar aficionado in the mold of Mr. Williams in order to succeed him as president. In interviews, three union officials said it was clear that Mr. ‘Official B,’ who also enjoyed the lavish lifestyle,” according to the federal complaint, referring to Mr. The hotel declined to comment.Ī crucial purpose of the spending by Mr. officials who wanted to play golf or buy golf apparel were told to charge the purchase to the Gary Jones “group,” and the bill would flow to the master account at the Renaissance Hotel. Jones became regional director in 2012, he took an active role in directing the Palm Springs spending, prosecutors have asserted. Jones personally received hundreds of thousands of dollars from this scheme from 2010 to 2017, according to prosecutors.Īfter Mr. The two men would split the reimbursement. Jones and a colleague began submitting receipts that had already been reimbursed, or that they had manufactured, to a fund that supports the union’s political efforts. At least as early as 2010, according to court filings, Mr. Jones did not appear to blanch at this culture of financial laxness. press officer declined to comment on those complaints. “A lot of people saw things and did not react with the moral clarity that they exercised in every other situation,” she said. Bunn also recalled facing internal pressure while investigating wrongdoing in the region. Wells, Palm Springs was known as a place where officials could enjoy themselves at union expense for well beyond the length of a conference, though the behavior may have been legal. Jones’s predecessor as president, Dennis Williams, is accused of encouraging the use of Fiat Chrysler funds meant for worker education as a way to pay for the extravagant spending in Palm Springs and other places.Įlizabeth Bunn, who served as the U.A.W.’s second-ranking officer from 2002 to 2010, said that under Mr. The scandal comes on top of an investigation into company and union officials’ improper use of millions of dollars from a joint Fiat Chrysler-U.A.W. officials spent on golf outings, four-figure dinners and monthslong villa rentals during regular retreats in Palm Springs, Calif., and elsewhere. And the cigar purchases were in turn just a small portion of the roughly $1 million in union money that court filings say U.A.W. officials expensed to the union between 20. The purchases, documented by a federal complaint filed against a union leader in September, were part of more than $60,000 in cigars and cigar paraphernalia that Mr. “Hi Gary, Thank you & Happy New Year,” read a handwritten note from the store. His purchases included a dozen $268 boxes of Ashton Double Magnums and a dozen boxes of Ashton Monarchs at $274.50 each.
On a single day in December 2015, Gary Jones, who resigned last month as president of the United Automobile Workers, spent more than $13,000 of the union’s money at a cigar store in Arizona.
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