Philly union subsidizes contractor who stole from it

By Jillian Kay Melchior | National Review Online

In 2008, a Philadelphia electrical contractor named Donald “Gus” Dougherty Jr. pleaded guilty to 99 counts, including illegally gifting more than $100,000 in free work to a union boss and stealing from the health and welfare fund of the International Brotherhood of Electrical Workers Local 98, of which he is a member.

But since Gus Dougherty was released from prison in November 2010, the same union he stole from has given his company, Dougherty Electric, Inc., at least $270,000 “to subsidize contractor to create jobs,” records filed with the Department of Labor show.

That’s just one of many oddities surrounding the interactions between Gus Dougherty and his company and Philadelphia’s Local 98 and its powerful boss, John “Johnny Doc” Dougherty. Though the two men share a last name and have been friends since childhood, they’re not related, according to court records and several newspaper articles.

at National Review Online.