{"id":341507,"date":"2017-12-29T07:31:45","date_gmt":"2017-12-29T06:31:45","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/newswire\/canada-former-cupe-chief-steward-caught-in-cash-for-jobs-scandal\/"},"modified":"2017-12-29T07:31:45","modified_gmt":"2017-12-29T06:31:45","slug":"canada-former-cupe-chief-steward-caught-in-cash-for-jobs-scandal","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/newswire\/canada-former-cupe-chief-steward-caught-in-cash-for-jobs-scandal\/","title":{"rendered":"Canada: Former CUPE chief steward caught in cash-for-jobs scandal"},"content":{"rendered":"<div id=\"content\">\n<h3 class=\"nomargin\">\u00a0<\/h3>\n<h2>Canada: Former CUPE chief steward caught in cash-for-jobs scandal<\/h2>\n<h5>\n<p>    By<br \/>\n    Carl Bronski<br \/>\n    <br \/>29 December 2017<\/p>\n<\/h5>\n<p>Ontario labour arbitrator Paula Knopf ruled earlier this month that a grievance filed by the Canadian Union of Public Employees (CUPE) Local 5001 can proceed to a hearing on February 23. The grievance concerns an extortion scandal at Toronto Western Hospital in which the union\u2019s chief shop steward allegedly demanded payments from job applicants for part-time cleaner positions. The chief shop steward, identified only as JL in the arbitrator\u2019s report, was fired by the hospital earlier this year.<\/p>\n<p>The union does not dispute JL\u2019s involvement, but is demanding that an independent investigation be pursued to ascertain the extent of hospital management\u2019s role in the kick-back scheme. Hospital management had refused to address the grievance arguing that any monies that changed hands did so before the job applicants had been hired.<\/p>\n<p>In statements examined by Knopf, several cleaners at the hospital complained that they had paid JL sums varying between $1,500 and $2,000 each in 2015 to be hired part time at $21 per hour. The scheme came to light when a cleaner threatened JL with exposing the cash-for-jobs scam. She was subsequently fired for \u201cunusual and unauthorized activity\u201d and alleges that her signature was forged on a memo concerning her termination. According to the cleaner, JL then demanded another $100 in exchange for a reference letter from hospital management.<\/p>\n<p>Since final hiring decisions and the writing of reference letters were the responsibility of management, hospital personnel investigated a manager closely associated with these matters but claimed that nothing implicated her. No record of the interview with the suspected manager was produced by the hospital&#8230;.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<p><a href=\"http:\/\/www.wsws.org\/en\/articles\/2017\/12\/29\/cupe-d29.html\">Read more<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>\u00a0 Canada: Former CUPE chief steward caught in cash-for-jobs scandal By Carl Bronski 29 December 2017 Ontario labour arbitrator Paula Knopf ruled earlier this month that a grievance filed by the Canadian Union of Public Employees (CUPE) Local 5001 can proceed to a hearing on February 23. The grievance concerns an extortion scandal at Toronto [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2526,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[519],"tags":[],"class_list":{"0":"post-341507","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","6":"category-newswire"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/341507","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2526"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=341507"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/341507\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=341507"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=341507"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=341507"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}