Schaitberger: Treat Me Differently!
Deserves “confidentiality” and “process”
It’s an undisputed fact that Harold Schaitberger manipulated the IAFF pension fund to take an ill-gotten pension while also receiving a $300,000 salary for many years.
It’s also an undisputed fact that he padded his “vacation pay” because, well, $400,000+ in compensation just isn’t enough.
Caught red-handed, he is now facing an internal ethics investigation of dubious value given the (mostly) crooked executive board.
And, after the board cut his pension off, he is fighting to get it back, with a so-called “claims committee” of ever compliant and mincing vice-presidents. It’s even suggested he will sue the IAFF to get his way.
With the Wall Street Journal asking questions, Schaitberger’s meager and anemic defense of silence is that the IAFF is using a process to review the situation and it is confidential.
Now is the moment when we remember how Harold Schaitberger treated an IAFF member facing charges who actually deserved confidentiality and due process from his union.
In 2009, Darren Bates, an IAFF affiliate leader, was arrested in Iowa on trumped up charges completely unrelated to the IAFF; later, when his case was heard by a jury, he was acquitted immediately.
But the day after the arrest, word reached Schaitberger and he was as giddy as a 15-year-old on Porn Hub; his blood was up.
Working with vice-president Mark Woolbright, the same Woolbright who right now defends Schaitberger so ardently, he fired Bates from his IAFF consultant gig and then contacted the press about it while also issuing a self-righteous statement preening about his actions.
Schaitberger and Woolbright denied Darren Bates both due process and confidentiality but now that the shoe is on the other foot, press involvement and openness is suddenly described as “burning the house down” by Woolbright.
Apparently disclosure is only good when it’s about your enemies.
Woolbright wants thief-in-chief Schaitberger to have the due process and confidentiality he denied one of his own members.
This is much more than base hypocrisy because our core union values are at stake.
Unions exist to protect members and Schaitberger, Woolbright and their supporters show that where ethics and due process are concerned, there are two standards: one they apply to themselves and another for everyone else.
This is the rot at the core of the IAFF thanks to Harold Schaitberger and his band of bitch boys.
They feed rank and file members to the lions while sipping from the golden chalice.
Meanwhile, unwitting fans in the stands lap it up unaware that they are next in the arena.
