Union Under Investigation in Fraud Probe

The nation’s largest union of government workers said internal policing and cooperation with outside authorities helped uncover substantial financial losses from corruption that the union reported to its insurers last year. Gerald W. McEntee, president of the American Federation of State, County and Municipal Employees, said in a written statement that the union has a “zero-tolerance policy toward wrongdoers. That wrongdoers have been identified and justice pursued is simply evidence of that.� Union officials confirmed the existence of a document summarizing the union’s losses from fraud after the New York Times reported that the document listed $4.6 million in claims the union made to its insurance company in November. The union was seeking reimbursement under a policy covering fraud by union officials. Incidents of corruption described in the report involved 35 officials scattered across the country and ranged from theft to the use of union credit cards to cover personal expenses, the newspaper said.