The AFT executive council, responding to financial irregularities in two AFT locals, has approved measures to clarify the fiduciary responsibilities of the national union’s local affiliates. Responding to the recommendations of the council’s Ad Hoc Committee on Affiliate Accountability, council members adopted a resolution on the payment of per-capita dues and required audits.

Under the new procedures, affiliates that are two months behind in per-capita payments will receive notification in writing, along with a request for full payment. Failure to remedy the per-capita arrearage within 30 days “shall precipitate direct communication within two weeks from the AFT to the affiliate’s executive board and its state affiliate.” The council noted that late payments can be an indicator of financial trouble.

If dues are not paid within 30 days of that communication, notes the resolution, the AFT will communicate directly with the affiliate’s members within three weeks, informing them of the arrearage and how it affects their local and their rights and status as AFT members.

The national union also is authorized to require an audit of a local that is in bad standing due to per-capita arrearage and/or if it has not submitted its required biennial audit or financial review within six months of the close of its fiscal year. The results of that audit will be reported to the affiliate’s membership and the executive council.

To help affiliates comply with these procedures, the AFT will upgrade its ongoing financial and fiduciary training program for affiliate treasurers and expand that training to include executive boards, audit committees and trustees.

The council took action on the per-capita and audit procedures after serious financial difficulties came to light in recent months within two large AFT affiliates—the Washington [D.C.] Teachers Union and Miami’s United Teachers of Dade. The AFT’s own financial services staff discovered financial irregularities at the WTU last summer in response to a complaint from a WTU member. The AFT notified the U.S. Attorney’s Office of its findings and commissioned an independent forensic audit of WTU.

At Miami-Dade, the AFT learned of alleged wrongdoing by the local’s president when the FBI raided UTD’s headquarters in April. Criminal investigations of possible embezzlement of union dues by leaders at WTU and UTD are ongoing. Both affiliates are now under AFT administratorship.

“In all our history, the AFT has been an honest union—and we have also had a tradition of autonomous local unions” that elect their own officers, set their own policies, dues and budgets, and bargain their own contracts, AFT president Sandra Feldman told nearly 500 participants at a joint conference of the union’s public employee and healthcare divisions in Washington, D.C., June 5-8. “The administrators, with AFT support, are taking steps to turn the locals around and return them to their members. And we are tightening our administrative procedures at the national level so hopefully we can flag problems before they mushroom.

“At our convention next year, we will consider stronger constitutional procedures to prevent this kind of corruption from ever happening again. Because when it does, it hurts all of us, and the entire labor movement.”

Feldman also testified at a U.S. Senate committee hearing on “Teachers Union Scandals: Closing the Gaps in Union Member Protections.” Feldman’s testimony and the forensic audit of WTU are posted on the AFT Web site.