KCK-based union files suit over leader’s ouster, but some wonder who is behind action

Note: This story has been updated to include comments from Boilermakers International President Newton Jones and top union officers.

The Boilermakers union is suing three of its top officers, arguing they had no authority to oust International President Newton Jones last week for alleged misuse of funds and asking a judge to prohibit the action.

The International Brotherhood of Boilermakers, whose headquarters is in Kansas City, Kansas, filed the lawsuit last week in U.S. District Court for the District of Kansas, requesting a temporary restraining order followed by a preliminary injunction and then a permanent injunction.

“If they are allowed to go forward with their plan, the IBB will be thrown into extreme confusion about who is properly in charge,” the union’s filing said. “Further, allowing them to continue down this path could create conflicting rulings, which would throw the IBB into organizational chaos.”

The actions by three of the union’s international vice presidents also could create the basis for a lawsuit by Jones against the union, the court filing said.

“In short, the Three Defendant IVPs’ actions (and likely future ones) could cripple the IBB’s operation and create legally actionable conduct when it could be prevented,” it said.

Meanwhile, a defiant Jones told union members Tuesday that he is not stepping down.

“Contrary to sinister reports of my demise, I remain your International President,” he wrote in a letter to “all Principal Lodge Officers.”

Jones said he was “at a loss to explain or understand” the recent actions of the three international vice presidents.

“...These officers have accused me of misappropriation of funds without bothering to authenticate the evidence upon which they relied,” he wrote. “I assure you, I have not misappropriated any union funds. In fact, I have presided over a very clean organization in my 20 years as your International President.”

Jones said the union had been engaged with the U.S. Department of Labor in an audit since the start of the pandemic.

“After more than three years of the DOL’s review of our financial records, we have yet to be informed by the DOL of a single instance of misappropriation of funds or of any legal violation by anyone in our International organization,” he said.

The lawsuit — and Jones’ response — appear to contradict the stance of many of the union’s members, who have complained for years about his leadership and his expenditures of union money.

“My question is, who is filing this lawsuit on behalf of the union?” said Adam Mendenhall, a longtime member of Boilermakers Local 83, based in Kansas City. “This doesn’t represent the feelings of the rank-and-file. There’s not a rank-and-file member I’ve talked to yet that feels like Newton Jones being gone is a negative thing for the union. It was kind of a day of celebration.

“And to say this would create organizational chaos? There’s already organizational chaos, and has been for years.”

The union’s executive council held a hearing on May 30, finding that Jones had violated a section in Article 17 of the Boilermaker’s constitution that deals with the misappropriation of funds. But the union’s lawsuit contends it was a “rogue hearing” and that the council issued “an alleged decision” not authorized by the Boilermakers constitution.

A hearing date for the case has not yet been scheduled.

The International Brotherhood of Boilermakers, Iron Ship Builders, Blacksmiths, Forgers and Helpers represents about 46,000 workers in the United States and Canada who assemble, install and repair boilers, fit pipes and build power plants and ships.

The lawsuit names as defendants the three members of the union’s executive council who voted to remove Jones as president — J. Tom Baca, of California; Arnie Stadnick, of Canada; and Timothy Simmons, of Tennessee. Another member of the council, Lawrence McManamon Sr., of Ohio, did not attend the hearing or vote to remove Jones.

John Fultz, the executive council’s fifth member, was not eligible to participate in the decision because he filed the internal union disciplinary charges against Jones.

Baca, Stadnick and Simmons responded Tuesday afternoon to a request for comment on the lawsuit.

“We are Boilermakers first and foremost and it is our duty to stand up and protect the highly skilled workers we have the privilege to represent,” they said in an email to The Star. “Earlier this year we learned of a material malfeasance from the highest level of our union, we moved swiftly to protect the membership.

“Despite the petty and retaliatory actions of those who stand to profit from the malfeasance, we see this as an opportunity for the rebirth of our union. We are confident that this chapter will end with leadership that rightfully exists only to serve its members.”

The lawsuit contends that the defendants circumvented the union’s procedures that govern how it investigates violations of its rules.

“Further, Defendants have taken the unprecedented step of misappropriating authority under the IBB Constitution and utilizing that misappropriated authority to remove the duly elected International President and stripping him of his membership in the IBB through extra-constitutional means,” it says.

“Plaintiffs seek a temporary restraining order and a preliminary injunction to prevent further irreparable harm to the IBB, its officers and its members.”

After that, the plaintiffs want a permanent injunction requiring the defendants to “cease all violative actions in order to preserve the status quo” and to “take no further actions to undermine or subvert the Article 17 Committee process.”

The lawsuit says that after Fultz filed the charges against Jones on April 14, Jones appointed McManamon and Bill Creeden, the union’s secretary-treasurer, to an “Article 17 Committee” on May 3 to oversee the case.

But on May 6, it says, Simmons emailed the union’s executive council and said a meeting would take place on May 12 to consider how to handle the charges against Jones. The email said that any action taken by Jones with respect to the charges were null and void because the executive council had exclusive authority under the union’s constitution.

That email caused competing proceedings to take place and “created substantial confusion,” the lawsuit says. The executive council then held the May 30 hearing to address the charges against Jones, but McManamon did not attend. That hearing was unauthorized, the lawsuit contends, and the suit was filed that night.

“Despite the efforts of the Article 17 Committee, the Three Defendant IVPs have assigned themselves to decide International President Jones’s fate based on vague, incomplete charges, and made no effort to address the ongoing investigation of the Article 17 Committee…,” the lawsuit says.

Baca, Simmons and Stadnick signed the “Decision of Executive Council” on June 1, removing Jones from office.

They found that Jones ordered the union to give his wife, Kateryna, more than $100,000 plus benefits in back pay “for apparently no union purpose while she was living in the Ukraine” and spent more than $20,000 in union funds for flights to Ukraine “to visit his wife and to go to the home which he owns in the Ukraine.”

Jones and his wife also turned in about $40,000 in receipts for meals for them and other family members when at their home location in North Carolina — some “quite lavish and expensive” — with no justification for the expenses, the executive council found.

Calling Jones’ actions “shocking,” the council ordered him to reimburse the union “all of the funds which he misspent as reflected in these charges” and to immediately resign from all of his other positions, including serving as a trustee of all funds in which the union participates.

“The drastic action of removing President Jones immediately and directing other actions is clearly necessary because of the seriousness of these allegations and the harm to our membership,” the council said in its decision.

Jones, 69 — who has led the union since 2003 — said in an email to The Star late Saturday that “it’s not what it seems.” He didn’t elaborate and did not get back to a reporter on Sunday as he said he would do.

In his letter to lodge officers, Jones said the “errant international officers do not have the Constitutional authority to take the action they are endeavoring to take, nor are they at liberty to interpret our Constitution in the manner that they are doing. “

“Their audacious effort to remove a democratically elected officer is nothing short of an attempted political coup using trumped up accusations with no proof, with no effort to review the financial records, and with no effort to perform their elected roles responsibly and with integrity.”

Jones said he has filed charges against Baca, Stadnick and Simmons alleging “numerous, egregious violations of our Constitution.” A hearing has been scheduled for June 21, he said.

He also said he has ordered a forensic investigation into document theft at the international headquarters.

“And we already have knowledge of who, among them, was pilfering documents illegally for their conspiratorial cabal,” he wrote. “I have also ordered, many weeks ago, a forensic audit into the financial expenditures of every International Officer and some staff, with additional audits possible in the future.”

The audits are scheduled to begin on June 12, he said.

Jones said that under his leadership, the union “is in the best financial shape it has ever been.”

“We have over $82 million in reserves even after a Great Recession, the ultra-environmentalist attack on our work and a multi-year pandemic,” he said.

The action to remove Jones comes as a federal criminal investigation into union activities is underway. Several sources confirmed that they have been interviewed by the FBI in recent weeks.

The Star investigated the Boilermakers in 2012, finding that Jones and other executives were living the good life. Jones’ salary and business expenses totaled more than $607,000, which put him above the presidents of the biggest unions in the country. The newspaper also found that several of Jones’ family members and relatives of other officers were earning hefty union salaries as well.

A followup story in 2017 found that little had changed.

The union’s most recent annual report, filed with the U.S. Department of Labor for the period ending June 30, 2022, shows that Jones’ salary and disbursements for official business totaled $656,179.

Some of his relatives remain on the payroll, including his wife, who as “special assistant to the international president” received salary and disbursements of $210,369. Jones’ son, Cullen, made $115,422 as film project coordinator. And Jones’ daughter, Shea, received $113,590 as a graphic artist.

The union’s longtime law firm, Blake & Uhlig, is handling the lawsuit. The union paid the firm nearly $1.1 million for legal services from July 1, 2021, through June 30, 2022, according to its annual report.