 The International President has thanked IAM members for taking part in the democratic process, when the fact is the election was anything but an exercise in democracy. The IAM does have a great tradition of true union democracy, but this International President has put a stain on its enduring legacy, and he is the last person who should boast of its merits.
This election is nothing less than an example of dictatorship. Some examples of what International President Martinez considers democracy:
International President Martinez has taken these steps and more to influence the election. To claim that this process was democratic is insane. It was as democratic as an election in Russia. Vladimir Putin is jealous. Now the International President is telling members to be patient and it will take weeks to learn the results. There is no legitimate need for the process of counting and reconciling ballots to take that long. In the last IAM Executive Council election the process was completed in a single day, and that was when all International Officer positions, plus AFL-CIO Delegates and candidates for the Committee on Law were on the ballot. There is only one position, General Secretary-Treasurer, up for election in this vote. That leaves only nefarious reasons for the delay. The International President’s fear of fair membership voting is obvious by his actions. Union leaders who feel the need to rig the system for their own benefit are not true leaders at all. Despite all the obstacles that have been put in our way, I am confident that after a true and fair counting of the votes the membership will have rejected the theft and corruption rampant in the GST’s office.
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 I would like to sincerely thank every IAM Member who participated yesterday for voting at their local lodge. While we are a long way away from knowing the final outcome of the election, my campaign is very encouraged by yesterday’s results.
The Transportation Department’s turnout was truly amazing with over 2,000 members turning out to vote in person, in spite of threats and intimidation by a Special Representative of the International President and certain Grand Lodge Auditors directed by the General Secretary Treasurer. Even better was our margin of victory, which unofficially stands at over 75%. This is a resounding first step to victory for our campaign. I have requested and am awaiting the results from the Eastern, Southern, Midwest, Western and Canadian Territories’ in person voting results and will report them to you if and when I receive them. Unfortunately, however, I am not hopeful that the GST Cervantes will provide those results even though she has complete access to them. Hopefully, she will be transparent with IAM Members and provide that information. I will update you as the week progresses. We have been made aware that locals across the Machinists Union have voted to restore integrity to the GST’s Office. For example, Local Lodge 1943 in the Eastern Territory, which represents workers at AK Steel and Local Lodge 2249 in the Southern Territory voted for change. Again, a BIG THANK YOU to IAM Members from Puerto Rico, to Canada to Guam for participating in the jewel of the IAM: its Democracy.  Tomorrow, April 24th, IAM members in the United States and Canada will cast their vote for General Secretary-Treasurer. While the election campaign is ending, the work to bring integrity and accountability back to our Union will continue. IAM members cannot allow the corruption that has been uncovered to go on. If we do, it will be the end of our Union.
When our campaign began, we only planned to address the mismanagement of IAM finances and pension funds and expose Dora Cervantes’ coverup of her sister’s role in the theft of more than $100,000 from Local Lodge 2198. Her behavior regarding that theft is what led Local Lodge 2198, the Local where she has been a member for 30 years, to endorse me to replace her. Unexpectedly, our campaign revealed the GST’s own systemic corruption by showing how Dora Cervantes falsified her own expense reports to charge tens of thousands of dollars in personal travel to IAM members. Our efforts have already forced GST Cervantes to pay the IAM back more than $6,000 she improperly received from our treasury, the treasury she swore to protect. If that wasn’t bad enough, she still had the audacity to attend a Local Lodge meeting and cry that we, the members, owe her money. The Department of Labor will hold Dora Cervantes accountable, but justice takes time. We have the opportunity and responsibility as union members to hold her accountable NOW! In a failed attempt to protect her secrets, the International President has fired senior staff, threatened the jobs of his entire staff, and attacked the very membership that dared to exercise their right to vote for the candidate they wanted. We know that the GST has misappropriated our treasury for her own gain, and we have showed you the proof. The Executive Council is still protecting her, instead of the membership. The International President is so afraid of me winning the election, replacing Dora and gaining access to our Union’s financial records that he created a new Special Assistant whose only role is to use dues dollars to threaten and intimidate voters. The IP and others on the Executive Council have been calling and trying to bully people. In many cases Local Lodge officers are hearing from their GVP for the first time in years, only to be threatened into voting for Dora Cervantes. That is not leadership. Anyone who asks you to vote for Dora Cervantes is asking you to vote for someone who steals from this union. Do not listen to them. Do not continue to allow the plundering of our treasury and your dues dollars. Vote for change at your Local Lodge voting location from 6-8 am and pm on Saturday April 24th. Vote to protect your own assets. If your bank was stealing from you, you would find a new bank. This Saturday, you have that chance. If you already voted for Dora Cervantes by mail, you could still show up in person at your Local Lodge and vote again. In such cases only the in-person vote will be counted. “I promise that I will never defraud this Union out of anything whatsoever, or allow it to be defrauded, if within my power to prevent it. To all of this, I most solemnly pledge my sacred word of honor.” That is the oath that every IAM officer takes. Our GST and those that support her are violating that oath. By re-electing Dora Cervantes as GST we are allowing the Union to continue being defrauded. Do not let that continue. Thank you for your support. Challenger and Candidate for IAM GST Ian Scott-Anderman  Our campaign has been made aware that GST Dora Cervantes, as recently as last month, had to cut a check to the IAM for over $6,000 to repay members’ dues money because she submitted knowingly fraudulent activity reports. Of course, the top brass at the IAM will not inform dues paying IAM Members regarding this matter. After all, we are less than a week away from the end of this vote and why would we expect transparency from them now.
This instance of fraud at the expense of IAM Members is, sadly, only the tip of the iceberg. Our campaign has already documented tens of thousands more in fraudulent reimbursements that GST Cervantes claimed to pay for her weekend, personal trips to Houston. And, we are missing 86 reports due to IAM attorneys stonewalling us. We have made you, IAM Members, aware of this so you have a chance to utilize IAM democracy to change course and clean up this mess. But, make no mistake, it will not be just my campaign that investigates GST Cervantes. When elected union officers defraud union members, federal authorities do not take that lightly. All you have to do is ask GST Cervantes’ sister about that. And, when the chickens come home to roost, will the current IAM Executive Council sing Dora Cervantes’ praises of “integrity” before federal investigators? Is this the type of “integrity” that IP Martinez and the top brass of the IAM’s leadership refer to in their letters of support? Do they even care that GST Cervantes lies on her activity reports and defrauds IAM Members, or is that just a “smear”? What will they say to those who signed their endorsement form letters and put their reputations on the line, when the Department of Labor finishes its investigation and likely finds GST Cervantes abused her office and misappropriated IAM Members’ dues dollars? What will they say about the over $6,000 she already had to pay back for years of knowingly falsifying her activity reports? If you are being asked to support and vote for Dora Cervantes, you are being asked to support and vote for someone who has stolen from our union and its members. She has already paid back thousands of dollars, which shows her guilt and is just a fraction of what we have already proven she illegitimately took from our treasury. She is someone who has abused the membership’s trust and is not worthy of the position in which we have placed her. A vote for Dora Cervantes is a vote for her and anyone in power to continue stealing from us. We have to stop the corruption in the GST’s office. We need to fix this now and that is why we need change. We need real integrity and transparency in the IAM GST’s Office. I will bring such change on Day One. Please vote for Ian Scott-Anderman for IAM GST. PLEASE CLICK HERE TO VIEW ALL THE DOL CRIMINAL ENFORCEMENT ACTIONS AND ASK YOURSELF WHY GST CERVANTES SHOULD BE TREATED ANY DIFFERENT.  Contact: Ian Scott-Anderman
Cell: (505) 314-4849 Email: IanScottAndermanIAM@outlook.com April 19, 2021 Albuquerque, NM – In the wake of the growing corruption scandal involving Dora Cervantes, the General Secretary-Treasurer (GST) of the 600,000-member International Association of Machinists and Aerospace Workers (IAM), GST challenger Ian Scott-Anderman called for her immediate resignation or removal by the IAM Executive Council. “The union’s financial records which I was permitted to review show that the IAM’s current General Secretary-Treasurer has charged tens of thousands of dues dollars in bogus travel expenses to attend imaginary meetings that never took place,” said Scott-Anderman. “In my opinion Dora Cervantes has been falsifying her expense reports for years. She regularly reported fictional meetings in her hometown of Houston so she could charge her personal travel there to the members of the Machinists Union. Her work assignment is in Upper Marlboro, MD, and union members paid for her to move there from Houston years ago.” Some examples, for which complete documentation is available at https://www.ian4iamgst.com/press-release.html are:  Our campaign exercised our legal right under the Labor Management Reporting and Disclosure Act to review the weekly reports and expenses of current GST Dora Cervantes. What we received back from the IAM has confirmed what we thought all along: GST Cervantes has been defrauding IAM Members for years. IAM Members have paid the bill for her personal trips to Houston, almost 150 days. But that’s just the tip of the iceberg.
Almost every report that my campaign received from IAM lawyers were heavily redacted. And IAM lawyers and the top brass at headquarters have held back 86 weekly reports that we have a legal right to review. We have already uncovered tens of thousands of IAM Members’ dues dollars misappropriated by GST Cervantes in the heavily redacted reports that we have already received. But, we will never know the true extent of the fraud without being able to exercise our legal right to review the 86 reports that IAM Headquarters leadership is holding back. Our campaign has already forced GST Cervantes to repay over $6,000 in dues she misappropriated by falsifying her reports. It is outrageous that the IAM’s top financial officer would cheat IAM Members. Equally outrageous is that members of the Executive Council who know full well about GST Cervantes’ behavior would openly support her and encourage others to do the same. Is this the type of “integrity” that IP Martinez and the top brass of the IAM’s leadership refer to in their letters of support? Do they even care that GST Cervantes lies on her Weekly Reports and defrauds IAM Members? What will they say to those who signed their endorsement form letters and put their reputations on the line, when the Department of Labor finishes its investigation and ultimately finds GST Cervantes abused her office, falsified her reports and misappropriated IAM Members’ dues dollars? If you are being asked to support and vote for Dora Cervantes, you are being asked to support and vote for someone who has stolen from our union and its members. She has already paid back thousands of dollars, which shows her guilt and is just a fraction of what we have already proven she illegitimately took from our treasury. She is someone who has abused the membership’s trust and is not worthy of the position in which we have placed her. A vote for Dora is a vote for her and anyone in power to continue stealing from us. We have to stop the corruption in the GST office. We need to fix this now and that is why we need change, real integrity and transparency in the IAM GST’s Office. By exposing this dishonest behavior, we have already begun to bring the much needed change to the IAM GST’s Office. We just need to finish the job and win this election to get our union back. Please vote for Ian Scott-Anderman for IAM GST.  As my campaign continues to review GST Cervantes’ Weekly Reports, we are finding many examples of flat out fraud. Even more disheartening, IAM attorneys and IAM Headquarters leadership have circled the wagons around GST Cervantes and have refused to forward to me 86 other Weekly Reports, even though we have a legal right under the law to review these reports. At this point, we do not have to guess what they are hiding.
In this particular instance, GST Cervantes is in Houston, as usual, and claims to have performed “membership education” on Sunday, October 2, 2016 and Monday, October 3, 2016. No “membership education ever took place on Sunday and Monday October 2nd and 3rd. GST Cervantes then flies first class back to Washington DC, spending $747.10. Unbelievably, she then returns to Houston on Thursday, October 6, 2016 to attend LL2198’s meeting, which there is no official union business purpose for attending. Then, she spends the weekend in Houston and claims she is performing union business. GST Cervantes claims “membership education” on Friday, October 7, 2016, which never occurred. On Saturday, October 8, 2016, GST Cervantes claims she attended “AFL-CIO membership meetings,” which also never occurred. On Monday, October 10, 2016, she stays in Houston and again claims fictitious “membership education.” On Tuesday, October 11, 2016 she flies back to Washington DC on union members’ dues dollars. This entire sad episode of fraud and theft cost IAM Members $2,714.03 in fraudulent first and business class airfares, per diem and personal car mileage. THESE ARE FACTS. Where is the IAM Executive Council? Why are they looking the other way and, by doing so, encouraging the theft of IAM Members’ dues dollars? Did the Executive Council let all the district and local leaders who they hoodwinked into signing form letter endorsements for Dora Cervantes tell them that all the fraud and theft would be uncovered? Did the Executive Council tell these IAM leaders that GST Cervantes was already forced to pay back thousands and thousands of dollars in unapproved expenses? This is a very sad chapter in the history of our Great Union, the IAM. We need REAL LEADERSHIP, WITH REAL INTEGRITY. This is the exact reason I am running to be the next IAM General Secretary Treasurer. Our Union needs change. We need to restore integrity, honor and transparency in the highest offices of our Union. I implore IAM Members and leaders to hold GST Cervantes accountable and vote for me, Ian Scott-Anderman as the next IAM GST. |