There are apparent irregularities in the financial statements of the UAW holding companies. One of which operates the Black Lake golf course and education center in Cheboygan county Michigan. It has been reported that the Black Lake property has suffered losses of Tens of Millions, however records indicate the numbers might hide something more questionable.
Chetly Zarko of Zarko Reasearch, and LaborPains.org have revealed some (publicly available) information which might put the UAW’s Black Lake operation on the radar. The First part is the equalized value as brought up by Dennis Lennox and the waverly township assessor. Chetly maintains there is a significant difference, ($770,000 not collected as a result of the tribunal ) but as the “equalized values” go (Half) I believe the difference in the amount should be $385,000 in property taxes which would certainly be helpful to the township in any event.
But as Chetly also points out, THAT is hardly the potential bombshell.
Mr. Zarko points out the biggest loss in the financial statements of this “for-profit” enterprise is the pension losses of $5,910,000.00. This number eclipsing the wages for the operation?
“its clear that pensions are the largest reason for the losses, which laborpains.org suggests isn’t “unusual for UAW pensions” which have been in disarray even for the larger union itself and with GM and Chrysler, which recently went through a pension buyout among the rank-and-file.”
Zarko makes comparisons which demonstrate how far out of line the number is in comparison to the other figures, and to those in other for profit enterprises.
“First, if you compare the golf course wages ($274,095.34) to golf course health insurance ($57,689.04, or about 20%, similar to medical costs anywhere) and those same wages to the pension trust fund investment ($17,269, or about 6% of wages), you get numbers you’d expect to find in a normal workplace. But when you look at the education center’s ratios, pensions are 182% of wages. The golf course verifies that something strange is going on at the education center.”
So the new question is… Who had a really good Christmas this year?