USW local chief must repay more than $5,000

By Karl Henkel

khenkel@vindy.com

WARREN

A local union president says he will not resign after what he calls a “misinterpretation” of a union policy.

Edward Machingo, president of the United Steelworkers Local 1375, told The Vindicator on Monday that overpayments to him of more than $5,000 came as a result of a misinterpreted union policy.

Machingo was found guilty by the union’s International Commission and has to repay $5,094.88 in overpayments from a six-month period dating back to 2009.

That ruling was upheld by the International Executive Board Appeal Panel last month.

Machingo has six months to repay the overpayments; he said Monday he already has reimbursed the local union roughly 50 percent of the total and expects to pay off the balance by the end of the month.

Some union workers were expected to ask for Machingo’s resignation at a union meeting tonight.

“There’s really nothing to make of it,” said Machingo, a 38-year union veteran who has spent the past six years as president. “The real story is if I said, ‘ ... I’m not paying you back.’”

During a Severstal plant shutdown in 2009, remaining workers were to have been compensated at a second-grade pay rate, or about $17.55 an hour.

Machingo was paid the third-grade rate of about $24 an hour.

But because the plant was not completely shut down, Machingo said he didn’t believe a union policy, which stated that all remaining employees during a shutdown should be paid at the second-grade rate, applied.

“I believed the paragraph did not apply because the entire plant was not shut down,” he said.

Machingo said the former Severstal Steel plant employed about 150 at the time; about 1,000 workers had been laid off.

Machingo also said the union approved his pay at meetings.

The commission said that Machingo’s actions “should not be considered intentionally misleading or unethical.”