Distribute suitcases of cash, get investigated: a Coliseum case study in union payments

Photo by ToGa Wanderings via Flickr Creative Commons

Making union payments via suitcases of $100 bills is a practice frowned upon by the U.S. Labor Department, it turns out. Los Angeles Memorial Coliseum officials are learning this the hard way, as they have become the target of a criminal investigation in an IATSE wage payment scandal that saw more than $1 million in cash passed to the union without controls on its distribution, explains the L.A. Times. The Coliseum Commission may be responsible for hundreds of thousands of dollars in back payroll and withholding taxes.