Paper locals often enter into sweetheart contracts that are grossly unfair to workers, and then the employer and paper local embezzle money from the business. While a legitimate union contract might cost X amount of money in wages and benefits, the sweetheart contract costs much less; the difference is split between the individual(s) who control the paper local and the company owners.Cressey, Donald. Theft of the Nation: The Structure and Operations of Organized Crime in America. New York: Harper and Row, 1969. In one infamous example, a paper local and an employer entered into a sweetheart contract in which workers were able to take only one holiday off each year, Passover. Since the workers were almost all Puerto Rican and non-Jewish, they did not take the holiday off and the employer was not forced to pay workers for a day off.
