For the "Shocker" File

Please don't let this story destroy your faith in the organized labor movement in the Commonwealth of Massachusetts.

AG: Union put kids on payroll in seniority scam

Massport's union longshoremen have been placing kids as young as 2 years old on the payroll in a long-running scheme to give them bogus seniority that fattens the wages they fetch as adult dock-workers years later, investigators contend.

"We believe the fraudulent activity went on long enough so that people appearing on payroll records as children are now receiving the benefit of the fraud and working there as adults," said David Guarino, a spokesman for Attorney General Tom Reilly, last night.

But one longshoreman defended the practice as a way to keep generations of the same families on the job.

"How is that bad if they can get their son a job?'' said the longshoreman, who declined to give his name.

"How is it bad"? Are you for real? For starters, asshole, you and your union are intentionally defrauding the state and the taxpayers out of potentially millions of dollars. What part of "corruption" and "fraud" don't you understand?

"I wish my father had done it for me because I am not getting the full pay rate."

I assume that by "full pay rate", you are referring to the illegally over-inflated pay rate. Boy, my heart bleeds for you.

My father earned an honest living, raised me to be a law-abiding citizen, provided me with a quality education, then encouraged me to go out and make it on my own in the world. He must have just hated me.

It's going to be interesting to see how aggressively Attorney General (and 2006 gubernatorial hopeful) Tom Reilly pursues this. What's he going to do, send a major cornerstone of his voter base (i.e. campaign $$$) up the creek? I'm skeptical, at best.

Countdown to this story getting the "low profile" treatment and swept under the proverbial rug in 5..4..3...