In the Telegraph
https://www.telegraph.co.uk/gift/3559481307423ffcThe leaders of a railway trade union spent thousands of pounds of members’ money at a Las Vegas casino during an all-expenses-paid trip, according to a leaked dossier seen by The Telegraph.
Senior officials at the Transport Salaried Staff Association (TSSA» ) – including Manuel Cortes, the general secretary at the time – racked up £8,500 in expenses claims during a visit to the US city in 2022.
Bills claimed back on expenses in Vegas and on other trips during Mr Cortes’s tenure included four-figure casino and hotel invoices, dinners at restaurants offering roast suckling pigs big enough to feed six people, and transatlantic flights in business class.
Mr Cortes also withdrew hundreds of dollars in cash ahead of the Vegas trip, paid for by the union.
Revelations about the level of expenses-linked spending by TSSA’s bosses and wider apparent financial mismanagement will raise questions about how the union was run during Mr Cortes’s time as general secretary.
TSSA has more than 17,000 members working in the “administrative, managerial and professional” sectors of Britain’s rail companies. Each pays up to £25 a month for membership. In return, they receive the backing of TSSA in disputes with their employers and access to legal support.
The disclosures will also raise fears that instead of TSSA’s money being spent on looking after members, it is being diverted for the personal enjoyment of those at the top of the union.
Forensic accountants traced all spending by senior TSSA officials after five of the union’s senior managers were suspended in 2023 over allegations of bullying and sexual harassment.
They discovered that between 2017 and 2022, Mr Cortes claimed a total of £75,000 in expenses and spending on his union credit card. Over the same period, his TSSA wages totalled more than £550,000, plus a further £115,000 in pension contributions.
During 2022, the Labour-affiliated union oversaw Britain’s largest rail strikes in three decades, with 20 days of industrial action that caused misery for tens of millions of passengers.
Steve Coe, a former TSSA assistant general secretary who retired in 2022, called on Mr Cortes to repay any wrongfully claimed expenses. He said: “This is members’ money and they expect their money to be spent on their interests, not feathering the nests of senior officials within TSSA.”
A copy of the accountant’s report into the TSSA’s finances, dated July 2023 and comprising hundreds of pages of detailed expenses claims, credit card statements, invoices and contracts, has been seen by The Telegraph. This is what the investigation found.
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