The International Brotherhood of Boilermakers, as Union Corruption Update has noted in the past, is a union that spends lavish sums on salaries and benefits for its top officials. One of its affiliates is earning disrepute of a different sort. Early last month, Scot Whitney Albertson, business manager for the Kansas City, Mo.-based Boilermakers Local 83, was arrested in Council Bluffs, Iowa for causing bodily injury in connection with his alleged stabbing of two men. Neither injury was considered life-threatening. No word is yet available on whether the attack was over union business. Union international headquarters in Kansas City, Kansas refused to comment on the matter, claiming it did not have sufficient facts. So let us look at some material facts.
According to court records, just after midnight on May 5, Council Bluffs police were called to a crime scene near Albertson’s residence. Upon arrival, two injured men told an officer that they were stabbed and that the suspect had run from the scene. Not long after, cops found a wallet next to a set of tire tracks containing Albertson’s business card. One of the officers yelled out Albertson’s name. He yelled back. When officers found him, he had a cut to his finger and back. Albertson explained the injuries as an effort on his part to ward off a knife attack by someone else. Yet one of the victims countered that he used his knife to defend himself from Albertson. In short order, police collected a knife that they said was “used by Albertson in the attack.”
As one might expect, Scot Albertson, now 48, has a history of violence. Back in March 2014, during a Boilermakers conference on Marco Island, Fla., a woman told local police that Albertson had punched her several times and then sat on her chest, choking her. She also stated that he used a large knife to slice open her shirt, and threatened to kill her and her children. Officers subsequently found a “military-type large bayonet” in his hotel room. When interviewed by police, Albertson claimed that the weapon had been in his luggage the entire time. He also denied ever striking the woman. The union must have supplied him with a good lawyer because his sentence was a mere one year of probation following his plea of no contest to battery. He might not be so lucky this time around.