sweetheart contract

Related to sweetheart contract: Sweetheart deals

sweetheart contract

1. An industrial agreement made between an employer and local labor union officials containing terms beneficial to the employer without the knowledge of the employees, typically in exchange for money to the union or its leaders. It was later discovered that the union leader had made a sweetheart contract with the company that eliminated employees' right to strike in exchange for a hefty yearly bonus for himself. The automotive manufacturer decided to move its factories to a different country, where it established a sweetheart contract with the local labor union to pay workers substantially less than those previously enjoyed by American employees.
2. Any kind of agreement or contract that is mutually beneficial two the two parties directly involved, typically at the expense of a third party that is not privy to the agreement. It turns out the athletic director had in place a sweetheart contract with the national athletics association, essentially receiving kickbacks every time one of his athletes performed well. The charity has come under fire for what some are calling a sweetheart contract with a for-profit events organizer that receives nearly 40% of the annual donations the charity receives.
See also: contract, sweetheart
Farlex Dictionary of Idioms.
See also:
  • sweetheart agreement
  • sweetheart deal
  • break the Sabbath
  • benies
  • slave market
  • pink slip
  • get a pink slip
  • (one's) door is always open
  • have (one's) fingers in the till
  • have your fingers in the till
References in periodicals archive
In Georgia, it wasn't athletics but questions about the connections between big donors and sweetheart contracts that helped open up University System of Georgia Foundation records.
Lawmakers should let sun shine on quasi-public groups
From fast ferries to sweetheart contracts to friends to outright lying in more than one budget, they came close to destroying the B.C.
The B.C. NDP's economic record
The scrapping of sweetheart contracts could lead to unrest at some of the country's biggest firms.
Target on contracts
But to talk now of helping Washingtons poor as often summons memories of Barry's sweetheart contracts and employment programs that produced few jobs.
The Last of the Black Emperors: The Hollow Comeback of Marion Barry in a New Age of Black Leaders
went to the Teamsters' corrupt International leadership of that era and conspired to write sweetheart contracts and shove them with undemocratic zest down the throats of the workers.
The big win
When we expand the definition of social welfare to include the billions siphoned off routinely in sweetheart contracts, pork-barrel projects, special tax breaks, and the like--not to mention Pentagon waste and the recent scandals in the banking and savings-and-loan industry and the Department of Housing and Urban Development--the magnitude of the fraud in this sensationalized case scarcely warrants a blurb in the B section.
Pimping poverty, then and now
Now is the time, says John Sisk of SEACC, to terminate the 50-year sweetheart contracts once and for all.
The $64 million question: destructive and money-losing? Must be the U.S. Forest Service
Commercial Carriers in return signed sweetheart contracts with Test Fleet Corp., a trucking company owned by Hoffa and a close associate.
Hoffa