Thread: SEIU: Corruption Runs Deep

If I'm not mistaken, most of the SEIU members are illegal aliens...how is it that they can be unionized??? What we have here is the corruption of Mexican politics re-incarnated! These union 'bosses' should be indicted, convicted, and imprisoned!

SEIU: Corruption Runs Deep

by Shawn Steel - 8-12-2008

Union boss Tyrone Freeman has stolen a lot of money from low wage union members. According to the the Los Angeles Times (link) in a Pulitzer-worth piece, reporter Paul Pringle will not be invited to the next SEIU Christmas Party. This SEIU local, 6424 United Long-Term Care Workers, is controlled by its organizer Freeman. It has some 190,000 workers paying each month into his local. Local 6424 sees itself as the "poor helping the poor" union. Like many such unexamined unions, this one became Freeman's personal bank.

Pringle reports that Freeman spent $300,000 last year on a Four Season Resorts golf tournament, a Beverly Hills cigar club, generated a $12,000 bill from Morton's Steakhouse and paid consulting PR contract with the William Morris Agency.

Worse that his luxurious union boss lifestyle, is how he siphons big dollars for his relatives. He gave his brother in law's basket ball team $16,000 ("public relations"). Freeman's wife, Pilar Planells, has done well. She "owns" a company called Homecare Workers Training Center were among the union's largest single expenses last year. Pillar was a union staff member until 2006, earning more than $50,000. She left to form a new company "Lotus Seven Productions". In 2007 the union paid Lotus some $178.000. Lotus "produced" 10 videos that promote the union. Sadly, Lotus does not have a business license. Lotus is located at the Freeman home. Subtle.

But don't forget the mother-in-law. Carmen Planells, provides a day care center at her home. She receives more than $90,000 annually from the SEIU.

Yet, the national SEIU announced plans to spend some $150.,000,000 in this year's election. The Wall Street Journal believes most of which will be spent to elect another working man's friend, Barack Obama.

The national SEIU union amended its constitution to require each local to contribute $6.00 per member for its national political action committee. What other major institutional could get away with this extortion?

National SEIU President Andy Stern is quite a player. He helped form Americans Coming Together [ACT] one of the 527 hybrids inadvertently created by McCain-Feingold, designed to influence elections but not have stay within individual campaign donor limits. SEIU was among the largest contributor raising some $26,000,000, of the $100,000,000 spent by ACT for Kerry in 2004. The FEC fined ACT $775,000 for violating campaign finance laws. Not much of a penalty, less than 1% of what they spent to buy the American Presidency.

Of course, what about the lowly union worker? Do members get to decide how much to give or to whom? You know the answer.

Back to Mr. Freeman. Last year he squeezed by with a salary of $213,000 plus "other" compensation.

Local 6434 describes in its web site that its vision is to help "life long-term care workers out of poverty..."

Freeman certainly knows how to climb out of poverty, right on the backs of his workers.


http://www.flashreport.org/commentary0b ... _offsetP=0

Local 6434 describes in its web site that its vision is to help "life long-term care workers out of poverty..."

The only ones being helped out of "poverty" are Freeman and his family who has set up numerous shame companies to siphon off money directly from the Union!

Why isn't this scum bag and his wife in jail!!

Investigation of spending by care workers' union is sought

Caregivers' advocates react to report on United Long-Term Care Workers and its chief, Tyrone Freeman. With 160,000 members, the local is the largest in California.

By Paul Pringle, Los Angeles Times Staff Writer
August 12, 2008

Advocates for low-wage caregivers called on authorities Monday to investigate the spending practices of a Los Angeles union and a related charity that have paid hundreds of thousands of dollars to firms owned by the wife and mother-in-law of the labor organization's leader.

"This is very serious," County Supervisor Zev Yaroslavsky, whose 1990s legislation allowed the union to organize home-care workers here, said of the financial transactions disclosed by The Times.


"The authorities responsible for policing these kinds of things ought to review these allegations, and if there is any merit to it, delve into it and get to the bottom of it," he said.

Most of the 160,000 people represented by the United Long-Term Care Workers, the largest union local in California, earn $9 per hour or slightly more tending to the elderly and infirm in their residences, under taxpayer-funded programs. Others work in nursing homes.

Patricia L. McGinnis, executive director of the California Advocates for Nursing Home Reform, said the union president, Tyrone Freeman, should be removed from office until any government probe of the union's spending is complete.


"I don't see how these expenditures can be justified," she said. "It's shocking."

U.S. Department of Labor spokesman Loren Smith declined to say whether the agencywould launch an inquiry, but added that its enforcement arm has "the ability to investigate based on almost any source of information, including media reports."

The Times reported Saturday that the union and charity had paid at least $405,700 since 2006 -- not counting any outlays this year -- to the firms owned by relatives of Freeman, who is chairman of the nonprofit's board.

In addition, the union last year spent nearly $300,000 on a Four Seasons Resorts golf tournament, a Beverly Hills cigar club, restaurants such as Morton's and a consulting contract with the William Morris Agency, the Hollywood talent shop, records show.

The union paid a combined $219,000 in 2006 and 2007 to a video firm whose principals include a former employee of the local, according to Labor Department filings and interviews. And a now-defunct minor league basketball team that Freeman's brother-in-law coached received $16,000 for what the union described as public relations.

The local paid about $106,000 to a firm called the Filming, for which no incorporation record, business license, address or telephone listing could be found.

Freeman, who is also president of a 30,000-worker affiliate of the long-term-care union, has denied any wrongdoing. He said the money spent on his wife's video company and mother-in-law's day-care firm benefited his members because of what he termed the high quality of the services.

A Freeman spokesman did not respond to questions Monday. On the union's website, Freeman said the Times story was "an attack on me and our union" and contained "vast misrepresentations," which he did not specify. He said all the expenditures detailed by The Times were approved by the union's board and that the local welcomed an audit by the SEIU.

The SEIU's Washington, D.C., headquarters said it was sending a team to review the local's books.

"We'll take a look at things and see where we go from there," said Steve Trossman, spokesman for SEIU President Andy Stern. He would not elaborate, and Stern has declined to be interviewed.

Freeman has been a rising star under Stern, who is among the nation's most influential labor leaders. In 2006, Stern appointed Freeman to head the L.A. local after it had been expanded through a consolidation of several chapters. Freeman had been president of one. Under a pending consolidation proposal, his local would pick up 65,000 more workers from a Bay Area chapter.

On Monday, Los Angeles County Federation of Labor officials also would not speak about Freeman's local. "It would be unfair of us to comment on this matter since we are unaware and have not been involved with the internal decisions made by that organization," federation spokeswoman Mary Gutierrez said in an e-mail.

The Times reported Saturday that the payments to the company owned by Freeman's wife, Pilar Planells, were among the local's largest single expenses last year, at about $178,000. Planells has said she did not personally profit.

Payments by the charity, the Homecare Workers Training Center, to the firm owned by Freeman's mother-in-law, Carmen Planells, represented more than 10% of the nonprofit's total annual expenditures.

Also, a housing corporation that Freeman helped found four years ago as a nonprofit has not been granted the IRS tax-exempt status it sought. It had said on its website that it had a "strong relationship" with the California Community Foundation, which told The Times it hadn't heard of the group.

Meanwhile, the union spent at least $123,000 more on the fundraising tournament at the Four Seasons Resort in Carlsbad than it received in reimbursements, according to records and interviews. Freeman said the event made money for the charity.

The union's expenditures included $100,000 in payments to entities associated with former professional football star Eric Dickerson. Those entities have been suspended from doing business in California. Dickerson did not respond to interview requests.

The local's nearly $10,000 tab at the Grand Havana Room, a cigar lounge known for its celebrity clientele, was for "lodging," according to the union's annual financial report. A Grand Havana spokeswoman said the club does not provide accommodations.

Freeman, who received about $213,000 in salary and other compensation last year, declined to characterize the cigar expenditure. After The Times inquired about it, he said he had refunded it.

paul.pringle@latimes.com

http://www.latimes.com/news/local/la-me ... 9274.story

How do these people sleep at night?

Originally Posted by ELE

How do these people sleep at night?

They sleep just fine, they are only doing this to have a better life, exactly like their members.

How does the saying go, the same type of dogs sleep together?