Posts Tagged “union corruption”

Last week I posted about the Service Employees International Union and their attempts to unionize McDonalds across the country. Thanks to a tip from a reader, now comes this, which is a-typical of how unions pilfer money from their members pockets for their own personal gain.

Service workers express outrage over alleged misuse of SEIU funds

They make subsistence wages tending to the sick and elderly, minus the dues paid to the union local whose charismatic former president promised again and again to make the caregivers’ own lives better.

Now, the workers are told, the same fallen leader, Tyrone Freeman, owes the Service Employees International Union more than $1 million that officials say he misappropriated from the Los Angeles local to enrich his relatives and himself.

“I go back to those days when he was calling us brothers and sisters,” said Sergio Shokouh, 56. “He cheated us.

With 160,000 members, not counting 30,000 in an affiliated organization, the United Long-Term Care Workers is the largest union local of any kind in California, and one of the biggest in the country.

[...]

Since The Times began reporting on Freeman’s spending in August, the paper has received a steady stream of email and telephone calls from people who identified themselves as members of the local, making $9 an hour or so.

Most expressed shock at the revelations that Freeman channeled millions from the local and a related charity to his wife’s and mother-in-law’s business accounts; spent members’ dues on fancy restaurants and resorts; and allegedly used union funds to pay hotel and other bills during his wedding in Hawaii.

From the Teamsters Union to the UAW, and now, the SEIU, this type of corruption has gone on for years at the expense of their members. The feds recently gave the big three automakers a $17.4 billion bailout. The UAW refused to consider any cuts in benefits, work rules or pay, and the automakers will continue to fund retiree health care benefits.

All the while, the UAW manages to spend upwards of $5 million per year to cover the losses at a resort and golf course it owns, the Black Lake club and retreat. See story here.

Gimme.. gimme..

AWB