Service workers express outrage over alleged misuse of SEIU funds

[Adsos Letter]

Source: LA Times

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.

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.

The SEIU has insisted on restitution as part of an order last month banning Freeman from the organization forever. The organization removed him from office after The Times' reports, which prompted an ongoing federal criminal investigation and a congressional inquiry, among other probes.


Read more: http://www.latimes.com/news/local/la-me-workers27-2008dec27,0,7041066.story

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There are bad apples in every barrel, it seems....

[underpants]

1. Compared to the stock holders and clients of the finance firms they seem to have a voice

and access to the day-to-day operations of their organization

[Selatius]

3. That's why a union will always be more democratic in nature than a corporation like Wal-Mart.

With a union, at least every person in it has a vote. The same could never be said of any of the Fortune 100.

[notesdev]

2. Unions are no exception

to the wholesale corruption of our national institutions.

Who can be trusted?

[Career Prole]

4. Just suggesting a minor edit...

Unions are no exception to the wholesale corruption of our national institutions.

Who can be trusted?

Unions are Former SEIU president is no exception to the wholesale corruption of our national institutions.
Who can be trusted?

There...that's a little more accurate, no?

[dixiegrrrrl]

10. Lemme ask Hoffa bout that.

[Career Prole]

11. He wasn't mentioned in the OP's article

and disappeared over 30 years ago.
If it was a stretch attempting to paint unions in general as corrupt by using one example of the shitbird ex-president of the SEIU, then it's absurd to use a long-gone figure from another era...but you can always find someone yelling "Hoffa" every time organized labor is discussed. It never fails.

[RUMMYisFROSTED]

9. Except one apparently has accountability, while the other does not.

:think:

[Career Prole]

12. Truer words

were never spoken! :thumbsup:

[nightrain]

5. there are so many temptations when one has some power...

Too bad this guy couldn't be honest, the actual workers suffer as a result.

[UpInArms]

6. maybe he'll off himself when he has to live like the rest of us

fancy restaurants and resorts; and allegedly used union funds to pay hotel and other bills during his wedding in Hawaii

[Uben]

7. I'd rather see someone off him!

Scumbag piece of shit! And make the motherfucker suffer!

[RCinBrooklyn]

8. I'd give him one week to pay it back in cash - then treat him like a CEO in India.