Last year, Freedom@Work [1] reported on [2] the allegations of corruption against Tyrone Freeman, former boss of the largest Service Employees International Union (SEIU) affiliate in California. Freeman spent [3] nearly three-quarters of a million dollars of rank-and-file workers' forced union dues on his wife's and mother's companies and on a luxurious fat-cat lifestyle. The Los Angeles Times later reported [4] Freeman's SEIU affiliate "charity" failed to spend a single cent on its charitable mission in two of the four years it has been in existence.
Today, the Los Angeles Times reports [5] another SEIU union official corruption scandal, this time executive vice president of the SEIU's Illinois-Indiana health care affiliate and national SEIU union board member Byron Hobbs.
Hobbs is accused of billing the union for $9,000 for personal expenses. The LA Times continues its report by putting the latest scandal in context:
...[former Freeman Chief-of-Staff] Rickman Jackson, was removed as head of the SEIU's largest Michigan local, because he allegedly received improper lease payments for his Bell Gardens house.
Annelle Grajeda, president of both a second L.A. local and the SEIU's state council, has been on leave since August, when the union began investigating whether she had improperly used her influence to keep her ex-boyfriend on the county payroll...
Last month, the union imposed a trusteeship on an Oakland-based local and fired its officers, accusing them of misusing dues money to wage a political battle against SEIU President Andy Stern.
And of course, who can forget that it was a SEIU union boss who was engaged in [6] pay-to-play talks with former [and corrupt] Illinois Governor Rod Blagojevich -- to allegedly buy Obama's then-vacant U.S. Senate seat.
Unfortunately, the people most hurt by union boss corruption are the rank-and-file workers, especially in forced unionism states [7]. Right to work laws, allow workers to hold union officials more accountable by exercising because workers can cut off union dues if they don’t like union officials' so-called “representation,” politics, corruption, or fat-cat lifestyles.
Links:
[1] http://www.nrtw.org/en/blog
[2] http://www.nrtw.org/en/blog/quick-hits-98212008
[3] http://www.latimes.com/news/local/la-me-union17-2008aug17,0,1737360,full.story
[4] http://www.nrtw.org/en/blog/union-charity-doesnt-spend-dime-charity12162108
[5] http://www.latimes.com/news/local/la-na-union12-2009feb12,0,2653505.story
[6] http://www.nrtw.org/en/blog/whats-going-rate-us-senator-1292008
[7] http://www.nrtw.org/rtws.htm