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SEIU –Not a Responsible UNION!

Washington, DC (July 17, 2008) – The National Right to Work Foundation has formally requested that the U.S. Department of Labor and U.S. Department of Justice open investigations into a campaign fundraising scheme adopted by the Service Employees International Union (SEIU) at its recent convention.

Labor Department reportedly joins investigation of SEIU payments
U.S. authorities are examining hundreds of thousands of dollars paid by the union and a related charity to firms owned by relatives of the Los Angeles local’s president, sources say.
By Paul Pringle, Los Angeles Times Staff Writer
August 28, 2008
A growing financial scandal in the 2-million-member Service Employees International Union has prompted a federal criminal investigation into the labor organization’s largest California local, sources familiar with the probe say.

U.S. Labor Department authorities are examining payments of hundreds of thousands of dollars by the union and a related charity to firms owned by relatives of the Los Angeles local’s president and expenditures of similar sums on a golf tournament, restaurants, a cigar lounge and entertainment companies, according to people with knowledge of the investigation.
The investigators are also looking into allegations that some union staff members faced retaliation last week after they refused to sign a petition supporting its president, Tyrone Freeman, the sources said.

Union is probing official’s role in ex-boyfriend’s deal; SEIU wants to know whether officer helped ex-local president stay on the county payroll.
The separation deal has since become the focus of an internal SEIU investigation into whether Stephens’ former girlfriend, Annelle Grajeda, a top officer in the union’s national organization, inappropriately used her position to help him remain on the county payroll in 2007. She has denied wrongdoing and is currently on union leave.

Wackenhut: SEIU is rigging security services contracts
Company files suit against SEIU alleging damages of $5 million
Blackwater barred from Iraq

PR Newswire
PALM BEACH GARDENS, Fla., April 11 — The Wackenhut Corporation today filed a civil action against the Service Employees International Union Local 1 responding to the union’s entry into and maintenance of an illegal agreement with the Building Owners and Managers Association of Chicago (BOMA/Chicago).

United Healthcare Workers-West, which represents hospital, long-term care and home-care workers, came about in January 2005 through a merger of SEIU Local 250 in Northern California and SEIU Local 399 in Southern California. Now with roughly 150,000 active members, the union is a major reason why the SEIU now claims a rank and file of 2 million, more than double the figure of a dozen years ago. Yet its collective-bargaining ability appears to have taken a few steps backward. Rosselli argues that this is because SEIU President Andrew Stern and Secretary-Treasurer Anna Burger have ruthlessly consolidated their power and brokered secret deals over the objections of local leaders. The end result is that UHW has more members, but lesser contracts. Agreements with such employers as Aramark and The Compass Group, they say, lock workers into low wages, poor benefits, and a lack of renegotiation rights. Now reinforcements have arrived.

SEIU members in Los Angeles were victimized by one of the most appalling cases of union corruption in recent history.
Members saw their money illegally used to support the city council race of Martin Ludlow. Ludlow was sentenced for conspiracy to illegally funnel money from SEIU Local 99 to his campaign and ordered to pay $36,000 in restitution.
 Four of the last eight Teamsters union presidents have been criminally indicted
 UNITE HERE has been found guilty of invading employees’ privacy and ordered to pay $17 million for defaming medical professionals, and it has been sued by its own employees after the union slashed their staff’s key retirement benefit by 95%
In the same scandal, former SEIU head Janett Humprhies collaborated with Ludlow to use union funds to pay the salaries of six union employees working on his campaign. One of Humphries’ lawyers said Ludlow and allies “were doing what unions do” and added, “The testimony has raised serious red flags about the integrity of union politics in Los Angeles.”
Other recent scandals include:
 In June 2006, the National Labor Relations Board found that SEIU interfered with the free choice of employees by illegally making promises to wave initiation fees – much like the union accuses employers of making promises to employees during union drives.
 In June 2006, a federal judge ordered SEIU Local 1000 to pay $37,000 as punishment for failing to give members adequate information about how the union was spending employees’ agency fees (which are forced payments from employees who do not wish to union members).
 In 2007, members of the powerful Local 503 in Oregon began circulating a petition to recall the union’s president, who was seeking to collect more than $100,000 in back pay that most members think he didn’t earn.
 The Macon Telegraph reported that local SEIU officials lost control of their government-employee union after troubling questions were raised over $30,000 of cash withdrawals from the local’s bank account, lack of documentation for $90,000 in hotel, airline, food, telephone and other expenses, and $36,000 in vacation buyouts that were not authorized by the union’s board.
Even Old Time Socialist Says SEIU is Corrupt
Posted on September 30, 2008

****Daniel J. Seman and Avalon Fortress Security Corporation FYI****