Union+Corruption

00Publius Contributor - Democrats/Leftists - Economy/Finances - Media Bias - News - Society/Culture - Unions - Warner Todd Huston

Detroit Auto Makers Unions to Spend $3 Mil on Obama Campaign

October 10, 2008 by

-By Warner Todd Huston

According to Reuters, the United Auto Workers (UAW) has announced that they are spending $3 million on TV, radio and Web ads to promote the election of Barack Obama this month.

The ads, which feature UAW members talking about lost health care benefits and the loss of manufacturing jobs, will run on television, radio and Web sites in the key manufacturing states of Indiana, Michigan, Ohio and Pennsylvania.

These union thugs have some gall to claim that increasing benefits is a good idea. Let’s take a look and see how unions have already made American car manufacturers uncompetitive with others.

According to Fortune Magazine, union health care costs add at least $1,635 to the cost of every vehicle. The same measures only add $215 to the cost of a car made by Toyota. Other union costs add an additional $980 per vehicle.

US auto makers are already thousands of dollars in the hole per vehicle compared to their foreign competition before a single car rolls off the lines.

These anti-competitive costs will soar under an Obama administration.

Continue reading “Detroit Auto Makers Unions to Spend $3 Mil on Obama Campaign”

00Publius Contributor - Crime - Democrats/Leftists - Media Bias - News - The Law - Unions - Warner Todd Huston

OLMS Institutes New Union Reporting Rules for Hidden Slush Funds

October 9, 2008 by

-By Warner Todd Huston

The Office of Labor-Management Standards (OLMS) has issued new reporting procedures for unions to report the details of what are called T-1 Trusts. These new reporting efforts should help bring light to these funds that have heretofore been shielded from transparency allowing unions to use many millions of dollars without accountability from its members or the government.

A T-1 Trust fund is a nice bit of accounting sleight of hand that unions have used to fund what they claim is “retraining” of its members. But, millions of dollars end up in these funds and there are no rules to account for where this money goes or how it is being used. Rumors abound that, instead of “retraining,” this money goes into the pockets of union officials as “fees” and “salaries” to union bosses to “administer” the accounts.

There have been past reports that these funds have been used to sponsor NASCAR events and have gone into the pockets of political candidates, but the truth is, no one is really sure where it all goes. After all, there are NO rules for reporting what these funds are used for.

The government wants to shed light on these funds.

“This final rule builds on the administration’s commitment to transparency and accountability for corporations, pension funds and labor unions. Union members expect access to relevant and useful information in order to make fundamental investment, career and retirement decisions, evaluate options and exercise legally guaranteed rights,” said Don Todd, deputy assistant secretary for labor-management programs. “With meaningful disclosure, the department hopes to deter potential misuse of union trusts that have occurred in the past and allow union members to know exactly where their hard-earned dollars are being spent.”

Look for this to be either ignored by unions or actually repealed by Congress once the union bought and paid for Barack Obama gets into office.

Continue reading “OLMS Institutes New Union Reporting Rules for Hidden Slush Funds”

00Publius Contributor - Democrats/Leftists - Media Bias - News - Society/Culture - Unions - Warner Todd Huston

Union Illegally Gets County Worker’s Contact Info

October 6, 2008 by

-By Warner Todd Huston

Government workers from Montgomery County, Pennsylvania have been finding unwelcome visitors at the doorsteps since mid-August. Union organizers from the Service Employees International Union (SEIU) mysteriously found themselves in possession of the home addresses of every government worker in the county. This is, of course, illegal… yet, magically, the SEIU has the contact info anyway.

Naturally, every department head in the county is saying their agency is innocent of leaking the information. But, regardless who which inside operative of the union was helping them, it is not legal for the union to accept such information. The law states that only if the union receives a 30-percent yea vote for unionization is such information supposed to be provided to the union.

Commissioners’ Chairman Jim Matthews, Montgomery County Chief Deputy Solicitor and acting Human Resources Director Carolyn Carluccio, and Commissioner Joe Hoeffel all deny that they had anything to do with leaking the info, but some suspect Hoeffel, a Democrat that is a big union supporter.

Continue reading “Union Illegally Gets County Worker’s Contact Info”

00Publius Contributor - Congress - Crime - Democrats/Leftists - Economy/Finances - Elections - Media Bias - News - Society/Culture - Taxes - Warner Todd Huston

Union Lobbyist: ‘I Broke The Law All The Time’

October 3, 2008 by

-By Warner Todd Huston

Confessions of a criminal… well, that is what this new memoir should be titled, but it isn’t. The Bellingham Herald (Washington State) is reporting on the publication of a new memoir by Joe Miller who was once a lobbyist for various unions and Democratic Party candidates. In it he admits that he broke the law “all the time” in pursuit of legislative/financial wins for the left.

In “The Wicked Wine of Democracy,” Miller records his 40 years as a lobbyist, starting as a political operative for Henry “Scoop” Jackson in the 1960s, and the tales he gives us shows how corrupt the whole system has gotten to be.

Continue reading “Union Lobbyist: ‘I Broke The Law All The Time’”

00Publius Contributor - Democrats/Leftists - Education - Elections - Media Bias - News - President - Society/Culture - Unions - Warner Todd Huston

Teachers Union Using The Classroom to Push Barack Obama

October 3, 2008 by

-By Warner Todd Huston

A teachers union in Virginia sponsored an “Obama blue day” in schools throughout the state for teachers to show their support for Obama in the classroom. The plan was for teachers to come to work with a blue shirt to show solidarity with Obama.

Naturally — and properly — the Virginia GOP is crying foul and denouncing the effort to indoctrinate children with Obama’s message.

The Virginia Education Association sponsored “Obama Blue Day” on Tuesday. In an e-mail sent last week, it urged teachers to participate by dressing in blue.

“Let’s make Obama Blue Day a day of Action!” the e-mail continues. “Barack the vote!”

Of course, it is outrageous that our nation’s most impressionable, our children, are being indoctrinated by teacher’s unions to support a specific candidate in a contemporary election. It only goes to show how low unions will go to force their views on the voting, and non-voting, public.
Continue reading “Teachers Union Using The Classroom to Push Barack Obama”

00Publius Contributor - Business - Communism - Democrats/Leftists - Economy/Finances - Elections - Media Bias - News - Security/Safety - Socialism - Society/Culture - Unions - Warner Todd Huston

Even Old Time Socialist Says SEIU is Corrupt

September 30, 2008 by 1 Comment

-By Warner Todd Huston

Bill Fletcher is all about the wringing of hands over the corruption scandal of the Service Employees International Union (SEIU) and is afraid that it will get in the way of the upcoming presidential campaign. Fletcher, a long time union activist, pseudo “Africanist,” anti-American, and anti-Jew agitator, who is also a self described “socialist,”, and Barack Obama volunteer, was interviewed recently on the website of the extremist organization Democracy Now.

Little of what he had to say is of much surprise or interest nor is there any truth to it. It is filled with your run-of-the-mill psychotic hate for business and the U.S.A. like the content of all of his interviews. But, his lament about the troubled SEIU is interesting… maybe even heartening for those who wish to see the union curtailed.

Continue reading “Even Old Time Socialist Says SEIU is Corrupt”

00Publius Contributor - Business - Crime - Democrats/Leftists - Economy/Finances - Media Bias - News - Society/Culture - Unions - Warner Todd Huston

Union Patronage: Millions Paid to Family Members of Union Bigwigs

September 29, 2008 by

-By Warner Todd Huston

The L.A. Times has really got it out for the Service Employees International Union (SEIU), I have to say. On September 26, the Times published another one of its investigations into the corrupt union activities, this time revealing that SEIU union bigwigs have funneled millions of dollars to little companies owned by family members for “services” being provided the union.

The investigation also showed that union chiefs are starting their own side companies only to get millions of dollars in “contracts” from the union.

It must be nice to be a chief directing budgets of millions upon millions of dollars right into your own pockets and that of you family members!

Here are just some of the shady “services” and payments union chiefs made to their wives, daughters, sons and other family members:

  • The SEIU and its political affiliate contributed $3 million to America Votes, an advocacy organization that was headed by Cecile Richards, wife of an aide to SEIU President Andy Stern, at the time the payments were made.
  • Melissa Mullinax was an SEIU political director when the political consulting firm she held a 20%-to-25% stake in, The Edison Group, was paid more than $1 million, including expenses. In addition, the SEIU has spent about $41,000 on a graphic design company owned by Mullinax’s husband, Jason Abbott.
  • The union paid about $520,000 to a consulting firm co-founded by Democratic Party and labor strategist Steve Rosenthal, the husband of another SEIU director, Eileen Kirlin. Rosenthal, a longtime friend of Stern, also headed America Coming Together, a get-out-the-vote nonprofit that received $23 million from the union.
  • Pamela Kieffer, wife of a third union director, David Kieffer, has received about $70,000 in consulting fees and in separate payments from a firm that provided recruitment services to SEIU.
  • In addition, the SEIU and an associated nonprofit paid roughly $210,000 in consulting fees over four years to Don Stillman, husband of the union’s outside legal counsel, Judith Scott. Stillman helped edit a 2006 book written by Stern, a publication that has generated controversy because of how the union president profited from it.

It looks like the best way to become a millionaire these days is to marry a union chief of the SEIU!

Continue reading “Union Patronage: Millions Paid to Family Members of Union Bigwigs”

00Publius Contributor - Democrats/Leftists - Elections - Media Bias - News - Socialism - Society/Culture - The Law - Unions - Warner Todd Huston

Colorado Amendments 47,49,54 Attacked by Unions

September 28, 2008 by

-By Warner Todd Huston

There has been a pretty vicious fight in Colorado over several Amendments that will appear on the ballots aimed at putting a collar on rampant union violations of worker’s rights this year. The unions have imported all sorts of outside groups and money to defeat these worker freedom Amendments.

Here is a page from the latest anti-worker rights the unions have sent out.

Continue reading “Colorado Amendments 47,49,54 Attacked by Unions”

00Publius Contributor - Business - Communism - Democrats/Leftists - Media Bias - News - Socialism - Society/Culture - Unions - Warner Todd Huston

Unions Forcing NJ Newspaper to Fold

September 25, 2008 by

-By Warner Todd Huston

Anyone following the print media will know that newspapers are falling on hard times everywhere in the country. The Internet has damaged newspaper’s once dominant position as the source for daily local and national news. In this day when papers are folding everywhere and many more are firing people right and left (well, just “left” because there are few on the right in that business!) one would think that everyone involved with any particular paper would be bending over backwards to help keep the doors open and the printing presses rolling.

Well, apparently, unions would rather see everyone lose their jobs instead of compromising, at least in the case of two New Jersey papers, anyway.

It seems that the Mail Delivers Union and the truck drivers that delivers The Star-Ledger in New Jersey refuse to come to an agreement with the troubled paper and the the Star-Ledger is saying that it will have to quit publication by January of next year because of it.

This is a small illustration of the hidebound position that unions take all too often. They’d rather see a business destroyed completely then compromise. Cutting off the nose to spite the face comes to mind.

Continue reading “Unions Forcing NJ Newspaper to Fold”

00Publius Contributor - Business - Democrats/Leftists - Media Bias - News - Society/Culture - Unions - Warner Todd Huston

Union Operative Infiltrates Grocery Store to Organize

September 24, 2008 by

-By Warner Todd Huston

It’s like some sort of spy novel gone bad where the Soviet Agents are somehow the good guys. A grocery store worker and union member that makes over $20 an hour “quits” his job and starts a job in another grocery store making only $10 an hour just so he can cajole his new workplace into joining the union from the inside, pretending to be one of them. In fact, the union “supplements” this activist’s pay while he invades the other store to agitate for unions there.

At issue is the organizing of the Fresh & Easy grocery chain in Huntington Beach, California. Fresh & Easy is a British chain that not long ago launched 83 stores in 3 states, one of them California, and ever since the United Food and Commercial Workers union has been agitating for the chain to become unionized.

The company offers health-care benefits to employees that work only 20 hours a week, but the unions want more, naturally. The chain says it stand behind its benefits and pay scale.

But here is the interesting part. The unions are not just presenting their union idea to Fresh & Easy employees for an honest and open debate about the value of the union, they are sneaking employees into the stores to act as inside agitators.

Helping organize Fresh & Easy workers in Huntington Beach is Graham Ozenbaugh.

The 19-year Vons employee started working at the store as a $10 an hour “customer assistant” in December with the specific goal of getting the workers to form a union.

Todd Conger said the use of undercover union lobbyists such as Ozenbaugh is typical in “major campaigns” waged by labor organizations.

Conger said these workers, who take a leave of absence from their union-grocery jobs, are given supplemental pay. Ozenbaugh earns $20.80 an hour as a Vons supervisor.

This underhanded, sneaky move is supposed to make people comfortable that unions are interested in fair representation? I don’t see how anyone can trust such an organization that would engage is these sorts of tactics?

Continue reading “Union Operative Infiltrates Grocery Store to Organize”

00Publius Contributor - Business - Democrats/Leftists - Media Bias - News - Society/Culture - Unions - Warner Todd Huston

SEIU Formally Removes Embattled Freeman

September 23, 2008 by

-By Warner Todd Huston

The Service Employees International Union (SEIU) has made its first determinations in the Tyrone Freeman spending and influence peddling scandal that plagued a California Local. Freeman has been removed from the SEIU payrolls.

The L.A. Times launched a major investigation revealing the fraud and misuse of funds tied to Freeman and his close associates that we’ve discussed at length here on the blog. But, the SEIU report had a few new allegations, too.

Most of the union’s findings mirror The Times’ disclosures. But an SEIU report contains new allegations that Freeman spent dues-payers’ funds on his 2006 wedding and a Santa Barbara resort, and improperly drew payments from an affiliated local and a housing corporation.

The nine-page report, from union trustee John Ronches to SEIU Secretary-Treasurer Anna Burger, spells out seven charges accusing Freeman of violating the union’s corruption statutes.

The SEIU report alleges that Freeman’s dealings with the housing firm and worker-training charity amounted to a “misuse of the funds of these nonprofit corporations by his disregard for the specific nonprofit missions for which they were created.”

The L.A.Times reports that an unnamed union official says that more charges will be forthcoming.

What gets lost so easily in this discussion of Freeman’s corruption is that he was a protege of SEIU president Andy Stern. Freeman was the sort of man that Stern wanted as a leader. It shows the sort of person that Stern takes under his wing causing worry about his other proteges.

At least, though, this one corrupt union thug is getting his just deserts.

Continue reading “SEIU Formally Removes Embattled Freeman”

00Publius Contributor - Business - Democrats/Leftists - Elections - Media Bias - News - Society/Culture - Unions - Warner Todd Huston

AFSCME Spends $5.5 Mil on Anti-Republican Ads

September 21, 2008 by

-By Warner Todd Huston

The American Federation of State, County and Municipal Employees (AFSCME) donated nearly $5.5 million to three non-profit, leftist political groups to beat Republican politicians in Florida, Michigan and Ohio this year. AFSCME gave to Campaign Money Watch, Patriot Majority and Patriot Majority Midwest.

AFSCME’s role, however, was not well known until now. Detractors say that this shadowy financial support violates the spirit of campaign finance reform and open government.

Allowing non-profits to raise and spend unlimited union or corporate funds violates the spirit of laws aimed at curbing special interests in elections, said Meredith McGehee of the non-partisan watchdog Campaign Legal Center. “These groups can play the role of a hit man in a campaign and do it in a way that’s not very transparent,” she said.

Labor groups are hiding “behind shadowlike front groups to prop up their candidates of choice,” said Ken Spain, a spokesman for the National Republican Congressional Committee. This week the group asked the FEC to investigate Patriot Majority, saying it should not operate as a non-profit.

And here is the main problem. Unions reaching out far past their role for the mere reasons of personal power.

In any case, it should be remembered that these sorts of reporting agencies and laws that brought such union funding for politics to light are the sorts of agencies that Barack Obama has promised his union pals that he will revisit in order to eviscerate them giving unions a freer hand to meddle in politics unseen and unknown by the public.

Continue reading “AFSCME Spends $5.5 Mil on Anti-Republican Ads”

00Publius Contributor - Business - Democrats/Leftists - Elections - Media Bias - News - Society/Culture - Unions - Warner Todd Huston

CA House to Investigate SEIU Spending Scandal

September 20, 2008 by

-By Warner Todd Huston

To head off claims by California Republicans that California State House Democrats are covering up for the fraud involved in a Service Employees International Union (SEIU) spending and influence peddling scandal, it was announced that a criminal investigation is going forward against the union.

One wonders just how hard the Democrat controlled House will pursue the matter, though?

The Education and Labor Committee’s top-ranked Republican, Rep. Howard “Buck” McKeon (R-Santa Clarita), suggested last week that the congressional examination of an SEIU local in Los Angeles had stalled because the union is a key ally of the Democratic Party.

The committee chairman responsible for the investigation is a recipient of $10,000 in campaign donations from the SEIU. George Miller (D- Martinez) said that the investigation was going forward but that his panel would “avoid interfering with the efforts of federal law enforcement officials.”

The emergence of this spending and influence peddling scandal has already forced several SEIU leaders to step down in the face of pressure. Hundreds of thousands of dollars of union funds were spent on lavish diners and gifts as well as for “services” performed by companies owned by union leader’s family members.

This scandal threatens to taint SEIU leaders in Washington D.C., as well as California and has also reached into Michigan already. SEIU president Andy Stern was a close associate and backer of Tyrone Freeman, the California Local leader that had to step down as a result of these troubles.

Continue reading “CA House to Investigate SEIU Spending Scandal”

00Publius Contributor - Business - Democrats/Leftists - News - Society/Culture - Unions - Warner Todd Huston

Has it Come to This? Unions Striking Against Unions?

September 19, 2008 by

-By Warner Todd Huston

Unions in America have finally arrived at farce. Yes, they have become a parody of themselves because now we have an example of a union being formed so that it can strike against… its own union. Confused? Don’t blame you.

From the Associated Press we get this tale of high comedy, this story of brother fighting brother and sister cat fighting with sister: Union employees form their own union, then strike.

The workers who help the Oregon Education Association file grievances and negotiate new contracts went on strike Monday against the union they represent.

Isn’t this a little bit like an army turning on itself because, well, they are armed, too?

Apparently, the “Oregon Education Association Professional Staff Organization” has organized its 42 members so that they can strike against the OEA that was offering them a new contract, one that featured rollbacks in some benefits.

Let’s face it, none of us here care much about the particulars. Couldn’t care less whether this spin off union wins loses or draws here. It’s just a darn funny story that a union has split off from a union in order to strike against itself!

Seriously. You can’t write comedy this funny.

Continue reading “Has it Come to This? Unions Striking Against Unions?”

00Publius Contributor - Crime - Democrats/Leftists - Elections - Media Bias - News - Society/Culture - Unions - Warner Todd Huston

ACORN Sues Itself

September 18, 2008 by

-By Warner Todd Huston

Looks like the folks inside the Association of Community Organizations for Reform Now (ACORN) are finally showing how upset they are that their chief tried to hide the fact that his brother embezzled a million dollars from the organization.

The Pittsburgh Tribune reports that some members of the board are suing founder Wade Rathke for the cover up attempt.

Board members Marcel Reid and Karen Inman are seeking a court order that also would sever ties between ACORN and founder Wade Rathke, The New York Times reported Tuesday. Although Rathke resigned as chief organizer, he oversees staff and expenditures, the lawsuit contends.

The court action reflects continuing turmoil at ACORN. Rathke resigned after it became public this summer that his brother, Dale Rathke, embezzled $948,607.50.

Rathke tried to hide the fact that his brother stole a cool one mil from the organization’s funds several years ago. Looks like his buddies on the ACORN Board are finally fed up.

Of course, this points to the sort of corruption endemic with the mindset of the group in the first place. That its founder thought he could cover up such a criminal action speaks to the place of privilege he thinks he and his brother holds. He and his brother are above the law, apparently.

In any case, let’s hope everyone gets what they deserve here.

Continue reading “ACORN Sues Itself”

00Publius Contributor - Crime - Democrats/Leftists - Elections - News - Society/Culture - Warner Todd Huston

More ACORN Vote Fraud Attempts

September 15, 2008 by 1 Comment

-By Warner Todd Huston

The union supporting, Democratic Party pushing, extreme leftist Association of Community Organizations for Reform Now (ACORN) has been caught trying to gerry rig voter applications in Michigan. It is looking like fraud on a massive scale in Detroit as ACORN tries to fill the Democrat voter rolls with fake Democrat voters.

ACORN is being investigated after several Municipal Clerks discovered fraudulent and duplicate voter registration applications.

The majority of the fraudulent and duplicate applications are coming from the liberal ACORN group based in Detroit, Michigan, which now has ACORN investigating the problem once again as well as the Secretary of State’s Office turning over some of those applications to the U.S. Attorney’s Office.

And it isn’t just Detroit that has found fraud being perpetrated by ACORN.

In recent years, ACORN’s voter registration programs have come under investigation in Ohio, Colorado, Missouri and Washington, with some employees convicted of voter fraud.

The Pittsburgh Tribune-Review is also reporting that the Obama campaign has been forced to amend a report to reflect over $800,000 of previously unreported ACORN donations to his campaign.

ACORN is at the heart of one of the most massive voter fraud campaigns in American history. ACORN is intimate with Barack Obama and is a major supporter of unions throughout the country and is doing its level best (and illegally at that) trying to assure that Obama wins this election.

Continue reading “More ACORN Vote Fraud Attempts”

00Publius Contributor - Crime - Democrats/Leftists - News - Society/Culture - Unions - Warner Todd Huston

Disgraced Ex-Labor Chief Helps Feds Snare Corrupt Pol

September 15, 2008 by

-By Warner Todd Huston

What a career move. From top union chief, to convicted felon, to snitch. News emerged this week that disgraced union boss Brian McLaughlin has turned FBI snitch giving information that has led to the arrest of a Queens, New York politician Anthony Seminerio.

McLaughlin faces sentencing for his conviction for stealing $2.2 million in cash, cars and perks, but he isn’t going down alone. The news probably has quite a few New York pols quaking in the boots, wondering if the FBI is about to knock on their door next.

As to Anthony Seminerio, he’s in dutch, big time.

A 17-page complaint says Seminerio’s influence-peddling became so blatant that he twice brought the FBI agent into the Assembly. “Anthony Seminerio put his office up for sale for those willing to pay the right price,” said Manhattan U.S. Attorney Michael Garcia.

In one of Seminerio’s schemes, federal prosecutors said, he collected $310,000 – a huge boost from his $79,500 state salary – from an unidentified hospital that received millions in state funding with his help.

But, always remember, union bosses are only out to help the little guy… and, in an effort to get a lesser sentence on corruption charges, the occasional FBI agent.

Continue reading “Disgraced Ex-Labor Chief Helps Feds Snare Corrupt Pol”

00Publius Contributor - Business - Crime - Democrats/Leftists - Economy/Finances - Media Bias - News - Security/Safety - Society/Culture - Unions - Warner Todd Huston

Union’s Troubles Deepen: Child-Porn Case Revealed

September 14, 2008 by

-By Warner Todd Huston

The troubled Service Employee International Union (SEIU) in California is seeing yet another explosion of negative publicity this week as one of its Local chiefs is arrested for possessing child pornography. The Sacramento Bee is reporting Local 1000 District Labor Council 784 Jaime E. Feliciano, 49, was arrested Tuesday, September 9.

Authorities on Tuesday arrested the president of a state workers union local on suspicion of possessing child pornography and violating his probation as a sex offender.

Sacramento Country Sheriff’s Dept. also reports that they had received a tip that Feliciano had recently had inappropriate contact with a juvenile.

The Bee’s State Worker Blog had a salient point: how does a convicted pedophile become a union chief? The State Worker Blog asked Jim Zamora of the SEIU what happened?

We are all shocked and disgusted by these charges. No one in SEIU leadership knew that he was a convicted sex offender prior to the media reports of his arrest.

Apparently, the SEIU is now taking steps to get rid of the pedophile chief.

I find it interesting, though, that a union as powerful and large as the SEIU didn’t know that their Local’s leader was a convicted sex offender.

Continue reading “Union’s Troubles Deepen: Child-Porn Case Revealed”

00Publius Contributor - Business - Democrats/Leftists - Media Bias - News - Society/Culture - Unions - Warner Todd Huston

Labor Unrest, Ready to Fight… Itself

September 13, 2008 by

-By Warner Todd Huston

Andy Stern, president of the Service Employee International Union (SEIU), has an ambitious plan for the future. He imagines the SEIU as the voice of all working Americans, not just that of his union. He feels the SEIU should and will lead the nation in employment policy, essentially claiming a place at the table of power where legally only legislators should sit. In pursuit of this, Stern has earmarked an unprecedented $85 million dollars of his members’ money to go to elect Democrats to Congress and the White House. And, apparently only one thing stands in his way is…

… his own membership.

We have here on the blog been following the endemic corruption scandal engulfing the SEIU offices in California, all of it tired to operatives intimate with and appointed by Andy Stern. In response to these scandals, Stern has begun to make a show of pretending at a clean up. ( see here, here, here, here, and here)

Continue reading “Labor Unrest, Ready to Fight… Itself”

00Publius Contributor - Democrats/Leftists - Elections - Media Bias - News - Society/Culture - Unions - Warner Todd Huston

Union Democracy Group Says SEIU’s New ‘Ethics Commission’ a Scam

September 12, 2008 by

-By Warner Todd Huston

For those of you following the several recent L.A.Times stories ( see here, here, here and here), the Service Employee International Union (SEIU) has been embroiled in scandal over misuse of funds in California and Michigan. Several SEIU head operatives have vacated their positions of power and all are tied to SEIU president Andy Stern.

Recently Stern announced that the SEIU was setting up an internal ethics commission to look into allegations of fraud and abuse of funds. But, this sham effort to root out corruption is so transparent that even other pro-union groups are skeptical that Stern is seriously trying to stamp out corruption.

The Association for Union Democracy issued a press release scolding Stern for his obvious attempt to cover up, rather than root out, corruption in the SEIU.

Continue reading “Union Democracy Group Says SEIU’s New ‘Ethics Commission’ a Scam”

00Publius Contributor - Democrats/Leftists - Elections - Media Bias - News - Socialism - Society/Culture - Unions - Warner Todd Huston

Unions Try to Buy Republican Support

September 12, 2008 by

-By Warner Todd Huston

Interestingly, several unions have this convention season tried to cross the aisle from their usual Democrat side over to Republicans looking to garner support from the Red States. The National Journal has an interesting little account of the Service Employee International Union (SEIU) and the National Education Association (NEA) and a few others trying to warm up to Republicans soft on worker freedom.

Under Stern, the SEIU is making a concerted effort to build bridges with the GOP, and for the first time ever it helped to finance a Republican convention by giving $50,000 to the host committee. Furthermore, the SEIU wrote a $25,000 check to the Republican Governors Association and gave about $10,000 to the Republican Main Street Partnership.

Money turns heads, folks. If your representatives in Congress or in your home state are suddenly finding their palms filled with union cash, take a close look at why. Unions won’t be just dispensing cash freely and without strings attached, remember.

If your Congressman is suddenly a recipient of union largess, there will be a reason and that reason will probably not be to your liking. Keep any eye on this lest you be supporting a politician that is quietly supporting unions.

Continue reading “Unions Try to Buy Republican Support”

00Publius Contributor - Business - Democrats/Leftists - Economy/Finances - Media Bias - News - Society/Culture - Unions - Warner Todd Huston

Another Top SEIU Head Lopped Off in Money Scandal

September 8, 2008 by

-By Warner Todd Huston

Once again in as many weeks, the L.A. Times reports on a third Service Employee International Union (SEIU) head that has been forced to step down because of allegations of fraud and misuse of union funds. Annelle Grajeda, the SEIU’s top officer in California, has resigned.

Annelle Grajeda’s boyfriend is also under a cloud for being a recipient of misappropriated union funds.

For the full story on the particular allegations, be sure and visit the L.A. Times.

What we are seeing, however, is one SEIU head after another being found to be indulging in misuse of funds, influence peddling and fraud over and over again. There’s no telling how many more such SEIU leaders will be caught up in this new scrutiny.

But, it is revelatory of the sort of corruption that is endemic with the SEIU. This is the most powerful union in the country and it is being run by a man who has designs of becoming a leader of national policy for the whole country, not just for unions, but for all of us.

SEIU President Andy Stern imagines himself a leader of national importance, yet he cannot keep the sort of horrid corruption from toppling members of his own union, and members with whom he has been intimately connected.

Worse, it isn’t Stern who has been responsible for the rooting out of corruption of his closest associates in the California offices. He has been brought to it sullenly silent not as a crusader against corruption.

And this is the man that imagines himself one who should counsel presidents?

These scandals, however, reveal an organization empty of ethics.

Continue reading “Another Top SEIU Head Lopped Off in Money Scandal”

00Publius Contributor - Business - Democrats/Leftists - Elections - Media Bias - News - Security/Safety - Society/Culture - Warner Todd Huston

Union Stands Against Democracy and Local Participation

September 4, 2008 by

-By Warner Todd Huston

The more we learn of the management style of President Andy Stern of the Service Employee International Union (SEIU) the more we see that he is an authoritarian as bad as any top-down led corporation that he and his union might criticize. And this newest abuse of office that his protege in California, Tyrone Freeman, has been embroiled in is yet another window into Stern’s undemocratic ways.

As Freeman was wildly spending union members’ dues to float little companies run by his relatives, and as Freeman’s associate Rickman Jackson went to a Michigan union to try his own hand at such abuse of office, what was Andy Stern doing while all this was going on under his nose? Instead of cleaning up his own pals, Stern was attacking another union local that was challenging his iron-fisted and unprincipled leadership.

As union member Dan Mariscal of S.M.A.R.T. says:

Continue reading “Union Stands Against Democracy and Local Participation”

00Publius Contributor - Communism - Crime - Democrats/Leftists - News - Socialism - Society/Culture - Unions - Warner Todd Huston

Calif. SEIU Funds Abuse Spreads to Mich.

August 27, 2008 by

-By Warner Todd Huston

This just gets better and better. You’ll recall our recent focus on the abuse of funds and influence peddling by California Service Employee International Union (SEIU) head Tyrone Freeman being investigated in depth by the L.A.Times and how Mr. Freeman has been funneling union contracts to his family members. Now a related investigation in Michigan has revealed that one of Freeman’s former associates has had to step down from a Michigan SEIU post because of similar financial misdeeds there.

Once again the L.A. Times is the source for this sad tale of union bosses abusing the power so blindly handed them by the rank and file.

It appears that Rickman Jackson, former chief of staff for the California organization headed by Tyrone Freeman, had to step down from a Michigan SEIU local when it was discovered that he and Freeman had set up a shady housing corporation that was improperly getting business from Freeman’s California organization.

Both departures followed reports in The Times that the local and a related charity paid hundreds of thousands of dollars to firms owned by the wife and mother-in-law of its president, Tyrone Freeman, and spent similar sums on a Four Seasons Resorts golf tournament, restaurants such as Morton’s steakhouse, a Beverly Hills cigar lounge and a Hollywood talent agency.

Continue reading “Calif. SEIU Funds Abuse Spreads to Mich.”

00Publius Contributor - Business - Communism - Democrats/Leftists - News - Socialism - Society/Culture - Unions - Warner Todd Huston

Union Disses the Kids

August 26, 2008 by 1 Comment

-By Warner Todd Huston

The kids at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill feel like they’ve been used and discarded by Andy Stern’s Service Employees International Union (SEIU) and they aren’t happy about it. They are so upset they’ve issued an open letter to the SEIU to air their grievances… not that it’ll matter much.

It seems that the SEIU swooped onto several college campuses and encouraged student activists to organize college foodservice workers and then, assuring the kiddies that all their work was a worthy effort, quietly worked with the colleges NOT to organize the same workers that the kids thought they were enrolling in a union.

At that point the student groups got a tad upset that all their energies went for nothing and who can blame them? After all, they thought that they were striking a blow for “the workers” against those evil “corporate slave masters” in their typically naive, young idealistic enthusiasm.

Some of you readers out there may be a tad confused at this point. Why would the SEIU, one of the most powerful unions in the county, seem to mislead these naive kids and refuse to organize supposedly willing new members? Well, its all a piece with SEIU President Andy Stern’s newest tactic wherein the union works closer with the employer to determine who will be “allowed’ to organize and who will not.

Stern’s process has been to act a little less antagonistic with potential new corporations that might find their employees come under the SEIU’s wing. The SEIU has made many closed door, back room deals with potential corporate members, deals that few of their potential or existing members are allowed to be a part of because these deals are made at the highest level of the SEIU.

Continue reading “Union Disses the Kids”

00Publius Contributor - Business - Crime - Democrats/Leftists - Economy/Finances - Media Bias - News - Socialism - Society/Culture - Unions - Warner Todd Huston

More On Union Thug Tyrone Freeman

August 24, 2008 by

-By The Heritage Foundation

With continuing coverage of the Tyrone Freeman investigations (see Here and Here) in L.A., here is an entry from the Heritage Foundation Daily Bell updating us.

Can Our Economy Afford More Union Corruption?

The president of California’s largest union local, the 160,000-member Service Employees International Union (SEIU) in Los Angeles, yesterday announced he would take a leave of absence and the local would be placed in a temporary trusteeship. Tyrone Freeman’s departure comes after an in-depth series of Los Angeles Times articles detailing how Freeman fleeced union members — who make about $9 an hour caring for the infirm and disabled — of over $1 million in 2006 and 2007 alone.

Continue reading “More On Union Thug Tyrone Freeman”