If anything symbolized the success of the Service Employees International Union, the nation’s fastest-growing union, it was the campaign in 1999 to organize 74,000 home care workers in Los Angeles County. It was the largest successful unionization drive in the nation since the 1930s. þþBut now the service employees’ union has been embarrassed by disclosures that the local representing those workers has paid hundreds of thousands of dollars to companies run by the wife and various friends of the local’s president, Tyrone Freeman. þþAnnual reports filed with the Labor Department show that the local paid $177,000 last year to a video production firm run by Mr. Freeman’s wife, Pilar Planells. The local’s training center has often paid more than $90,000 a year to a child care firm run by Mr. Freeman’s mother-in-law. In 2006, the local paid $16,000 to a basketball team coached by Mr. Freeman’s brother-in-law. The expenditures were first reported by The Los Angeles Times.þþThe service employees’ union announced Wednesday night that Mr. Freeman, wanting to clear up the matter, had asked the parent union to place his local in a temporary trusteeship. He also said he was taking a temporary leave of absence, effective immediately. þþThe spending by Mr. Freeman’s local, United Long-Term Care Workers, has brought a burst of questions and criticisms about whether a local that represents workers earning $9 an hour on average should be spending money this way. The local represents 155,000 workers who take care of the aged, infirm and disabled, usually in their homes.þþ“Long-term-care workers work hard, and they need a powerful union to serve their interests,” said Tim Jemal, chief executive of a public affairs firm and a former spokesman for the local. “Reports of nepotism and lavish spending smack of hypocrisy. These actions betray the trust of the workers who place so much hope in the union to better their lives.” þþThe disclosures about Mr. Freeman, 38, have embarrassed Andy Stern, the service employees’ president, partly because he took Mr. Freeman from a union job in Georgia and appointed him first as the leader of one Los Angeles local, then to his position as head of Local 6434. That local was formed in 2006 when the union consolidated six smaller locals.þþ“A lot of us were excited that the S.E.I.U. organized home care workers because it meant it was representing the working poor,” said Nelson Lichtenstein, a labor expert at the University of California, Santa Barbara. “But then Tyrone Freeman comes along and tarnishes the image of the S.E.I.U.”þþA spokesman for Mr. Freeman, Scott Mann, said Mr. Freeman was busy with meetings on Wednesday and was not available for an interview.þþIn a statement this month, Mr. Freeman said the accusations against him included many mischaracterizations. þþMr. Freeman has said that all the expenditures were aimed at helping his union’s members and were approved by the local’s 55-member board.þþHe said his wife’s firm, Lotus Seven, had won its contract through competitive bidding to make videos about the local.þþThe Los Angeles Times reported that Mr. Freeman had refunded $9,856 the union paid to a cigar lounge after its article appeared. þþThe disclosures about Mr. Freeman come as Mr. Stern has sought to transfer 65,000 home care workers into Mr. Freeman’s local from a local in Northern California that is led by an outspoken Stern critic, Sal Rosselli.þþMr. Rosselli, who has resisted efforts to move workers from his local, said, “We and many others in California and beyond have long been expressing concerns to Stern about the leadership of the long-term-care union here.”þþIn a statement on Wednesday night, Michelle Ringuette, a spokeswoman for Mr. Stern and the parent union said: “These allegations are of serious concern to all of us, and we support Mr. Freeman’s decision to put the best interests of the members first. We are committed to protecting our members through strong and steady leadership and with a fair, free and accountable investigation.”þþUnder Mr. Freeman, the local paid more than $400,000 to sponsor a charity golf tournament, which spent some $100,000 more than it took in. To help attract interest in the tournament, the union paid $50,000 to a former Los Angeles Rams running back, Eric Dickerson, and $50,000 to his foundation. þþMr. Freeman ran unopposed for president of the local last March, but the federal Labor Department is investigating complaints that the local had imposed unreasonable barriers to running. Its bylaws require members to collect more than 4,800 signatures to get on the ballot.þþ“These aren’t factory workers who can easily gather signatures on the factory floor or in a parking lot during a break,” said Arthur Fox, a lawyer for the worker who has challenged the election. “These workers are isolated. They don’t have a clue who else is in the union. It’s a totally onerous burden. It’s virtually impossible for a rank-and-file person to get all these signatures.”þþFederal law bars unions from erecting unreasonable barriers to running for office. þþ
Source: NY Times
