The Service Employees International Union has long boasted that it is on the cutting edge of the labor movement. But the union found itself badly embarrassed this week when it was named in the federal criminal complaint charging Gov. Rod R. Blagojevich of Illinois with maneuvering to secure financial gain from the appointment of the state’s next senator.þþThe complaint said Mr. Blagojevich’s chief of staff, John Harris, had suggested to a service employees official that the union should help make the governor the president of Change to Win, a federation of seven unions that broke away from the A.F.L.-C.I.O. The complaint said Mr. Blagojevich, a Democrat, was seeking a position that paid $250,000 to $300,000 a year. þþIn exchange, the complaint suggested, Mr. Blagojevich had expected the service employees union and Change to Win to seek to persuade him to name President-elect Barack Obama’s first choice, Valerie Jarrett, to succeed Mr. Obama in the Senate. The union would also receive help from the Obama administration, presumably for its legislative agenda.þþSeveral union officials in Chicago and Washington said the service employees official approached by Mr. Harris was Tom Balanoff, the president of the union’s giant janitors local in Chicago and head of the union’s Illinois state council. Mr. Balanoff, one of the union officials closest to Mr. Obama, is widely seen as an aggressive, successful labor leader, who has helped unionize thousands of janitors not just in the Chicago area but also in Texas. þþReached by telephone on Tuesday, Mr. Balanoff said, “I can’t comment on anything right now.”þþThe Illinois branch of the service employees issued a statement Wednesday night saying, “We have no reason to believe that S.E.I.U. or any S.E.I.U. official was involved in any misconduct.” It added that the union and Mr. Balanoff were cooperating with federal investigators.þþChange to Win’s spokesman, Greg Denier, said the federation “had no involvement, no discussion, no contact” with Mr. Blagojevich or his staff about Mr. Obama’s successor.þþ“The idea of a position at Change to Win was totally an invention of the governor,” Mr. Denier said, “and his stance has no basis in reality.”þþMr. Denier added that the presidency of Change to Win was an unsalaried position. The federation’s president, Anna Burger, is the service employees’ secretary-treasurer and receives only her union salary. þþService employees officials said the criminal complaint did not accuse the unnamed “S.E.I.U. official” of having done anything wrong. All the official did, they said, was listen to Mr. Blagojevich and his chief of staff and ferry some messages for them.þþA senior service employees official who insisted on anonymity because prosecutors had asked union officials not to talk said his union was one of many that backed Mr. Blagojevich and received favors from him. But he said it was understandable that Mr. Blagojevich would ask the service employees for a favor because it was so powerful and was one of the unions closest to Mr. Obama. (Patrick Gaspard, the former political director of the service employees’ huge New York health care affiliate, 1199, was political director of Mr. Obama’s campaign and has been named the White House political director.)þþIf Mr. Blagojevich was going to approach a union to help land a high-paying job after leaving the Illinois governorship, it probably made sense for him to approach the service employees, the nation’s fastest-growing union. þþWith more than 1.8 million members nationwide, it is the largest union in Illinois, was an early and generous backer of his ambitions to become governor and received some important favors from him. þþIn 2005, the governor issued an executive order that enabled the service employees to unionize 49,000 in-home child care providers who were paid through state and federal funds. Afterward, the service employees negotiated a 39-month contract that raised the child care providers’ daily rates by 35 percent on average and provided them with health coverage.þþWith Mr. Blagojevich evidently hoping to trade favors with Mr. Obama, the service employees seemed like a sensible intermediary because it was widely seen as having done more than any other union to elect Mr. Obama. The service employees’ political action committee spent at least $26 million on Mr. Obama’s behalf in the presidential campaign, making it by far the largest single PAC donor in the campaign. þþThe service employees union was also the top overall donor to Mr. Blagojevich’s 2006 re-election campaign, with records showing it donated more than $900,000, or about 5 percent of his total campaign funds. þþMichelle Ringuette, a spokeswoman for the service employees’ union, said such political contributions were not unusual.þþ“Many unions make donations to political candidates,” Ms. Ringuette said, “in the interest of making sure we have elected officials who represent the interest of working families, men and women who get up and go to work every day.”þþThe service employees’ president, Andy Stern, is often seen as the most powerful union official in the nation, serving as both a dynamo and a lightning rod for the labor movement. Mr. Stern led the schism from the A.F.L.-C.I.O., and now is seeking to lead an effort to persuade Mr. Obama to enact two major pieces of legislation in his first 100 days: universal health coverage and a bill that would make it easier for workers to unionize.þþMr. Stern was embarrassed this year when Tyrone Freeman, an official he had appointed to run a large home-care workers local in Los Angeles, was suspended and later banned for misappropriating hundreds of thousands of dollars in funds. Mr. Freeman was found to have improperly directed union funds to his wedding, to his wife’s company and even to membership in a private cigar club.þþMr. Stern has named a panel of experts to develop a tougher ethical code for the union.þþ
Source: NY Times
