Inside SEIU president Andy Stern’s culture of corruption
On Friday, SEIU thug-in-chief Andy Stern published a screed titled, “Working Women and Men Will Not Be Silenced by Right Wing Attack Dogs; We Will Win the Change America Needs.” He carped about “an insidious and coordinated effort on the part of the extreme right to target individuals and grassroots community groups as a way to silence the voices of women and men who have suffered the most under 8 years of right wing policies. These extremists will attempt to shut down and shout down anyone with a different point of view.”
I’ve told you before about Stern’s operating philosophy: “[W]e prefer to use the power of persuasion, but if that doesn’t work we use the persuasion of power.” You can find my entire SEIU archives here.
While Stern assails “greedy CEOS,” he groomed his own team of labor management thieves. Here’s a closer look inside Andy Stern’s culture of corruption. Know your enemy:
Excerpted from Culture of Corruption, “Chapter 7: SEIU – Look for the union label”
Andy Stern rallied the Illinois delegation to the 2008 Democratic National Convention in August 2008 with an impassioned salute to the working man Flanking Stern on stage at the Denver celebration: Chicago political machine kingpins Rahm Emanuel and Richard Daley. Stern roared about “rebalancing power between wealth and work” to “make sure everyone shares in the wealth of a growing economy.” Echoing Obama’s 2007 speech to the SEIU political action conference, union boss Stern condemned the old way of doing business and called on American to “turn the page” on behalf of hard-working Americans and their families.
But just two weeks before Stern and company gathered in the Mile High City to celebrate Obaman’s coronation,, the Los Angeles Times published an explosive investigative series about the SEIU, Although the series got surprisingly little attention from national news organizations, L.A. Times reporters exposed how one of Stern’s top protégés “shared in the wealth” –— by siphoning off hundreds of thousands of dollars in dues money for his personal enrichment and pleasure. Moreover, the paper alleged, Stern helped cover up the scandal. No wonder they keep urging us to “turn the page.”
The L.A. Times investigation zeroed in on Tyrone Freeman who, like Barack Obama, began his career as an urban community organizer. In Atlanta, Freeman quickly ascended the SEIU ladder. In 1994, Stern found him at a small Georgia chapter of the union, Local 1985, and brought him westward. Stern set his loyalist Freeman up as head of Local 6434, the sprawling home care workers’ chapter in southern California that represents an estimated 160,000 workers who make about $9 an hour caring for the elderly and disabled. Stern chose Freeman as part of his administration slate at the SEIU convention in 2008 and named him a national vice president in addition to the L.A. appointment. The move wasn’t an altruistic act of affirmative action. It was part of Stern’s grander plan to consolidate power by merging locals into statewide chapters.
With bigger membership rolls came bigger coffers, and with bigger coffers came irresistible temptations.
Freeman, the L.A. Times discovered, had piped $600,000 in union contracts to his wife’s video production and entertainment ventures. The local also paid his mother-in-law $8,000 a month to babysit his daughter and other union employees’ children; footed a $13,000 bill for membership at a Beverly Hills cigar club; covered $12,500 in tabs at upscale Morton’s restaurant in Burbank; and forked over $8,000 in union dues to cover expenses for Freeman’s Hawaiian wedding. Freeman’s spending orgy didn’t end there.
Stern’s protégé created a non-profit training shop called the “Homecare Workers Training Center” –— ostensibly to provide educational opportunities for nurses. In practice, the non-profit served as a conduit to subsidize a childcare business operated by Freeman’s mother-in-law. “Her business had been receiving more than $90,000 annually for the past several years from the training center that Freeman founded as a separate nonprofit and chairs, according to IRS filings and interviews” by the L.A. Times. The funding from her son-in-law constituted more than 10 percent of the nonprofit’s total yearly expenditures. Freeman’s wife, Pilar, and brother-in-law, Hernando Planells Jr., are listed in state documents as officers in the mother-in-law’s business.” Freeman’s ransacking of Local 6434’s treasury didn’t end with nepotistic favoritism. The Times also reported:
* A housing corporation that Freeman helped found as a nonprofit has not been granted the IRS tax-exempt status it sought and was suspended from doing business in California. It also has claimed on its website to have a “strong relationship” with the prominent California Community Foundation, which says it has no such relationship.
* The union spent at least $123,000 more on the fund-raising tournament at the Four Seasons Resort in Carlsbad than it received in reimbursements, according to Labor Department filings and interviews. Freeman said the event made money for the charity. The union’s expenditures included $100,000 in payments to entities associated with former professional football star Eric Dickerson, which have been suspended from doing business in California. The payments were listed as donations to nonprofits, not as fund-raising expenses.
* And a now-defunct minor league basketball team coached by Freemant’s brother-in-law received $16,000 for what the union described as public relations.
Freeman’s local also paid nearly $106,000 to a company called “The Filming Inc.” –— for which the Times could find no state incorporation record or IRS nonprofit listing, no business license, and no legitimate address –— and another $106,000 to Hollywood talent agency William Morris for “advice and counsel” in such areas as media and “membership awareness.”
Even more troubling, Freeman allegedly rigged his own election. In August 2008, the Labor Department began investigating charges from rank-and-file members that Freeman’s union local “made it nearly impossible for candidates not on his slate to qualify for the ballot, according to people familiar with the probe. The FBI and the U.S. attorney’s office also opened investigations. Former employees of Freeman’s nonprofit charity also alleged that the Stern protégé forced them to work on campaigns of political candidates in violation of federal law.
Even more damning, a key union source told the Times that, contrary to the denials of union brass, SEIU’s top officials were warned of Freeman’s plundering six years before the paper blew the whistle:
In response to the July [2008] inquiries, [union spokesman Steve] Trossman had issued a statement on behalf of Stern that said the union had received no allegations about Freeman’s local. Freeman denied any wrongdoing.
The source, who said he was party to internal conversations about Freeman in 2002, told The Times last week: “The international knew that there were allegations of impropriety many years ago. This is not news to them.”
On Aug. 20, 2008, just days before Stern would join Democrats in toasting Barack Obama at the party convention in Denver, Stern’s protégé Tyrone Freeman stepped aside as head of Local 6434 and the chapter was placed in a temporary trusteeship. Stern’s office in Washington, D.C. released the announcement. “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,” Stern spokeswoman Michelle Ringuette wrote in an e-mail to the Times. But even as he relinquished his position, Freeman was apparently engaging in the strong-arm tactics he learned from Stern. Ten employees told the Times that they suffered retaliation after refusing to sign a petition supporting him as the scandal exploded. “Freeman’s lieutenants” at Local 6434 essentially pressured other members to sign a “loyalty oath,” one union member disclosed.
After dragging its feet and being forced to act to quell public embarrassment over the Times investigations, SEIU finally announced formal charges against Freeman “for engaging in self-dealing and financial malpractice in violation of SEIU’s Constitution and Local bylaws.” In November, Stern threw his underling under the bus. Freeman, whom Stern had groomed in his own image, was banned for life from the SEIU and ordered to provide $1.1 million in restitution to the union. A sanctimonious Stern issued a statement lamenting Freeman’s downfall: “Today’s decision sends a clear message across our Union…We are all accountable. Our members do some of the toughest jobs anywhere, and we will not tolerate any actions violating their trust or putting their interests at risk.”
But rank-and-file members weren’t fooled or mollified. An insurgent group called S.M.A.R.T. –— SEIU Member Activists For Reform Today –— blasted the union leadership:
Freeman didn’t come from nowhere. He was appointed by Andy Stern – for the third time…And there are many other locals where Stern has installed unaccountable appointees and, sometimes ignoring reports that they were out for personal gain…So Stern’s message to us is clear – he cares more about expanding control for himself and an ever shrinking inner circle than he does about building real power for working people, creating solid organizations, coming through on SEIU’s political pledges for the fall, or even the perception of our union and our movement as real, democratic, valuable and clean. He will only act when there is no other option, and he will never apologize.
As for Freeman, he glided into a new life as a Los Angeles sports agent –— where he uses his criminal involvement in defrauding low-wage workers as a selling point. His shameless biography on the website of the SMWW Sports Agency touts his “tireless commitment to lead the struggle for livable wages, decent housing and health care for all.” Burnishing his scandal credentials, Freeman adds: “I believe my recent personal experience evolving from turmoil, can be a testimony shared in preparing any athlete for the trials and tribulations of being a star.
Ruthless Andy Stern taught Tyrone Freeman and his southern California peers all too well. Rickman Jackson, another Stern administration protégé and former chief of staff to Tyrone Freeman, headed Michigan’s largest SEIU chapter before being “reassigned” for three years to a staff organizing job after the revelation of financial shenanigans tied back to L.A.’s Local 6434. While collecting a six-figure annual salary in Michigan, Jackson was drawing a second salary in California and accepted $33,500 in housing payments on a residence listed as the business address of Freeman’s bogus housing non-profit corporation.
Another Stern administration protégé, Annelle Grajeda, rose to power after the SEIU president installed her as president of the 80,000-member Local 721 in Los Angeles. She ascended to positions on the union’s state council and international executive board. Like Freeman and Jackson, Grajeda had been voted onto Stern’s official administration slate at the SEIU convention in 2008. The Times published damning details of how Grajeda’s ex-boyfriend, SEIU official Alejandro Stephens, collected multiple salaries and consultant fees from the union while also pocketing a salary as a Los Angeles County health services employee. Grajeda had arranged for her ex-lover to get an eight-month leave of absence from the job. He was fired after he refused to return to work. Grajeda quit her California posts after catching public flak and found a new job –— as special assistant to SEIU secretary-treasurer Anna Burger in Washington, D.C.! Her former chapter heralded the move up. Grajeda will now oversee efforts to “partner with the Obama administration” to secure more public funds for SEIU projects. What could go wrong?
Former SEIU 721 President Annelle Grajeda assumed her new role as special assistant to the International Secretary-Treasurer Anna Burger for the Public Sector Mar. 9.
According to a staff announcement from the International Union in Washington, D.C.: “With more than two decades of service, Annelle has played a critical role in winning strong contracts for tens of thousands of union members, preserving trauma centers in Los Angeles County, fighting for health care reform, defeating ballot initiatives in 2005 that challenged working families’ livelihoods and uniting more than 80,000 workers into SEIU 721 for greater strength and a stronger voice for public service providers. She brings this wealth of experience and talent to the national level in her new role.”
…The International’s announcement went on to state “While there has been no finding of wrongdoing on Annelle’s part, she has decided to change the capacity in which she serves the Union in order to take on the challenge of developing quality public services at a time when funding is threatened like never before.”
In her new role, Annelle will expand SEIU’s work in the public sector partnering with the Obama Administration to secure more funds for key infrastructure projects and core public services including care for the elderly, health care, education and social services.
Tyrone Freeman, Rickman Jackson, and Annelle Grajeda were all groomed by Stern and personally appointed by him to the posts they exploited. But there’s no “three-strikes” policy in labor management. Like Obama, Stern has managed to pass the buck while pretending it stopped at his desk. Birds of a feather evade accountability together.
The L.A. SEIU debacles were just one stinking layer of Stern’s rotten onion. Corruption isn’t an anomaly at the SEIU. It’s a contagion. Cronyism isn’t the exception. It’s the rule…
Tip of the iceberg.
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A rose by any other name remains just another one of Obama’s political goon squads.
What happened to the Valerie Jarrett thread that was here a few minutes ago? I can’t find it anywhere. Did Michelle take it down???
Andy Stern is the very clinical definition of projection.
No, the Jarrett post is right here:
http://michellemalkin.com/2009/09/18/olympic-sized-boondoggle-what-valerie-jarrett-and-michelle-obama-are-up-to/
Thanks, Michelle! I found it. I just thought it was more recent than that because it was featured today before this thread started. Oabviously, I need to check the dates more carefullly!!
AND my spelling!
Andy Stern is the screaming flee of that organization. And how does his call to action square with the passionate concerns of Nancy Pelosi? Surely they can’t be on the same team and have such opposing views of the methods to advance their agenda…right? Oh I get it, its the ‘ol ends justify the means or whatever.
Its a target rich environment for bloggers and citizen journalists everywhere. I hope James and Hannah inspire copycats in all 50 states.
For those of you who know me, My deployment is off. During the SRP they discovered that I have developed primary subclinical hypothyriodism. My wife is thrilled, me not so much. I read up on they symptoms of it and WOW, I mean just, WOW.
I am thinking I will be medicaly discharged sometime in the next year.
BTW my mission was to be to escort VIP’s in Iraq. Senators and the such. I was going to write a book.
Sucks to be me.
Tyrone Freeman makes the Wall Street CEO’s look like pikers when it comes to enriching themselves with other peoples money. At least the CEO’s don’t mask their greed with the hypocritical posturing of social justice. The Obama acolytes’ altruism is only skin deep it seems.
sonofdy
Never question why events interrupt plans and force you to take a new direction. The big guy upstairs has other plans for you.
Get better and take your meds (your family needs you).
I always think of this when I hear anything about Andrew Stern
I’m glad you’re not going, not glad you’re not well.
I was gonna make a joke about Obamacare, but changed my mind. Get well.
Pirates, all of them.
Wow. I’m 1/2 surprised that this still goes on. What are the odds that many union members would get defensive if you pointed out that this is par for the course for unions?
Michelle, if you’re watching, Charles Johnson thinks you’re bad – or something.
Conversely, I think he’s mixed up his prescriptions.
the wobblies of old are still the commies of today. unions started as commie sympathizers and have remained commies until today. to the stupid and lazy, having someone make decisions for you and take care of you is great. right up to the point your job goes to china.
Unions have only survived by using extortion so why are people surprised when they hear of criminal behavior in their management? They start as crooks, they remain crooks. The time of the union is past. We can retake our place as the elite industrial nation only after we kill the cancer of unions.
sonofdy,
Glad to hear you’ll be staying safe at home with those two little girls.
Wishing all the best for you.
Corruption. What does a country’s citizens do when:
Their leader is corrupt, dishonest, and is purposely vague in order to claim plausible deniability?
The next highest law enforcement officer in the land is also corrupt, dishonest, and cannot act independently?
The entire cabinet of high ranking secretaries are corrupt, and are attempting to implement a secret agenda embraced by the president?
The country’s congress, who is tasked to enact fair, constitutionally based laws, is led by powerful corruptocrats who act above the law, and whom cannot be counted on to remove corrupt or criminal national leadership?
Someone please enlighten me. How do we save our country, and do it within established constitutional parameters, when those who are enpowered to keep us safe, are the ones who need to be removed?
Legal action against the first “black” president? Not a chance of impeachment, short of having video showing obvious felonious criminality!
Do are laws force us to wait two more election cycles to make things right?
It’s amazing how Democrats (as well as a few of this site’s more prominent liberals/”trolls”) can remain so silent in denouncing the corruption that seems to permeate leftist groups like ACORN and SEIU – especially after all the vociferous bellyaching they unfairly indulged in against the prior administration.
I guess they’re layin’-lo with bad cases of “tol-ja-so-itis.”
Great item, MM; a l-o-n-g source but still, an illuminating read!
Yes, they do. Elections have consequences.
CJ is giving atheism a bad name. Or perhaps he is just demonstrating the problem with it.
Classic Democratic Socialist projection!
We aren’t trying to “silence… shut down and shout down” THEM.
They are trying to “silence… shut down and shout down” US.
Sonofdy-
I echo the sentiments, stay here, continue to be the best DAD you can be and a husband to Mrs Sonofdy can be proud of.
GSP
Me not happy about having to take pills for the rest of my life. But me not happy about alot of things lately.
On September 21st, 2009 at 12:41 pm, sonofdy said: (#809899)
I empathize completely. I managed to get over here but it took my battalion commander leaning on the medical people. I’ll be taking anti-high blood pressure and cholesterol medicine for years as well–also not happy.
I was just thinking the same thing! The military over in Afghanistan are all in grave danger because this idiot POTUS is “thinking about” whether to send more troops, even though the General that HE chose is saying more troops are desperately needed. What is the line that Obama can’t cross before the military can no longer obey his treasonous or just plain moronic orders?? Hmmmm???
You think Stern came up with his rant while sitting too long under the tanning bed? Look at that picture, its oorrrannnge.
You will be in my prayers, sonofdy! And thank you for your service!!!
Is it just me,or does Andy Stern not bear an uncanny resemblance to Bill Maher? Could they be left wing radicals separated at birth?
Just a thought!
What are the unions complaining about? They’ll be exempt from Obamanotcare anyway. The unions have no standing to advocate on behalf of a program in which they will not participate, so they are nothing but a bunch of astroturfing whores.
Why hasn’t the issue of exempt unions (SEIU, NEA) gotten more play, even on conservative blogs?
And the reason he isn’t being prosecuted by the administration – oh yeah, they’re all effing criminals…
I don’t know if this story of an SEIU child molester has been mentioned, but it was on the delightful Debbie Schlussel’s site and I definitely give her credit on this:
“Biafore said Feliciano persuaded the girl and her mother to not report the crimes.”
Question: did he use the persuasion of power?
Gee….sounds like our very own POTUS and his beloved “czars”, doesn’t it??
stern is a typical lowlife punk making threats. hey punk the persuasion of power come from the American people. union pseudo bosses and their lackeys talk tough but know thier BB size gonads won’t mean much if they piss off the wrong crowd.
Anyone got a copy of Andy’s tax return? I wonder how much “Union Thug Boss Hog” pays these days.
***
Will any Federal prosecution of these SEIU crooks occur? They seem to have broken Federal labor laws–and probably hid or misreported their income to the IRS. Ditto for the lady with the video “business” who received the money.
***
I seem to remember the government put in some laws to prevent this type of crime after the Jimmy Hoffa / Teamsters investigations. Is there any chance of these thieves doing some “perp walks” in orange jumpsuits? Or should we just wait to see them become new LABOR CZARS in President Obama’s (PBUH) new United Socialist States of Amerika?
***
John Bibb
***
According to the Chris Wallace puff piece a week or two ago on FoxNews Sunday Andy Stern is a Washington “mover and shaker” and just a heck of a nice guy!
Scary stuff, mister. Thanks for pointing that out to us. These whacked-out Wingers are masters at brainwashing people. How do we get them to stop? By shouting, “‘Baggers and racists!” By pushing agendas that run counter to the majority’s will. By shutting down the voices of the majority through hastily-passed bills. Nothing insidious about that.
Sorry to hear of your diagnosis, but remember that the things you are probably reading are for the untreated disease. Popping a pill or two in the morning is a much better hand to be dealt that some.
Write the book anyway. And good luck. Count your blessings.
What a drastic change from when Bush repeatedly said he would do things in Iraq or Af’stan depending on what the conditions on the ground were, as told by the Commanders on the ground.
Over and over and over.
Now we have a nitwit in office who could care less about what the military is doing, as long as he can foist his fascist agenda on America.
So much for listening to the Commanders when the commander essentially has to publicly beg for support.
Publicly beg because ObamAcorn hasn’t figured out how to appease the anti-military left.
Meanwhile, the commander is ignored so the head nitwit can go on numerous talk shows to continue pushing his fascist agenda.
Oh, and I noticed the drive-by media are setting the table to bail out of Af’stan by claiming in every news story now that it’s an “increasingly unpopular” war…much like they did for many months with Bush and Iraq.
This time though, the guy in the WH could care less about the consequences of bailing out too early.
They claimed for a long time that Af’stan was the war that should be fought. I figured ObamAcorn wouldn’t be in office a full year before they started thinking of a way to bail out.
From the Declaration of Independence: “We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness. –That to secure these rights, Governments are instituted among Men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed, –That whenever any Form of Government becomes destructive of these ends, it is the Right of the People to alter or to abolish it, and to institute new Government…”
Blah, blah, blah
Call it what you will and spin it a thousand different ways. Blame it on the most extreme, farthest out right wing pigeon in the history of the world.
It doesn’t change a word of what was heard and seen on the videos.
Guilty!
Guilty!
Guilty!
Sonofdy, first off THANK YOU! You are a credit to our nation.
Secondly, if you are going to have to pop pills the rest of your life, you could do a heluva lot worse than Synthroid. Trust me on this, I have first hand experience in the long term pill popping arena. Cheer up, you could be in a heluva lot worse shape. “A man has got to know his limitations” a wise man once said….
Wouldn’t the RICO laws be applicable to SEIU as well? Isn’t Stern one of the Rathke brother’s (of ACORN fame) close and personal friends?
Yet another Obamite charged with Fraud:
http://www.reuters.com/article/topNews/idUSTRE58K5A420090921?feedType=RSS&feedName=topNews&rpc=22&sp=true
The guy is Iranian too, I wonder if that is why Obama doesn’t give a rat’s arse about a nuclear armed Iran….
So we have and Iranian AND a Korean (north?) that have been found to be part of the dem fundraising machine…. who else is going to turn up?
Ah correction: an Iranian and a Chinese.
Thank you for finally de-linking LGF, btw.
The Democrat Party is a criminal enterprise.