On Aug 22, 2008, at 12:10 AM, Jim Straub wrote:
> Doug, did it occur to you that the story you're whining in response
> to was announcing that SEIU just got -rid- of Tyrone? Have you so
> mentally checked out from the give and take of intellectual debate
> when it concerns SEIU, are you so posting on autopilot, that you
> didn't even read what this article was reporting?
and
> Serious question- why do you assert Freeman is a 'Stern protege'?
> Look, I just find it hilarious, because he most definitively is NOT.
Jim, I'm not the one missing the details reported in the articles. I've appended excerpts from the two LAT pieces posted here in the last couple of days. They show that the union ignored reports of Freeman's corruption, and that he was a favorite of Stern's - so much so that Stern wanted to fold Rosselli's local into Freeman's. And the larger point is that the kind of centralization and growth at all costs that characterize SEIU are a perfect breeding ground for this sort of thing.
Doug
----
[from the LAT pieces]
The statement was released by the Washington, D.C., office of SEIU President Andy Stern, who nurtured Freeman's career as the 160,000- member local grew dramatically in recent years, largely through consolidations.
...
The SEIU national office has said it is conducting an audit of the local as a result of The Times' reports. At the same time, the U.S. Labor Department is investigating complaints that the election of Freeman and his slate of officers was conducted in a way that made it nearly impossible for challengers to quality for the ballot, people familiar with the probe say.
Labor Department officials have declined to confirm that the election inquiry is underway, or to say whether they are investigating the union's spending practices.
Another Stern spokesman, Steve Trossman, has said the SEIU had received no allegations of financial irregularities by Freeman until The Times raised questions about the local's finances last month. But a source close to the union has said that Trossman was informed six years ago of some concerns about Freeman's spending habits and his having fathered a child with Planells, who was then a union staffer.
...
A source close to the union said Trossman was informed six years ago of allegations involving Freeman's finances and personal relationships. It is unclear whether a review was undertaken at that time; Trossman said that the SEIU might have performed an audit of the local because of the allegations, but that he couldn't be sure.
The source, who asked not to be identified because he feared retribution, said Trossman helped develop a strategy in 2002 to keep the allegations from embarrassing the SEIU at a time of epic membership growth.
Trossman's efforts succeeded, the source said. Freeman's local continued to expand as part of SEIU President Andy Stern's much- celebrated campaign to organize entire industries state by state. The local and an affiliate ended up representing about 190,000 workers, most of them in the field of home healthcare.
Last week, Trossman said, "I don't remember exactly what happened" in 2002.
...
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."
Nelson Lichtenstein, director of UC Santa Barbara's Center for the Study of Work, Labor and Democracy, said it appears that SEIU leaders, when confronted with qualms about Freeman, opted for a path taken by other union executives in similar straits.
"They say, 'Let's hope this thing goes away, ' " he said. " 'When it becomes egg on your face, then you do something about it.' "
Lichtenstein said the union clearly had an "investment" in Freeman, a Stern protege who has been a high-profile loyalist in the SEIU push to consolidate regional locals into statewide chapters. That effort is being resisted by a handful of dissidents, notably the president of a 150,000-worker Oakland affiliate.
Stern wants to move 65,000 workers from that local to Freeman's, a proposal that has triggered a nasty internecine fight.