On Nov 27, 2008, at 11:00 AM, Mark Rickling wrote:
> On Thu, Nov 27, 2008 at 10:34 AM, Doug Henwood <dhenwood at panix.com>
> wrote:
>
>> Wasn't Freeman close to Stern, and the leader of the local that
>> Stern wanted
>> to absorb UHW into, to get rid of the troublesome Rosselli? In
>> other words,
>> to crush internal dissent, Stern picked a deputy who turned out to
>> be deeply
>> corrupt?
>
> Nope. When Stern installed Freeman at Local 6434, Rosselli was a
> supporter of the International program. With Freeman in LA, Stern
> increased the power and size of Rosselli's NoCal L 250 by merging it
> with the SoCal hospital workers L 399.
<http://theenvelope.latimes.com/la-me-union26-2008aug26,0,3968515.story>
The statement also announced that Stern's administration would seek trusteeship of an Oakland local that has resisted the union's efforts to shift 65,000 of its 150,000 workers to the chapter that Freeman headed. The Los Angeles local was placed in trusteeship last week and all of its officers were removed.
In the statement, Stern's office accused the Oakland local of improperly setting up a nonprofit and a legal defense fund with members' dues, misappropriating an internal database and retaliating against workers who criticized its leadership. The statement said that the union found significant evidence that the Oakland chapter's leadership "engaged in a pattern of financial malpractice and fraud."
Ringuette said she knows of no allegations that officers of the Oakland local or their relatives personally profited from any of the purported actions. The Times reported some of Stern's charges against the local in June.
The president of the Oakland organization, Sal Rosselli, denied the allegations Monday. He said the trusteeship move was an attempt to deflect attention from the spending inquiry in Los Angeles and now Michigan, and to punish him for fighting the 2-year-old proposal to transfer his members to Freeman's local.