Union boss Tyrone Freeman has stolen a lot of money from low wage union members. According to the the Los Angeles Times (link) in a Pulitzer-worth piece, reporter Paul Pringle will not be invited to the next SEIU Christmas Party. This SEIU local, 6424 United Long-Term Care Workers, is controlled by its organizer Freeman. It has some 190,000 workers paying each month into his local. Local 6424 sees itself as the "poor helping the poor" union. Like many such unexamined unions, this one became Freeman’s personal bank. 
Pringle reports that Freeman spent $300,000 last year on a Four Season Resorts golf tournament, a Beverly Hills cigar club, generated a $12,000 bill from Morton’s Steakhouse and paid consulting PR contract with the William Morris Agency.
Worse that his luxurious union boss lifestyle, is how he siphons big dollars for his relatives. He gave his brother in law’s basket ball team $16,000 ("public relations"). Freeman’s wife, Pilar Planells, has done well. She "owns" a company called Homecare Workers Training Center were among the union’s largest single expenses last year. Pillar was a union staff member until 2006, earning more than $50,000. She left to form a new company "Lotus Seven Productions". In 2007 the union paid Lotus some $178.000. Lotus "produced" 10 videos that promote the union. Sadly, Lotus does not have a business license. Lotus is located at the Freeman home. Subtle.
But don’t forget the mother-in-law. Carmen Planells, provides a day care center at her home. She receives more than $90,000 annually from the SEIU.
Yet, the national SEIU announced plans to spend some $150.,000,000 in this year’s election. The Wall Street Journal believes most of which will be spent to elect another working man’s friend, Barack Obama. 
The national SEIU union amended its constitution to require each local to contribute $6.00 per member for its national political action committee. What other major institutional could get away with this extortion?
National SEIU President Andy Stern is quite a player. He helped form Americans Coming Together [ACT] one of the 527 hybrids inadvertently created by McCain-Feingold, designed to influence elections but not have stay within individual campaign donor limits. SEIU was among the largest contributor raising some $26,000,000, of the $100,000,000 spent by ACT for Kerry in 2004. The FEC fined ACT $775,000 for violating campaign finance laws. Not much of a penalty, less than 1% of what they spent to buy the American Presidency.
Of course, what about the lowly union worker? Do members get to decide how much to give or to whom? You know the answer.
Back to Mr. Freeman. Last year he squeezed by with a salary of $213,000 plus "other" compensation.
Local 6434 describes in its web site that its vision is to help "life long-term care workers out of poverty…"
Freeman certainly knows how to climb out of poverty, right on the backs of his workers.
Care to comment on Shawn Steel’s latest blog post? You can do so here at the FR blog.