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Congress to Investigate California Union Scandal

Aug. 28,2008

Los Angeles, CA - A congressional committee is set to investigate the California chapter of Service Employee’s International Union. The investigation will focus on reports that the union’s California chapter along with one related charitable organization paid hundreds of thousands of dollars to corporations that are owned by some relatives of its president.

Reports indicate that around $405,000 was paid in 2006 and 2007 to small companies owned by the wife and mother-in-law of the Los Angeles-based United Long-Term Care Workers president, Tyrone Freeman. This was paid by the union and charitable organization that Freeman himself founded.

Aside from this, the union also paid about $219,000 to a firm owned by a close friend of Freeman and his wife. Other questionable disbursements of their budget are also being questioned, such as the $300,000 spent on a golf tournament, restaurants, and cigar clubs.

Freeman has denied doing anything wrong. The Service Employee’s International Union president, Andy Stern, still has not issued any comment regarding the issue.