Tyrone Freeman steps aside as head of SEIU chapter
President of California's largest local says it will be placed under a temporary trustee after Los Angeles Times stories reported payments to firms owned by his wife and mother-in-law.
By Paul Pringle, Los Angeles Times Staff Writer
August 21, 2008
The head of California's largest union local has stepped aside in the wake of Times reports that the organization and a related charity paid hundreds of thousands of dollars to firms owned by his wife and mother-in-law.
Tyrone Freeman, president of a Service Employees International Union chapter in Los Angeles, said in a written statement late Wednesday that he was taking a leave of absence and that the local would be placed in a temporary trusteeship.
If anything symbolized the success of the Service Employees International Union, the nation's fastest-growing union, it was the campaign in 1999 to organize 74,000 home care workers in Los Angeles County. It was the largest successful unionization drive in the nation since the 1930s.
But now the service employees' union has been embarrassed by disclosures that the local representing those workers has paid hundreds of thousands of dollars to companies run by the wife and various friends of the local's president, Tyrone Freeman.
rest at
http://www.nytimes.com/2008/08...
Brian Leubitz at Calitics blog says SEIU pres. Andy Stern will
probably find Freeman another job in SEIU to defuse the scandal.
