Grajeda Out at SEIU; Payments to "Boyfriend" in Question
The LA Times reports yet another leader at the Service Employees International Union has stepped down amidst an ever growing series of scandal and controversies at the powerful union.
According to The Times:
Like their buddies who are elected officials, apparently these union leaders who talk a good game about "justice" for working people are really more about themselves and more about lining their pockets.
Lets hope the members of the SEIU realize they've been clowned and throw the whole lot out.
According to The Times:
Annelle Grajeda is the third major SEIU leader to step aside following reports in The Times about the union's financial practices. The SEIU acknowledged Saturday that Grajeda was on leave as president of the L.A. local and the union's state council, and as an executive vice president of the national organization, because of allegations that she was improperly involved in the payments.
The union did not provide any details of Grajeda's purported role in the payment to the former boyfriend, Alejandro Stephens. The SEIU said it has demanded that Stephens, who was a longtime president of the Los Angeles chapter before it merged with several others, return the money.
In 2007, Stephens was paid nearly $14,000 by the Los Angeles office in "disbursements for official business" and $75,000 in consulting fees by the state council, according to the union's financial filings with the U.S. Labor Department.
Like their buddies who are elected officials, apparently these union leaders who talk a good game about "justice" for working people are really more about themselves and more about lining their pockets.
Lets hope the members of the SEIU realize they've been clowned and throw the whole lot out.
Labels: anelle grejada, SEIU
Posted by Michael Higby @ 8/31/2008 10:35:00 AM
20 Comments:
Staining
Everything
Identified
Union
If this keeps up there will be no one left to sign the checks to Mark Ridley-Thomas.
What a pity.
What about another shady operator in the hallways of L.A. City -
LIUNA-Local 777???
Who in their right mind would ever want to join SEIU?
Stern's corruption will just not end. By the way, isn't this Grajeda person the leader Stern installed as the president of the California Council of seiu after he got his minions to dump Sal Rosselli? As I heard it, Stern did this so he could cut a deal with the Boobinator on an infereior health plan for Californians that Rosselli opposed...all in return, supposedly, for Arnold to sign legislation making seiu the union of all of California's childcare workers!!! You see, stern is not about quality of life for workers, he's about quantity of dues paying members for seiu...first stern's inferior health plan went down, then his behind the scenes childcare deal, then Tyrone, then Jackson, and now Grajeda. Is this the end of the corruption? Stay tuned...
More thorough investigations will probably convince even their OWN member to decert from the SEIU like Ventura County & Simi employees have done. Now they're trying to decert Orange County, Palmdale & Lancaster employees. Have they already been attacked?
Does the SEIU need more money from members or other unions now that their questionable spending, donations to current or prospective elected leaders, and SEIU officers using their workers' dues for their own benefit and partisan donations?
Are these practices voted on by their members that may make $9-$10/hr? How much of their hard-earned money is wasted on these questionable practices?
Stern's corruption will not end on Stern's initiative; the man is driven by his megalomania to grow the union at all costs to vindicate his petulant, adolescent departure from the AFL-CIO.
In the pursuit of new dues units at all costs, he has adopted some pretty zany ideas as to how things are, and he has entered into sleazy, secret arrangements with some very unsavory employers.
He looked the other way as Tyrone Freeman stole the workers' dues money because Tyrone (another meglomaniac who in addition to collecting an obscene salary for a person of his qualifications, also found it necessary to steal from the lowest paid SEIU IHSS workers in California) was himself eager to support the secret deals as that was the only way these two could acheive any growth in the hard-to-organize private sector.
Neither Stern nor Tyrone is half the organizer their propaganda would have us believe. Look it up!
But never mind these two and the simple-minded puppet Grajeda; the real outrage is the deafening silence of all the other SEIU so-called progressive leaders around the country in the face of this crap!
ALICE DALE,
MIKE GARCIA,
DIANE SOSNE,
ELISEO MEDINA,
DAMITA DAVIS HOWARD,
KRISTY SERMERSHEIM,
GEORGE GRESHAM,
MONICA RUSSO,
LESLIE FRANE,
AND THE REST OF YOU:
STERN AND BURGER ARE WRECKING THE UNION!!!
CAN'T YOU SEE???
BY REMAINING SILENT IN THE FACE OF STERN'S MEGALOMANIA, CORRUPTION AND ANTI-DEMOCRATIC PRACTICES, YOU ARE COMPLICIT IN THE DESTRUCTION OF THIS GREAT UNION!
WHAT WORKER IN THEIR RIGHT MIND WILL WANT TO JOIN ONE OF YOUR LOCALS?
HOW WILL YOU EXPLAIN TO YOUR MEMBERS WHEN THEY SEE (ON CSPAN)ANDY AND/OR ANNA BEING GRILLED BY A CONGRESSIONAL COMMITTEE ABOUT 'WHAT THEY KNEW AND WHEN THEY KNEW IT' ABOUT TYRONE, RICKMAN, ANNELLE AND ALEJANDRO?
WILL THEY COMPLY WITH OR DEFY THE CONGRESSIONAL SUBPOENAS?
HOW WILL YOU DEAL WITH THE SUBPOENAS AND THE MICROPHONES SHOVED UNDER YOUR NOSES BY BLOODTHIRSTY REPORTERS?
IF THEY DIDN'T KNOW, THEY WERE INCOMPETENT.
IF THEY KNEW, THEY WERE COMPLICIT.
IF THEY LIE, IT'S PERJURY.
IF THE TAKE THE FIFTH . . WELL, I HOPE YOU GET THE POINT.
HAVE YOU THE INTEGRITY AND THE COURAGE TO SAY "ENOUGH!!" TO THE EMPEROR? IT'S OK, YOU CAN DO IT, HE HAS NO CLOTHES!
An SEIU union member.
Hey, i saw pictures and videos of Grajeda.
No wonder she had to pay the guy.
Stephens is gigolo!!!!!
More members have to join S.M.A.R.T. to REFORM the SEIU!
S.M.A.R.T. says:
It’s time to remind our leaders that SEIU is a union of, by, and for the members!
* Member dues pay their salaries
* Members fight to win every day in the workplace
* Members are the political voice and power needed to win in government
* Members are the most effective organizers of new workers
* Members win the victories that generate SEIU’s growth.
SMART is building a membership reform movement that will:
* Prevent the recent abuses of power by our leaders
* Preserve democracy, member decision-making and involvement
* Focus on winning higher standards along with growth.
We Believe:
* SEIU is OUR union. Members have made it successful.
* SEIU must be democratic, bottom-up and rooted in the membership with strong member leaders, to win.
* SEIU must negotiate from a position of strength, not weakness and fight when necessary.
* All members must have the right to vote for SEIU officers, negotiating teams, on our contracts, and to authorize strikes.
* We must have right to vote by Local on mergers or reorganizations, elect officers of new locals quickly, and expect that Locals will never be trusteed for political reasons.
* Members must play lead roles in organizing in our core industries. Strong contracts are the best motivator for new members to join SEIU.
* Contracts must protect workers’ rights and standards of existing members. We do not believe in second-class workers or second-class contracts.
* SEIU must advocate for the communities we serve on the job, and ensure adequate funding for public services.
* We must re-unite and rebuild the labor movement, and we must build political power to demand real social and economic justice.
It's a SAD state of affairs when a union like the SEIU CLAIMS they are in a coalition, need to have a solidarity agreement NOT to raid other unions and THEN do it ANYWAY! The SEIU wastes dues for UNION RAIDING activities. Their poor members MUST pay for this, MUST pay 1-2% of their salary and get even LESS take-home pay.
What do the Leaders, Committee members, staff, friends, family and the "raiders/organizers" get paid? Where is the money going? What ELSE do members have to pay to the SEIU?
If you know, post the information and the source, if possible.
S.M.A.R.T. Responding to Stern about his Ethics Panel plan.
"We at SMART stand in solidarity with the AUD and TDU, and greatly respect their work, but we would like to point out that Andy Stern doesn't need to look outside SEIU for rank and file reformers to help him clean up our union. SMART would be more than happy to advise Andy - in fact we've tried to meet with him several times without success! We would tell him what we said in our previous post, and what other reformers are now saying - ethics mean democracy, and you can't claim the moral high ground while keeping control for a hand-picked few."
There must be people near Andy Stern who are warning him that his legacy will be:
THE LUNATIC, EGOTISTICAL UNION BOSS WHO COST BARACK OBAMA THE PRESIDENCY
How? By forcing UHW West, the most successful SEIU local, to marshall all its resources to defend itself against his bogus trusteeship instead of sending volunteers to battleground states; and at the same tiime Stern is sending his purple goon squads to California to trustee the UHW instead of sending themm to battleground states.
Stern is a fascist megalomaniac. He will not listen to anything except the voices in his head.
McCain is LOVING it!!!!!
Watch it Andy, I think the members want democracy! S.M.A.R.T., SEIUVoice, UHW-West and cityoflosangelesseiumembers, ALL sound like they want a voice in their union! Next things they'll want are lower dues & better contracts less favorable to employers AND to the union leaders. Think they'll EVER get ANY of these? The members really want good, elected, representation, for once!
It's time to investigate the Budget Committee of the SEIU Local 721! Go GET Them, Mr. McKeon!
SEIU Members, Do you know where your dues are going? Find OUT and make the thieves PAY!
It's time for SEIU Local 721 to vote for leadership selected by the Members and NOT Andy Stern! MEMBERS, Unite against the Dictator!
Anon, 9/1/08, Grajeda doesn't look bad! Mama, puedes pagar por mi tambien? Llamame!!!
I look forward to seeing it all play out on CSPAN:
Stern, Burger, Freeman, Grajeda, Stephens, Jackson and all the other crooked, corrupt bastards raising their slimy hands and taking the oath before getting grilled by pissed-off Congressmen!
If they tell the truth, they're screwed.
If they lie it's perjury.
If they take the fifth, they're toast.
Time for SEIU to get buried in the graveyard of failed unions and for all SEIU members to move into other unions, hopefully a lot less corrupt than the GangStern-run SEIU!
Not as good as the FBI raiding the SEIU offices but see
http://capoliticalnews.com/s/spip.php?breve6095
More SEIU Corruption-against Halfway Honest Staffers
Friday 5 September 2008
Looks like more corruption of the SEIU has come to light.
Like any other criminals syndicate, the leadership must sign on to the corruption of the top leadership. In the Mafia if you fail to support the "Don", they shoot you. At least in the SEIU all they do is fire you.
Why hasn’t the Attorney General indicted the leaders of the SEIU? Why hasn’t the Department of Labor taken over this corrupt union? Why does government demand that workers pay bribes to this union, in order to work?
In California, CORRUPTION is spelled SEIU. [see the LA Times article that follows]
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