Standing up (*and rigging elections?) for Tyrone Freeman
Cliche Alert!!****Sunday morning update****
By Paul Pringle, Los Angeles Times Staff Writer 10:41 PM PDT, August 16, 2008
The election of a Los Angeles union leader under fire for his labor group's spending practices is the subject of a government review that could force a new vote because of complaints that the contest was unfair to challengers.
The U.S. Labor Department is investigating allegations that Tyrone Freeman's union local made it nearly impossible for candidates not on his slate to qualify for the ballot, according to people familiar with the probe.
"Figures Don’t Lie, People Lie on Figures" an Op-ed by Charisse Bremond-Weaver, President and CEO of the Brotherhood Crusade
Many who commented here on the LA Times investigated report on the financial dealing of SEIU 6434 President Tyrone Freeman will take exception to this Op-ed in the Los Angeles Sentinel.
For those who called for an investigation of Freeman's dealings, they will likely shake their heads in reading this sad Op-ed denial which highlights the "ethical myopia" that afflicts some who call themselves leaders in the African-American community.
Excerpts:
"In reading the article entitled “Leader’s Kin get Union Business,” I became quite incensed. However, the provocation of my irritation was not that which the author intended. Instead, I was gravely disappointed because the writer, Paul Pringle, employed an under-handed, but effective strategy of intentionally misleading the reader in order to create a perception of impropriety. I will support this assertion in the text that follows, but let me be clear, I am formally accusing Mr. Pringle of employing this tactic. In contrast, if you read the article carefully, Mr. Pringle never accuses Mr. Tyrone Freeman or the Union of wrong-doing, nor claims that the practices discussed are immoral, illegal, or unethical. The article is simply written for the purpose of leading the reader to make such a conclusion. Ironically, as I will demonstrate in this response, the practices that were magnified in the article are not only justified but typical and in many cases, necessary". (Raising dues on the "working poor" to benefit family members is "necessary"??)
"Perhaps the centerpiece of Mr. Pringle’s article was his blatant attempt to unjustifiably discredit the union’s selection of service providers based on family involvement. For years, we have fought to eliminate the practice of unethical nepotism and to this day we question such practices. It fascinates me that Mr. Pringle would write this article when we have a US President that facilitated an extremely large sole-source contract to a company that is intimately associated with the Vice President and this act virtually went unnoticed." ( I think we are talking about the Freeman family??)
"It is a privilege to report for a respected and time-honored media outlet such as the Los Angeles Times. Unfortunately, Mr. Pringle dishonored the newspaper and his profession by writing this article in such an irresponsible and unfair manner. We were warned that there would come a time when people will think that is good is bad and what is bad is good. It is my sincere hope that Mr. Pringle’s readers are intelligent enough to discern his deceptive presentation and refuse to allow this to be that time."(good is bad, bad is good??).
Reality is that for some, the onerous dues increase was missing from their last pay checks, those numbers don't lie.....
Labels: LA Times, Los Angeles Sentinel, SEIU 6434, Tyrone Freeman
Posted by Red Spot in CD 14 @ 8/16/2008 11:51:00 AM
29 Comments:
Tyrone's employment of his family is the least of his problems.
The illegal raise of dues, placed directly upon the backs of the workers who earn less than subsistence wages, soley to benefit Mark Ridly Thomas is unconscionable.
The inquiries persist as to just what is going on with the wild expenditure, now well over $5 million and still running.
The investigations continue...
The Times is using Tyrone Freeman more than it uses ink nowadays.
Freeman's goose is cooked and so is Ridley-Thomas.
Stand up for this, Bremond!
U.S. investigates L.A.-based union's election
The SEIU local allegedly made it nearly impossible for others to compete with the slate of leader Tyrone Freeman, whose financial dealings have drawn scrutiny.
By Paul Pringle
Los Angeles Times Staff Writer
10:41 PM PDT, August 16, 2008
The election of a Los Angeles union leader under fire for his labor group's spending practices is the subject of a government review that could force a new vote because of complaints that the contest was unfair to challengers.
The U.S. Labor Department is investigating allegations that Tyrone Freeman's union local made it nearly impossible for candidates not on his slate to qualify for the ballot, according to people familiar with the probe.
Freeman's local, a chapter of the giant Service Employees International Union, has denied that the election rules were tilted against challengers. Freeman and his slate won by default because no challenger gathered enough signatures to make the ballot.
The dispute comes as the SEIU has begun rooting through Freeman's books because of a Times report on the local's finances, SEIU spokesman Steve Trossman said Friday.
Freeman's local is called the United Long-Term Care Workers. Trossman said he hoped to have a preliminary report soon.
A source close to the union said Trossman was informed six years ago of allegations involving Freeman's finances and personal relationships. It is unclear whether a review was undertaken at that time; Trossman said that the SEIU might have performed an audit of the local because of the allegations, but that he couldn't be sure.
The source, who asked not to be identified because he feared retribution, said Trossman helped develop a strategy in 2002 to keep the allegations from embarrassing the SEIU at a time of epic membership growth.
Trossman's efforts succeeded, the source said. Freeman's local continued to expand as part of SEIU President Andy Stern's much-celebrated campaign to organize entire industries state by state. The local and an affiliate ended up representing about 190,000 workers, most of them in the field of home healthcare.
Last week, Trossman said, "I don't remember exactly what happened" in 2002.
Trossman said that he did remember a Times reporter calling him then about the allegations and that he believes he referred the inquiry to the local. Trossman said he did not talk to Freeman about the accusations, and does not recall whether Stern was informed.
The source, who told of discussing the allegations with Trossman, said they included complaints that Freeman fathered a child with a staffer, Pilar Planells, who later became his wife.
"Many people complained" that Planells was placed in a key administrative position after she started a relationship with Freeman, the source said. The source also said there were accusations that Freeman arbitrarily increased worker fees to pay the local's bills, and that he spent too much money on perks such as cars for himself and favored lieutenants.
In an e-mail, Trossman said the union was "reviewing records and conducting interviews" at the local but offered no details.
A Freeman spokesman said in an e-mail that all the complaints about his spending practices and Pilar Planells were false.
Earlier this month, The Times reported that the local and a related charity had paid at least $405,700 since 2006 -- not counting any outlays this year -- to firms that Freeman's wife and mother-in-law operate at their homes. The union also spent nearly $300,000 last year on a Four Seasons golf tournament, restaurants such as a Morton's steakhouse, a Beverly Hills cigar lounge and William Morris Agency, the Hollywood talent house.
Freeman did not file any disclosure forms revealing the 2006 and 2007 payments to his wife's video company, as required by federal law, until after The Times began inquiring about them last month, U.S. Labor Department officials say.
In response to the July inquiries, Trossman had issued a statement on behalf of Stern that said the union had received no allegations about Freeman's local. Freeman denied any wrongdoing.
The source, who said he was party to internal conversations about Freeman in 2002, told The Times last week: "The international knew that there were allegations of impropriety many years ago. This is not news to them."
Nelson Lichtenstein, director of UC Santa Barbara's Center for the Study of Work, Labor and Democracy, said it appears that SEIU leaders, when confronted with qualms about Freeman, opted for a path taken by other union executives in similar straits.
"They say, 'Let's hope this thing goes away, ' " he said. " 'When it becomes egg on your face, then you do something about it.' "
Lichtenstein said the union clearly had an "investment" in Freeman, a Stern protege who has been a high-profile loyalist in the SEIU push to consolidate regional locals into statewide chapters. That effort is being resisted by a handful of dissidents, notably the president of a 150,000-worker Oakland affiliate.
Stern wants to move 65,000 workers from that local to Freeman's, a proposal that has triggered a nasty internecine fight.
The election dispute, meanwhile, centers on a requirement that prospective candidates collect about 4,800 signatures of dues payers within three weeks. Because most of the local's members work in individual homes, gathering the signatures in that period was impossible, said Washington, D.C., labor attorney Arthur Fox, who has helped dissident union members challenge the election.
"It totally ensured the election of all the incumbent officers," Fox said. Freeman and the other incumbents had been appointed before the election, after several locals were consolidated into one.
The Labor Department review has taken on a new context in light of The Times' reports about the spending habits of Freeman's local and a charity he founded.
In addition to the outlays to the firms owned by Freeman's wife and mother-in-law, the union paid a combined $219,000 in 2006 and 2007 to a video firm whose principals include a former employee of Freeman. A now-defunct minor league basketball team coached by Freeman's brother-in-law received $16,000 for what the union described as public relations, according to records and interviews.
The union also paid about $106,000 to a firm called The Filming, for which no incorporation record, business license, address or telephone listing could be found.
A second nonprofit that Freeman launched, the Long-Term Care Housing Corp., did not receive the tax-exempt status it sought, and had lost its right to do business in California because it failed to file tax returns, state and federal officials say. It claimed to have a "strong relationship" with the prominent California Community Foundation, which told The Times it had never heard of the group.
The address of the housing corporation, as listed on its website, is a Bell Gardens home owned by Freeman's former chief of staff, Rickman Jackson, who now heads an SEIU local in Michigan, property records show. Jackson has not responded to interview requests, and the housing corporation has not answered questions about whether he has been paid for use of his residence.
Freeman has said all of the expenses of the union and the two nonprofits have benefited his members. He said he has refunded nearly $10,000 that the union paid to the Grand Havana Room, a cigar lounge known for its celebrity clientele and invitation-only memberships.
Peter Dreier, an Occidental College politics professor who studies labor, said Stern might have no option other than to place Freeman's local under trusteeship and remove him.
"It's a tragic situation," said Dreier, who added that the local has done an excellent job in organizing workers. "The real question is will the union be weakened by this? If the SEIU cleans house and does what's necessary, the union can continue to thrive."
paul.pringle@latimes.com
Nobody should be shocked.
After all, with all the payola (union dues dollars) Freeman has doled out in LA, there were bound to be some beneficiaries rising to his defense. But this column in the LA Senile is truly pathetic and delusional. It actually defends the practices that Freeman denies even took place! Let's use our cell phones, people, get your stories straight. Freeman says it didn't happen; the LA Senile columnist says his actions were necessary.
Maybe it's just me, but when is it necessary to use union funds to promote the union leader's wife's show biz career; to subsidize the union leader's mother-in-law's child care business; to subsidize the union leader's buddy's minor league ball club; to set up dummy corporations that have no business address except the union leader's home; to spend $10,000 at a members-only cigar club in Beverly Hills?
Interestingly, the LA Senile removed its front page puff piece on Freeman of a few weeks ago from its webpage.
Now, there are new revelations in the LA Times to the effect that the Department of Labor is investigating Freeman's manipulation of union election rules in order to ensure he would be reelected without opposition.
Anyone at the LA Senile see the pattern yet? What we have here is a local version of a corrupt, undemcratic, third world dictatorship. It's not just about corrupting the financial integrity of the union; it's also about corrupting the democratic procedures of the union. And then there's the sweetheart contracts Freeman negotiates with the for-profit nursing home operators at the expense of the dues-paying workers.
What we have here is a modern example of all the worst forms of corruption in the history of the labor movement: stealing from the members PLUS preventing the possibility of new, honest leadership PLUS sucking up to the employer through sweetheart contracts PLUS the shameless promotion of a personality cult, all combimed in the misdeeds of one man: Tyrone Freeman.
Perhaps the LA Senile will defend Freeman's victims instead of Freeman? No sign of it so far.
Perhaps Freeman's enablers at SEIU HQ will take action to defend the interests of the members and salvage the reputation of the SEIU?
All signs so far point to a Stern-Burger cover up.
Why? Simple: Freeman didn't just go bad last Saturday; Stern and Burger should have known there was something rotten at Freeman's local. If they did not know, they were incompetent; if they knew but chose to look the other way because Freeman was backing their own unethical brand of unionism, they are as guilty as Freeman. They were all too busy running around promoting their own personality cult.
These workers deserve a real union that will fight to improve their wages and benefits. Instead they have these labor fakers stealing their hard-earned dues.
LA deserves a media that stands up for the truth and the public interest; instead we have the LA Senile running puff pieces on these crooks, and editorials defending the corruption!
The LA Times may not be everybody's ideal of what a free press should be, but in this matter, they are to be commended for exposing the rot at SEIU.
air the whole thing out. this union is corrupt through and through and through. tyrone freeman is scum, wait until all the other south la "empowerment" organizations that have been at tyrone's teat start getting shy about sticking up for their benevolent benefactor thief-in-chief. unions are going down!
At the same time I'm sure Ridley Thomas had his eyes open and looking right into the cookie jar when he put his hand in it. How much did he know while taking contributions?
Ridley Thomas should be investigated too.
This is only the tip of the iceberg. The big problem here is that the corruption goes all the way to the top of SEIU. For years the leaders of SEIU in DC have heard of allegations that Tyrone was out of control and unethical in his practices. I have heard from some sources that Tyrone misspent money when he was the head of a local in Georgia. Knowing this, Andy Stern appointed him to be head of one of the largest locals in SEIU.
Yet again, Andy is told of the corruption within the local and does nothing to respond. Only after the LA Times exposes the widespread corruption, does the SEIU International agree to review the books.
This has all the drama of the Catholic Chuch scandal, where Cardinals hid sex abuse in their ranks. I hope Andy and the folks in DC do not repeat those mistakes.
The SEIU should not wait a day longer without taking action. The labor movement is suffering because of the spending by Tyrone and SEIU needs to fix this situation by trusteeing the local and expressing confidence to members. Anything less than that will certainly do greater damage to the movement.
SEIU = Sucking Earnings Into Underworld
As a home healthcare worker who is pretty much forced to be a member of SEIU, I am sickened not only by Freeman's behavior, but I am even more appalled by the union's board of directors. First of all, they had no business being on a board if they were unable, or unwilling, to effectively carry out their fiduciary duties. What were they thinking when they approved a $10,000 expenditure for a cigar club? And now that the misuse of union dollars has been made public they not only fail to remove Freeman, they defend him! On the union's website Joyce Hayashi,Vice President, Division 5, and Amanda Figueroa, Vice President excuse his outrageous spending by noting that everything was approved by the union board's executive committee and that internal operations "ensure total transparency and absolute integrity." It would be funny if it wasn't hurting thousands of poor, hard-working individuals who are often caring for disabled family members to avoid having to place them in more restrictive living situations. Not only should Freeman be removed, so should the entire board.
What a bunch of baloney. The LA Times is always targeting African Americans and this is another example. Why not look at the Mayor and his issues or even Laura Chick and her drinking and DUI's? Because it is easier to target minorities! Shame on the Times.
Mark Ridley Thomas has nothing to do with this. He is an upstanding leader unlike Bernard Parks and Yvonne Burke. What have they done for us? Don't pull Mark Ridley Thomas into this. This has nothing to do with him!
LA Times, always after African Americans.
The idea that the executive board actually has the power to turn down a Tyrone expenditure is absurd. Each and every member is hand picked by Tyrone and threatened with being left off the slate for the next election if they don't go along with him. It is sad, but the executive board is nothing but a rubber stamp for Tyrone.
It is shameful that Tyrone is actually trying to argue that each expenditure was known and approved by the board. Moreover, none of them have the guts to oppose him even if they were aware of what was going on.
Before these articles broke I bet 99.9% of them didn't even know Pilar was his wife. They kept their marriage fairly private. (Similar to the way they tried to keep their affair quiet while he was married to his wife that gave him triplets. I doubt any of those members knew he was screwing the temp and that is why he eventually appointed her to the head of human relations even though she didn’t even have a high school diploma. What a disgrace!) So, the idea that those members knew they were approving hundreds of thousands of dollars to his former mistress, err...wife defies logic.
Uh oh! Here come the Ridley-Thomas spinners, trying to change the subject. What exactly do Parks and Burke have to do with Freeman? Absolutely nothing. In fact, they've been saying all along that Ridley-Thomas is such a piss poor candidate, that he wouldn't even register with voters if the union hadn't spent $4 MILLION to $5 MILLION . Now it turns out that Tyrone "allegedly" raised the fees of poor workers to ensure that Ridley-Thomas got the money. Even with all that money, he wasn't able to beat Parks outright. Now, Tyrone is hitting up the same members for money again for the runoff... while spending some of it on cigar lounges, defunct basketball teams, dinners at Morton's... etc. 7:08 said it best.
Tyrone's family issues are only a small part of this. The real story is that he took millions from poor people and defended it by saying that he was doing it to support the labor candidate. Meanwhile, he was mismanaging other union funds for his own personal benefit. In other words, Freeman overbilled poor people to cover the financial losses created by his own illegal spending habits. It's sort of like shooting Santa Claus on Christmas Day just so you can keep telling your kids that you're really Santa.
To those with common sense, did I just about sum it up?
I don't see how racism is to blame for the investigation into Tyrone's actions. He is a big union boss and fair game for anyone to look at closely. I would think the black community would be upset that another black leader used his position to become a poverty pimp.
How can anyone defend what he did? If the videos he got out of Pilar were worth 170K+ why aren't they even up on the union website or their youtube site? I bet they are afraid to post any videos (assuming they even exist) because we would all see the poor quality and know that he took advantage. Just look at the “spotlight” videos she produced. What a joke. They are so amateur that it would be funny if it wasn't so tragic.
Racism has nothing to do with it. The Ridley-Thomas connection to Freeman is the next logical step to this story. Are you ready for your close-up Mr. Ridley-Thomas?
ENOUGH, ALREADY!!!!!
While it's pathetic that some of Tyrone Freeman's defenders are now 'playing the race card', it's also reassuring in the sense that, 'if that's all they got, the game is over'.
The only colors Tyrone Freeman is concerned with are the Green in his wallet, the Brown cigars, the Purple kool-aid and his Orange LA County Jail jumpsuit.
But if anyone wants to talk DOUBLE STANDARD, what if this corruption (or even a fraction of it) had taken place at United Healthcare Workers West? WELL, you can rest assured that the UHW would have been placed in emergency trusteeship by SEIU goon squads, and that UHW president Sal Rosselli and the entire UHW executive board and top staff would have been removed immediately pending dismemberment of the local, and Andy Stern would be having press conferences all over the state touting himself as some sort of working class hero!
The hypocrisy of this crowd is just outrageous.
WHY THE DEAFENING SILENCE FROM OTHER CALIFORNIA SEIU LEADERS? ARE YOU ALL JUST AS CORRUPT?
ARE YOU AFRAID OF ANDY AND TYRONE?
DON'T YOU CARE ABOUT THE MEMBERS??
THESE CLOWNS ARE WRECKING THE UNION!!!!!
WHERE IS THE LA COUNTY DA?
WHERE IS ATTORNEY GENERAL JERRY BROWN?
Apparently some of the other union leaders are trying to capitalize on all this by conning Local 434B members into signing up to "join the effort to create one statewide healthworkers union that values democracy!"
I'm a member of Local 434B and today I received a packet in the mail from the Committee for One Healthcare Workers Union. Inside was a copy of the first article in the Times, a postcard, and a letter outlining everything uncovered by the LA Times and other facts relating to the misdeeds of Freeman. Especially interesting was a bullet stating "Local 6434 leaders are collaborating with SEIU to divide homecare and nursing home workers from hospital workers and to keep us in a weaker long-term care worker union that they can control, instead of uniting us in one state-wide healthcare union that would maximize our power to win better wages and benefits."
It goes on with other demands: Freeman and staff should resign, independent third party investigation, SEIU should suspend reorganization, elected rank and file reps must participate in negotiations, etc. All this sounds great if you are as upset as I am by the recently exposed shenanigans.
This is signed by four people: Homecare workers from LA County, Alameda County & Ventura County and a CNA from Chino. Nowhere, not on the envelope or on anything inside it, is there anything indicating it came from SEIU. The card card inside for us to fill out with all kinds of personally inditifiable information that says "YES! I want to join the effort to create one statewide healthcare workers union that values democracry." There's nothing on the card about the other demands that people really care about (Freeman's removal, 3rd party investigation, etc) The address on the back of this post card is to Committee for One Workers Union,
5480 Ferguson Drive, Los Angeles, CA 90022
That's an address for SEIU. I'm sure that most homecare workers in Los Angeles County wouldn't recognize that address so I think this is very manipulative and misleading.
i read the original article posted from Paul Pringle in the first week of august. in it he stated that her company produced 10 shows. i've seen them on Time Warner myself. as someone who works in television handling budgets, I can tell you that the money she received to do so wouldn't pay a phone bill. television content is expensive to produce. you have to hire staffs of producers/writers support persons, editors and not to mention ALL the many freelancers who make graphics, shoot and mix your sound. people would rather believe the worse instead of analyze the information available within context. you'll note similar reporting when discussing John Edwards' mistress. the papers reported she received over $100K and produced 4 commercials for him. no one discusses what it COST her to produce those. after all the bills were paid, she probably made next to nothing.
i think it's unfair to not report things within the context. if you must say she recieved all this money for producing union related content, why not talk to an industry line producer or production manager familiar with costs and ask if that's reasonable? why not? because drama sells. truth doesn't seem to be nearly as exciting. if you ask anyone in the entertainment industry, they'll tell you that she received peanuts and couldn't have possibly made any money from that... unless of course she shoots, writes, edits, mixes, creates graphics and stars in all the shows herself.... and if she's capable of doing ALL those jobs alone and did, then she deserves the money.
can we talk about Paul Pringle connection to Sal Roselli's life partner? as a former LA times staffer I can tell you that said partner is the former lover of Pringle and still a current close friend. Oh, did I mention that Sal's partner is ALSO a former LA Times staffer? Can i also mention that he runs a business out of he and Sal's shared home and that Sal's union has patronized his business many times?
I can tell you that story is all about Sal resisting having his local absorbed by Freemans. he's enlisted a FRIEND (Pringle) who has basically used only tax filings to come to his conclusion. it's rather clever. you can write a full page article insinuating unethical behavior with absolutely NO interviews or sources. this will then prompt other national papers to jump aboard and prompt inquiries. over the course of 2 weeks you fan the flames and eventually you've ruined a man's reputation and ensured yourself power over your local because there is now 'scandal'. Pringle has also found the 'scandal' that will keep him his job in the midst of so many LATimes cutbacks. you have to be a little impressed by that. 2 men, finding salvation in each others needs. it's quite brilliant. Kudos Pringle. Kudos Roselli.
so the last comment said that the money for the TV productions was legit?
What about the golf tournament?
What about the cigar bar?
What about the talent agent?
What about the childcare contract for tens of thousands of dollars to his mother in law?
if you are going to explain one of tyrone's actions, mr. bigshot media bigwig, why dont you explain them all?
he obviously is going to hide from this as long as he can.
i guess i'm a mr. bigshot media bigwig as the other poster put it. i can't speak on all the other charges because i'm not familiar with those things. however, BECAUSE I am NOT familiar with those costs, i called a friend of mine who is a professional event planner for a major magazine. they host a big golf tournament in san diego every year. she told me that those things can cost anywhere from $150- $250K to host. apparently you have to pay for celebrity hosts, PR, food, hotel stays for host and generous donors, and then, an entire production staff if you are taping or televising it. the list goes on. apparently, celebs aren't big on staying at the local HoJo. They stay in places liek the Four Seasons.
My point was not to justify anything. My point was, a reporter has a responsibility to put things into context instead of sensationalizing behavior for the sake of readership. Instead of harping on the fact that the workers make $9/hr, he could have at least reported what the average tv segment producer makes as well (I've paid producers up to $2500/wk). The tone suggests that Freemans wife was banking all the money instead of exploring what she produced in plain sight and the likely costs associated with that. The article is written in a blatantly biased way.
To address the charges from William Morris, I can't answer for that. If Freemans wife was repped by them, they would give you that information. Since agencies have so many departments now, I can only guess at what the money was spent on... which seems to be what Pringle did. Some possible explanations (if we're playing the guessing game) they could have fostered introductions to celebs to help the union raise money. They could have fostered a image plan to help them in the PR area. I don't know.... but do you see the trouble with guessing?
Also, as a parent who shells out roughly $1200/mo in childcare. I am not at all surprised by how much her mother may have made. If I'm paying $12K a year and my daycare tends to 10 children (a low number of children for any daycare and assuming their parents are paying the same) the daycare makes $144,000. now i don't know what kind of arrangements her the union had with her mother. i don't know if she actually watched the children of workers who attended classes (i read that in another article).... but i do know that childcare in Los Angeles is VERY expensive and it wouldn't take watching very many children to make 'tens of thousands of dollars.'
Again- my point is CONTEXT. the reporter makes no attempts to put anything into context. It seems like extremely weak writing and borderline libelous.
In regards to the child care. Having left my child there I can tell you for a FACT that she DID NOT watch the children of Home Care workers or trainees from the training center. The only children that were in that day care center were those of the staff. In addition, to call that baby sweatshop that woman ran a day care is hyperbole. The bathroom was loaded with her belongings and not a traing potty in sight. The kitchen was packed with boxes of cereal and other things, but not once did she ever cook for the children. In fact, I was told that I would have to supply food for my child. I also know that she was cited for leaving the babies in bouncers for too long and there were probably other violations. The playroom (if you can call it that) for the children was probably 10 x 12 and most of the time when I went to pick my child up she was watching t.v. I think it is pretty incredible she was getting paid such a huge sum of money when obviously she was providing sub-standard care to these children. In addition, there was only one other aide at the most, who I was sure only got paid minimum wage.
No matter how you cut it the truth is the truth. I pity those who still come to this man's defense. They have been so duped and fooled its tragic. Most of all I am saddened for the movement. There was a time when SEIU stood for empowering the rank and file not the corruption and greed of the past.
Ah, yes, it's all Sal Rosselli's fault!
Sal made Tyrone do it!
Sal made Tyrone use 6434 funds to promote his wife's show biz career.
Sal made Tyrone use $10,000 of 6434funds to buy cigars.
Sal made Tyrone use 6434 funds to promote minor league ball clubs.
Sal made Tyrone use 6434 funds to have golf fundraisers.
Sal made Tyrone use 6434 funds to pay himself an exorbitant salary. . . . whatever!
Sal also made Tyrone rig the 6434 elction rules so that no one but Tyrone could get on the ballot!
(I bet nobody thought they were that close.)
But, anyway, I GET IT! I GET IT!
The part I don't get is why did Tyrone listen to Sal in the first place?
But hey, all seriousness aside, people, please, people, face it: Tyrone Freeman is in this predicament only because of his own actions. If he hadn't done what he did, there would have been nothing for the LA Times to expose.
If you really love Tyrone, stop defending his actions, stop figuring out whether he got a good deal or not on TV production costs (IT WAS THE MEMBERS' MONEY!), and blaming others for his situation. Help him come to grips with the error of his ways, or get him a criminal law attorney; anything but what you are doing now, which is only making you sound silly and pathetic.
Ah, the SEIU international/6434 astroturf begins!
Bye Tyrone, I'll miss you!
Question: are you going on temporary leave with or without pay? Wouldn't want you to go without your cigar habit.
I am glad to see we are "cleaning up the mess" so to say...
This is only the beginning of the cleanup process....yes, it's true that Pringle has a close knit relationship to Sal Roselli and it is because Sal Roselli that the investigation of Tyrone's spending habit was put to question once Pringle let out the juice.
Sal we haven't forgotten about your misuse of $3 Million, we'll get back to you after Tyrone is relieved of his services...don't think you're out of harms way and that Tyrone's case will have everyone forget about yours. You should indeed thank your Buddy Mr. Pringle he has gotten us to place all our focus & attention unto Tyrone Freeman but it is only TEMPORARY...once Tyrone is out of the picture we will be on your ASS AGAIN.
As for everyone out there..let's not forget that the TRUTH is CORRUPTION goes all the way to the top of SEIU...Tyrone was a small fragment of this corruption -
Ridley Thomas, Steve Trossman, Andy Stern, & many more... should all be INVESTIGATED!!!! Of course...they will get rid of Tyrone (maybe even pay him to leave quietly) just to save their own ASSES from being INVESTIGATED.
The Union needs to clean up the whole entire BOARD...Sal Roselli step up to the plate...it's almost your turn. Bye Tyrone, I'll smoke a Cigar for you!
Dear 1:18 pm:
You can be as obsessed with Sal Rosselli as you want to be, but the facts won't change: Tyrone got bounced by Stern because he stole Union funds, and because Stern is trying to save himself.
If Sal had done a fraction of what Tyrone did, he would have been bounced a long time ago.
Don't you think Stern is desperate for a reason to get rid of Sal?
Stern even filed a bogus lawsuit against Sal over the $3 million fund.
THE JUDGE THREW IT OUT OF COURT!
Stern may even have to pay for Sal's lawyers.
That's old news. It's over; you need to get over it too.
If there was anything crooked with Sal, Stern would have found it by now.
Before the SEIU convention, some of Stern's top cronies (Tom DeBruin and Josie Moonie) even met with some of Sutter Health's anti-union consultants to try to find dirt on Sal. They called themselves the Skunk Team. They not only found NOTHING; the consultants concluded that clearly Sal is not in it for the money. BTW, don't take my word for it; read the SF Bay Guardian; they did a great piece on the Skunk Team last spring before the SEIU convention.
So, you can jump up and down all you want about Sal, but you will find no corruption there because there is none.
All you're really trying to do is deflect attention away from Tyrone. I hope you realize how silly and pathetic you sound.
Purple Sleaze (A contemporary rock song)
(Sung to the tune of Purple Haze)
Purple Sleaze, all on my brain;
Lately things don’t seem the same!
It ain’t funny; it’s a doggone shame;
Scuuuse me while I change my name!
(guitar lead here)
Purple Sleaze, it’s in the news;
Jokers stole the workers’ dues;
The Union boss is no stand-up guy;
Join me now, and say “bye, Ty!”
(more guitar here)
(Apologies to Jimi Hendrix)
Regardless of how this investigation concludes, as a dues paying member I do not see any justification for union funds to be spent at a Cigar club. And Four seasons Golf resorts are so far removed from the people that Mr. Freeman represents it is ridiculous.
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