SEIU Boss Indicted

SEIU Boss Indicted

After a four-year investigation, federal authorities have charged the former powerful SEIU union boss with corruption. The Los Angeles Times describes Tyrone Freeman as "a rising young star in the national labor movement, already the head of California’s biggest union local and a force in Democratic politics from Los Angeles to Washington, D.C." The Times reports: Freeman’s quick climb up the ranks of the powerful Service Employees International Union burnished his reputation as an effective advocate for the disadvantaged, a man who helped improve the lot of about 190,000 workers paid about $9 an hour to provide in-home care for the infirm. On Tuesday, however, Freeman was indicted on federal charges of stealing from those workers to enrich himself, including by billing the union for costs from his Hawaii wedding. The 15-count indictment secured by the U.S. attorney’s office in Los Angeles also alleges that Freeman violated tax laws and gave false information to a mortgage lender. If convicted on all counts, he could face maximum prison sentences in excess of 200 years. The charges resulted from a nearly four-year investigation by the U.S. Labor Department, FBI and Internal Revenue Service that grew out of a series of reports in the Los Angeles Times on Freeman’s financial dealings as president of SEIU Local 6434. The resulting scandal spread through the 2-million-member SEIU and cost several other union officials their jobs. Citing records and interviews, The Times reports showed that Freeman, 42, funneled hundreds of thousands of dollars of his union members’ hard-earned dues to his relatives and lavished similar sums on golf tournaments, expensive restaurants and a Beverly Hills cigar club. Last month, his wife pleaded guilty to an income tax charge in connection with more than $540,000 she received in union consulting payments at Freeman’s direction.
Wisconsin Scott Walker's Battle for Freedom

Wisconsin Scott Walker's Battle for Freedom

[media-credit id=7 align="alignright" width="300"][/media-credit]Leave it to AFL-CIO union boss Richard Trumka to try to redefine the word freedom to suit his purposes.  In anOpEd published in the Huffington Post, Trumka argues that Independence Day is a really a call for more government, more coercion and more union boss power.  This line of argument would have our Founding Fathers spinning in their grave.  Trumka's obfuscation of our history did not go by unanswered by the Washington Examiner: AFL-CIO President Richard Trumka has a 4th of July-themed column in the Huffington Post musing on the word freedom and how it is interpreted by the Republican Party. His conclusion is that they use the word to con people. Let’s call this right-wing “freedom” catch phrase what it really is: a grossly political strategy to dupe the public, which holds the word “freedom” as something sacred. According to Trumka, giving people or groups complete discretion in how they conduct their affairs is a bad idea because they might make the wrong decision. That is, they might decide to do something that Trumka thinks is a bad idea, such as opting out of Social Security.