$90K child care for union leader's kid paid from dues from $9 per hour heatlh care workers

[Liberal_in_LA]

http://www.examiner.com/a-1528910~Report__Union_local_paid_officials__relatives.html

Report: Union local paid officials' relatives

LOS ANGELES (Map, News) - The wife and mother-in-law of the man running California's largest union local and a related charity reportedly have been paid hundreds of thousands of dollars by those organizations.

The local, Los Angeles-based United Long-Term Care Workers, represents 160,000 caregivers, most of whom earn about $9 an hour tending to the sick and disabled in private homes. It is headed by Tyrone Freeman and is a chapter of the Service International Employees Union.

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Freeman's wife, Pilar Planells, was a union staff member until 2006. The newspaper reported that Freeman's local paid Planells' Lotus Seven Productions roughly $36,000 in 2006. In 2007, the union paid her company about $178,000 - among the union's largest single expenses last year - according to the Times.

Freeman said Lotus Seven produced 10 videos that promote the union's work.

But Labor Department officials said they have no record that Freeman filed a disclosure in 2006 that requires union officials to report payments to entities in which a spouse has in interest, according to the Times.

Freeman's mother-in-law, Carmen Planells, provides day care at her home in Los Angeles. The nonprofit training center headed by Freeman has been paying her business more than $90,000 annually for several years.

"She wasn't my mother-in-law when she got the contract," Freeman told the Times.

State records show that Freeman and Pilar Plannell have a daughter together, born in 2001.

http://www.calnurse.org/media-center/in-the-news/2008/august/union-charity-paid-thousands-to-firms-owned-by-official-s-relatives.html

Video production

Freeman's wife, Pilar Planells, 28, was a union staff member until 2006, earning more than $50,000 as an executive assistant. She left the local to pursue an entertainment industry career, according to another former employee. That year, Freeman's local paid roughly $36,000 to Planells' firm, Lotus Seven Productions. In 2007, the local paid the company about $178,000, annual financial reports filed with the Labor Department show.

Labor Department officials said they have no record that Freeman filed a 2006 disclosure form that requires union officers to reveal payments to entities in which a spouse has an interest.



http://www.latimes.com/news/printedition/front/la-me-union28-2008aug28,0,7667862.story

Labor Department reportedly joins investigation of SEIU payments

By Paul Pringle, Los Angeles Times Staff Writer

August 28, 2008

A growing financial scandal in the 2-million-member Service Employees International Union has prompted a federal criminal investigation into the labor organization's largest California local, sources familiar with the probe say.

[atreides1]

1. Union Leader or Not

If he's playing fast and loose with members dues then he needs to be in a cell next to Duke Cunningham!!!

[GreenPartyVoter]

2. This really pisses me off. We have enough trouble with the anti-Union people out

there without someone from our side adding to the fire. Never mind ripping off those poor workers.

[prolesunited]

3. Unethical criminals should be prosecuted

Union membership is irrelevant.

Several church officials/Little League treasurers have been busted raiding their organizations' coffers around here. Was it their Little League affiliation the most relevant factor or that they were low-life scum who should face the criminal justice system?