Wednesday, December 12, 2012

Secret Email Reveals Scam at SEIU Local 99



Here’s an interesting story that comes courtesy of a tipster.

Several days ago, SEIU Local 99 triumphantly announced the names of the candidates it’s endorsing for upcoming races for the city council, school district and mayor’s office in Los Angeles.

According to a post on the union’s website, Local 99’s endorsement process was a shining example of bottom-up democracy that featured rank-and-file members questioning the candidates in townhall forums and then making the endorsement decisions through democratic votes.

Sounds wonderful, right?

Well… we’ve all learned that things ain’t what they seem to be in Purple Land. And in this case, an internal email describes what actually happened.

It turns out that Local 99’s top officials -- including Executive Director Courtni Pugh -- secretly made the union’s endorsement decisions BEFORE the membership meetings actually took place on December 4, 5 and 6.


An internal email dated November 30 spells out the SEIU officials’ so-called “recommendations” for each endorsement.  

Our recommendations are listed below--PLEASE keep all of these recommendations confidential.
The email even explains why the SEIU officials endorsed David Vela, a candidate for the community college district:

endorsing over incumbent b/c he is a more reliable vote.
The email goes on to instruct Local 99’s staffers to screen the rank-and-file members who are likely to attend the endorsement meetings so they can pack the room full of “solid members who will be… voting these ways on these races.” 

Quite an exercise in democracy, right?