Here’s the
latest.
BuzzFeed published an article
this morning citing seven unnamed sources who say SEIU Executive Vice President Scott Courtney had a history
of sexual relationships with young women staffers. Here are two excerpts from
the story. The full article is below. (Cora Lewis, “A Minimum Wage Campaign Leader Was Suspended After Complaints About His Relationships With Female Staffers,” BuzzFeed News)
Seven people who have worked with Courtney, including current and former SEIU staffers, told BuzzFeed News the top official had a history of sexual relationships with young women staffers — who were subsequently promoted, they said.
…Two also said no significant action was taken after staffers reported abuse and sexual harassment by supervisors — who reported to Courtney. “Nothing happened on those campaigns without Scott knowing," one of the sources told BuzzFeed News.
BuzzFeed News
A Minimum Wage Campaign Leader Was Suspended After Complaints About His
Relationships With Female Staffers
Scott Courtney is the chief strategist for the Fight for $15 minimum wage
campaign for the SEIU.
Posted on
October 19, 2017, at 8:13 a.m.
Cora Lewis, BuzzFeed
News Reporter
A top labor
movement figure who led the Fight for $15 minimum wage campaign was suspended
this week after complaints from staffers about his conduct toward women,
BuzzFeed News has learned.
The Service
Employees International Union suspended Executive Vice President Scott Courtney
after “questions were raised ... relating to our union’s ethical code and
anti-nepotism policy,” Sahar Wali, a spokesperson for the powerful union, said
in a statement Tuesday.
On Wednesday,
Mary Kay Henry, the union’s international president, wrote in an email to her
staff that "questions were raised about Executive Vice President Scott
Courtney relating to a romantic relationship between a staff person and a
supervisor. Such relationships are governed by our union’s ethical code and
anti-nepotism policy."
Amid an
ongoing investigation by SEIU general counsel Nicole Berner, Henry said in the
email, obtained by BuzzFeed News, “I suspended Executive Vice President Scott
Courtney from his assigned duties as an officer of SEIU on Monday.”
This past
weekend, Courtney married a union staffer. Courtney didn’t immediately respond
to a request for comment.
“We are
taking this investigation very seriously,” Wali told BuzzFeed News on Thursday.
“As credible allegations come in, we are pursuing them as part of this
investigation.”
The
complaints about Courtney had been an open secret among women in the high-profile
Fight for $15 campaign within the union, which is itself led by one of the most
visible women in American labor. The SEIU lies at the heart of the US labor
movement’s attempt to transform itself from a traditional trade union body into
a broad force for social and progressive change for union members and nonunion
members alike.
The Fight
for $15, which is focused on raising the wages of a low-income, largely female
fast-food workforce, has been the highest-profile symbol of that effort, and
won dramatic victories from New York to Arizona to California. But women inside
the union say the internal culture of the Fight for $15 contrasts starkly with
the values Henry and the union preach.
“Our union
has been fighting for justice for working families, immigrants, women, people
of color, LGBTQ people and people of all faiths and backgrounds in their work
places, in our communities and in our economy and democracy,” Henry wrote in
her email. “Just as we fight to make change in our society, we know that our organization
should reflect the kind of just society that we fight for across the country.”
“In the
weeks ahead, I will be taking concrete steps to ensure there is an open and
safe space process for staff to discuss these and related concerns,” Henry
wrote.
Seven people
who have worked with Courtney, including current and former SEIU staffers, told
BuzzFeed News the top official had a history of sexual relationships with young
women staffers — who were subsequently promoted, they said.
The sources
spoke on the condition of anonymity for fear of retaliation within the labor
movement.
Two also
said no significant action was taken after staffers reported abuse and sexual
harassment by supervisors — who reported to Courtney. “Nothing happened on
those campaigns without Scott knowing," one of the sources told BuzzFeed
News.
According to
a source within SEIU and SEIU’s governing documents, suspension is the highest
form of action Henry can take within her authority as union president against a
union officer at Courtney’s level.
For an
executive vice president to be removed from his or her position, the union must
go through an official proceeding by the union’s internal executive board, its
second highest governing body.
Cora Lewis
is a business reporter for BuzzFeed News and is based in New York. Lewis
reports on labor.
Contact Cora
Lewis at cora.lewis@buzzfeed.com.
