SEIU Local 73 Must Re-Run Officer Election after Feds Find Fault

Next month, SEIU Local 73 will re-run last year’s internal officer election after a federal investigation found that SEIU-backed candidates improperly used union resources during the campaigning. The “re-run” election will be conducted under government supervision.

SEIU Local 73, which represents approximately 25,000 public-sector workers in Illinois and northwestern Indiana, entered into a “voluntary compliance agreement” with the feds to re-run the election, according to the federal Office of Labor Management Standards:

“OLMS entered into a voluntary compliance agreement with Service Employees International Union (SEIU) Local 73 (located in Chicago, Ill.), concerning its October 23, 2018 election of officers.  The union agreed to conduct new nominations…, a new election, and installation for the offices of president, secretary-treasurer, two executive board vice presidents, five vice presidents, and [8] executive board members… under OLMS supervision on or before November 22, 2019.  The investigation disclosed that union resources were used when a candidate obtained the union’s membership list and used it to purchase members’ phone numbers to campaign via phone bank.  The agreement follows an investigation by the OLMS Chicago District Office.”

The announcement was cheered by the “Members leading Members” slate, whose complaint prompted the government investigation.

Last year’s election came after a two-year trusteeship imposed by SEIU President Mary Kay Henry as well as a 2017 court battle launched by Local 73 members to bring an end to the trusteeship. SEIU’s trusteeship featured a cast of well-known characters, including Eliseo Medina.

SEIU’s trustee, Dian Palmer, won last year’s election for president of Local 73 by just 375 votes. The “Members leading Members” slate, which campaigned on returning control of the union to its members, won eight of 30 seats on the union’s Executive Board.

Since the election, SEIU leaders have faced a variety of criticisms over salary increases for top officials, changes to the union’s constitution that eliminated four annual membership meetings, and the arrest of the local’s former president, Christine Boardman, for allegedly “trespassing” when she attended a membership meeting and handed out a leaflet. Boardman said she had a right to attend the meeting since she’s a retiree.

Next month’s elections will be conducted by mail.

Breaking: Feds Order Rerun of Officer Elections at Trustee’d SEIU Union

The US Department of Labor has overturned the results of internal officer elections at SEIU Local 73 due to misconduct, according to an e-mail and a press statement from SEIU (see below). 

The federal agency reportedly ordered a government-supervised rerun of the elections to choose the union’s president, officers, and Executive Board.

Dian Palmer, who has served as SEIU’s trustee at Local 73, said in an e-mail sent yesterday to Local 73’s members that the election was overturned because of “a problem with the conduct of one of our local union staff who was elected to the local’s executive board in our last election. The identified conduct was a misuse of union data during the election campaign.” Palmer says the individual has resigned. 

Tasty’s sources say the individual is Organizing Director and Executive Board member Sean McGough. It's unclear whether he is a fall guy and whether others were also involved.

During last year’s elections, two competing slates of candidates battled for votes: one backed by SEIU’s trustees and the other (“Members leading Members”) supported by former staff and members of the union who called for greater local control. The now-overturned elections, held in October 2018, saw Palmer elected as the union’s president. Until then, she had served as SEIU’s trustee since SEIU imposed its trusteeship in August 2016.

Just days after the October 2018 election, “Members leading Members” filed a complaint with the US Department of Labor alleging 13 violations of election rules. For example, the complaint alleged that SEIU’s trustees used union resources to campaign for the slate headed by SEIU’s trustees. According to other allegations, thousands of members did not receive mail-in ballots. Here’s a link to the complaint, which apparently prompted the federal investigation.

A rerun election has not yet been scheduled.

The action by the DOL is the latest controversy to wrack Local 73 since SEIU President Mary Kay Henry imposed a trusteeship on the union nearly three years ago. 

First, a lawsuit alleged that SEIU’s trusteeship was improper. Then, in January 2018, Trustee Dian Palmer fired about ten members of the union’s staff after they announced plans to stand as candidates for the “Members leading Members” slate.

Next, in February 2018, union members filed two federal lawsuits alleging that SEIU officials had improperly failed to allow members to retake control of their union through membership elections. With a judge threatening to order an immediate election, SEIU officials finally agreed to conduct an election in October 2018.

Local 73, headquartered in Chicago, represents 25,000 public-sector workers in Illinois and Northwestern Indiana.

Here’s the e-mail sent by trustee Dian Palmer to Local 73 members regarding the DOL’s action. Note that Palmer says SEIU officials are voluntarily requesting a rerun election. However, Tasty’s sources say a rerun election was ordered by the feds because of election misconduct.

From: "Dian Palmer" <info@seiu73.org>
Date: May 23, 2019 at 1:10:58 PM CDT
To:  >
Subject: Important information about last year’s election of union officers
Reply-To: info@seiu73.org

Dear members, I am writing today to share important information related to last year’s election of officers. In recent weeks, the U.S. Department of Labor has been conducting an intensive review of our 2018 officer elections. Our leadership team is absolutely committed to ensuring that each of you has a union that operates with integrity and transparency. To ensure this, we have fully cooperated with the Department of Labor in their investigation and have responded to each and every question quickly and thoroughly. Making this union work for you is our main priority. This week, we were shocked and appalled when the Department of Labor informed us of a problem with the conduct of one of our local union staff who was elected to the local’s executive board in our last election. The identified conduct was a misuse of union data during the election campaign. Conduct like this has no place in our union. We took this problem seriously, confronted the staff person, and immediately asked him to leave both his staff position and his office. He has since resigned. We are focused on doing everything we can to ensure that you have complete confidence in the democratic processes of this union. We intend to cooperate fully with the Department of Labor and will ask for a re-run of our local union’s election. We expect that the Department of Labor will supervise the election. Rest assured, as we work through this process, we will continue the work of our union to improve the lives of all SEIU Local 73 members. Once we have more information, including details of the upcoming election, we will share them immediately. You can read the statement we shared with members of the media byclicking here. In the interim, if you have any questions, please reach out to your Member Action at 312 787 5868 or email mac@seiu73.org. In unity, Dian Palmer, President Copyright © 2018Service Employees International Union Local 73All rights reserved. SEIU 300 S Ashland Chicago, IL 60607 United States

Members: 'Democracy Is under Fire at SEIU Local 73'

Dian Palmer

Here’s an update from Chicago about SEIU’s trusteeship of SEIU Local 73.

It turns out that SEIU officials did a real doozy on Local 73’s constitution and bylaws during the trusteeship of this union of  approximately 25,000 mainly public-sector workers in Illinois and northwestern Indiana.

Under the union’s old rules, Local 73’s officials were required to hold four general membership meetings each year where members could pose questions to union officials, introduce resolutions, vote on motions and budget issues, and take other actions.

What changes did the union’s new constitution bring?

Well, they eliminated the union-wide membership meetings and replaced them with one “assembly” per year… where only delegates are permitted to speak and vote. Members can only be observers.

In a recent newsletter, an opposition slate called “Members leading Members” offers more details:

the most damaging change came when the trustees eliminated all four annual membership meetings required by the old constitution. This act alone will completely take the members’ rights away when it comes to holding their leaders accountable and charting the direction of their local. Dian Palmer, from the very first day she came in from Wisconsin as a trustee, hated the membership meetings and the fact that the members were asking questions. At one staff meeting in June of 2017, Dian Palmer proposed that we eliminate the question and answer sessions from the membership meetings altogether.

At a membership meeting held on February 23, Local 73 officials – including the union’s current Chief of Staff Tyson Roan -- reportedly called police arrest Local 73’s former president, Christine Boardman, for allegedly “trespassing” when she attended the meeting and handed out the leaflet below. Boardman said she has a right to attend the meeting since she’s a retiree.

Meanwhile, the “Members leading Members” slate reports that trustee Dian Palmer -- Local 73’s new president -- got her salary bumped to $166,000 per year. Union members reportedly filed charges over the pay increase, alleging it was not properly approved.

   LOCAL 73 MEMBERS ARE LOSING RIGHTS IN THEIR UNION by tastysternburger on Scribd

At SEIU Local 73, Controversy Follows Ballot Count

The results are in from the internal union election at SEIU Local 73 in Chicago. But the controversy is far from over… with allegations of election misconduct filed just days after the ballot count.

Here’s what’s happening:

On October 23rd, the votes were tallied in the mail-in balloting to elect the union’s top officers and 30-member Executive Board. The election came after a two-year trusteeship imposed by SEIU President Mary Kay Henry and a 2017 court battle launched by Local 73 members to bring an end to the trusteeship. SEIU’s trusteeship featured a cast of well-known characters, including Eliseo Medina.

Who won the election?

SEIU’s trustee, Dian Palmer. But by just 375 votes. Until recently, Palmer was the president of SEIU Healthcare Wisconsin. She’s also a member of SEIU’s International Executive Board. She beat out Remzi Jaos, a former staff member at Local 73. He’s part of a slate called “Members leading Members” slate, which pledged to return the union to local control.

As far as the election for Local 73’s Executive Board, the “Members leading Members” slate won eight of 30 seats.

Participation in the election was very low. Only 2,300 ballots were cast from the union’s 25,000 members, who work in the public sector in Illinois and Northwestern Indiana.

Just 6 days after the vote count, the “Members leading Members” slate formally appealed the election. It also plans to file charges with the US Department of Labor over alleged misconduct by SEIU officials during the election, including using the union’s resources to campaign for SEIU’s candidates.

For more details, check out a one-page leaflet from the “Members leading Members” slate as well as the election appeal it filed earlier this week.

   "Members leading Members" Leaflet on SEIU Local 73's Elections: October 2018 by tastysternburger on Scribd

   Election Appeal regarding SEIU Local 73's Officer Elections (10-29-2018) by tastysternburger on Scribd

Election Begins at SEIU Local 73 Following Two-Year Trusteeship and Court Battle

Remember SEIU’s trusteeship of Local 73 in Chicago, which represents 25,000 public-sector workers in Illinois and Northwestern Indiana?

In August 2016, SEIU President Mary Kay Henry imposed the trusteeship based on the claim that tensions between the local union’s top two officers were disrupting it. She appointed Eliseo Medina, Dian Palmer and Denise Poloyac as trustees.

Eighteen months later, members of Local 73 sued SEIU and asked a federal judge to end the trusteeship and allow Local 73’s members to elect a president and Executive Board. Under federal law, a trusteeship is presumed to be invalid after 18 months.

That lawsuit -- known as Hunter vs SEIU -- was filed in February 2018 in US District Court for the Northern District of Illinois. This summer, a federal judge held a five-day hearing on the suit.

One month after the hearing concluded, the SEIU trustees announced officer elections. Earlier this week, mail-in ballots were sent to the union’s members and are due back October 23, according to a timeline posted on Local 73’s website.

Remzi Jaos

Initially, SEIU’s elections committee tried to block the opposition slate’s leading candidate from appearing on the ballot. Eventually, they backed down and Remzi Jaos, a candidate of the “Members Leading Members” slate, is on the ballot as a candidate for the president of Local 73. The slate is campaigning on a platform of returning control to local members.

Jaos formerly directed Local 73’s Higher Education Division and before that was a staffer at SEIU Local 1 and the Illinois Nurses Association, according to his bio on the “Members Leading Members” website. See below a photo of the slate’s candidates.

At the top of SEIU’s slate is Dian Palmer, who’s been one of SEIU’s appointed trustees at Local 73. Before that, she was the president of SEIU Healthcare Wisconsin. She’s also a member of SEIU’s International Executive Board.

The “Members Leading Members” slate says SEIU officials changed internal rules to allow Palmer and other SEIU staffers to qualify as candidates for the election. Here’s how they describe it in a leaflet:

In a sneaky move in July, Palmer got the International to waive the 2-year membership requirement for her and the other trustees. This waiver was done before any Local 73 members were notified by the Election Committee that the two-year membership requirement was changed to a six-month membership requirement!

Another SEIU staffer, Jeffrey Howard, is a candidate for the Executive Vice President. Howard, an “Assistant Area Director” for SEIU International, began working on the trusteeship team at the beginning of 2018.

In a September 26th filing in federal court, the plaintiffs in Hunter vs SEIU express additional concerns about the integrity of the voting system and the security of the ballots once they’re sent to an outside agency hired by SEIU to oversee the election. For example, they raise concerns about how "replacement ballots" will be issued and tracked, and how ballots returned as "undeliverable" will be handled and accounted for.

Stay tuned!

Workers Battle SEIU over Chicago Trusteeship

May Kay Henry and Eliseo Medina

Members of SEIU Local 73 in Chicago are making headway in ending SEIU’s nearly two-year-long trusteeship of their local union, according to inside sources and federal court documents.

In fact, one source says SEIU may be forced to hold internal officer elections sometime during the summer or fall. They say SEIU officials have already picked out an SEIU staffer to serve as their candidate for president of the local.

Here’s the latest:

On February 7, 2018, several members of Local 73 filed another lawsuit in federal court asking a judge to end SEIU’s trusteeship and to order SEIU to hold democratic elections so union members can choose a board and officers to run their local union. The lawsuit – which names SEIU, Mary Kay Henry and Eliseo Medina as defendants -- is based on a federal law that says a trusteeship “shall be presumed invalid...” after 18 months. (See below for a copy of the lawsuit: Hunter et al v. Service Employees International Union et al.)

Even though the trusteeship is now more than 20 months old, SEIU hasn’t taken any steps to end it. In fact, says the lawsuit, SEIU officials have tried to suppress members’ efforts to restore local control. Here’s an excerpt from the lawsuit:

At the last general membership meeting on September 23, 2017, a nomination from a member on the floor was made to commence elections, it was properly seconded by another member, yet then Trustee Denise Poloyac unilaterally rejected the Motion and declared, contrary to previous representations, that the meeting was not a “general membership meeting.”

…The Plaintiffs and the general membership of the Local 73 will suffer harm if the current Trusteeship is not discontinued because it would deprive the general membership of the officers and executive board members of their choosing, from inside their membership, rather than the leadership and direction improperly imposed upon them from the International Union when the same is invalid as a matter of law.

Next, things got worse.

According to the lawsuit, union members created a slate of candidates called “Members Leading Members,” established a website, and collected signatures from more than 2,000 members in support of the slate.

Just four days after the website went live on January 4, 2018, “seven of the officer candidates listed on the slate posted on the “Members for Members” website were unilaterally suspended, without notice and without due process or hearing,” according to the lawsuit. Two days later, all seven of the candidates were fired by the SEIU trustees. (These candidates were members of SEIU Local 73’s staff.)

Yesterday, a federal judge held a preliminary hearing on the latest lawsuit during which she rejected a motion by SEIU’s attorneys and “encouraged [SEIU and the members who are suing it] to negotiate conditions for reasonably prompt resumption of local control, and free and fair elections.” Another hearing will happen in three weeks.

So which SEIU International staffer has been fingered to run as SEIU International’s candidate for president of Local 73?

According to Tasty’s sources, it’s Jeffrey Howard. 

SEIU assigned Howard, an “Assistant Area Director” for SEIU International, to work at Local 73 just four months ago. Under SEIU's rules, a person must be a member in good standing of the local union for at least two years in order to qualify as a candidate for office. So how can Jeff Howard actually run to become president of Local 73?

“Jeff was asked about the fact that he has only been a member of Local 73 for four months,” says a source, “and his reply was Mary Kay [Henry] has waived the two-year membership requirement!”

For more information about SEIU’s trusteeship and a look back at Dave Regan’s violent attack on a nationwide meeting of union reformers some nine years ago (during which one SEIU member died), check out an article by labor journalist Steve Early:  “Purple bullying, ten years later: SEIU trustees trample membership rights,” Monthly Review, April 1, 2018.

   Hunter el al v. SEIU: Lawsuit on SEIU Local 73 Trusteeship (02-07-2018) by tastysternburger on Scribd

Insiders: SEIU Trustees Fire 10 Staffers Seeking to Run for Officer Positions at SEIU Local 73

At SEIU Local 73 in Illinois, two trustees appointed by SEIU President Mary Kay Henry have reportedly fired about ten members of the union’s staff after they announced plans to stand as candidates for the union’s executive board and top officer jobs as part of an opposition slate of candidates, according to insiders.

The firings by SEIU trustees Dian Palmer and Denise Poloyac come just weeks after more than a dozen members of SEIU Local 73 sued Mary Kay Henry in federal court in an attempt to force SEIU to end its trusteeship and to allow Local 73’s members to elect an executive board and officers to run the union of approximately 25,000 public-sector workers in Illinois and northwestern Indiana.

The fired staffers are part of a slate of candidates called “Members Leading Members,” which recently launched a website describing its candidates and platform. The website, which criticizes SEIU’s “disastrous trusteeship,” includes language like this:

instead of preparing the membership for self governance, like they promised, the Trustees are trying to extend the trusteeship or merge our local with [SEIU] Local 1 and/or HCII [SEIU Healthcare Illinois-Indiana].  All of this in spite of the fact that Local 73 members have repeatedly demanded elections and have expressed their anger clearly in the past 4 membership meetings in 2017. It is unfortunate that the International Union and the Trustees are not listening. For these reasons, we have launched our slate and have sent a strong message to the International Union in a petition that this Union belongs to us. We demand an election right now.

…Join the "Members Leading Members Slate" in our fight to restore the power of our Local to those who make it great: our very own members, not individuals selected by the International (SEIU).  We deserve the right to chose who leads our Union, not be dictated to by the International.

On January 8, Palmer and Poloyac sent an e-mail to all Local 73 staffers announcing the immediate suspension of staff members for “launch[ing] an attack on the Union that is seriously divisive to our unity…” (See a copy of the e-mail below.) 

Subsequently, approximately 10 staff members were fired from their jobs, according to internal sources.

Among the fired staffers is Remzi Jaos, who says he plans to run for Local 73’s president. Until his firing, Jaos directed Local 73’s Higher Education Division and earlier was a staffer at SEIU Local 1 and the Illinois Nurses Association, according to his bio on the “Members Leading Members” website.

Other fired staffers reportedly include Willie English (running for Secretary-Treasurer), Brenda Woodall (running for Vice-President, and Rick Loza (also running for Vice-President).  

When will internal officer elections at Local 73 actually take place?

Not clear.

A lawsuit, filed by 13 rank-and-file members of Local 73 on December 14th, asked a federal judge to order elections sometime in February 2018. In court filings, however, SEIU’s attorneys denied multiple allegations in the lawsuit and asserted that the court has no jurisdiction over this issue.

Meanwhile, SEIU officials have scheduled a “Leadership Conference” for January 27 and a membership meeting for February 10.

Stay tuned.

   SEIU Trustees Suspend Local 73 staff members: January 8, 2018 by tastysternburger on Scribd

SEIU Members Sue Purple Palace as Independent Union Pushes for Decertification Elections

In mid-December, more than a dozen members of SEIU Local 73 sued SEIU President Mary Kay Henry in Chicago federal court in an effort to return their union to local governance through democratic elections.  Seventeen months ago, Henry imposed a trusteeship on Local 73, removing the union’s officers and board and appointing Eliseo Medina, Dian Palmer (president of SEIU Healthcare Wisconsin) and Denise Poloyac (Director of SEIU’s Property Services Division) to run the union as trustees.

In another interesting development, Matthew Brandon – Local 73’s former Secretary-Treasurer who was removed from office by Henry’s trusteeship – has launched an independent union that’s actively organizing elections to decertify SEIU, according to readers. Brandon’s new union has been moving towards elections at various units, including Cook County’s hospital maintenance department and the City of Chicago’s building maintenance department, say readers.

SEIU International has reportedly sent 15 staffers to Chicago to fight these decertification efforts. A reader reports that SEIU’s trustees at Local 73 recently fielded a phone call from Mary Kay Henry and Andy Stern regarding the challenge presented by Matt Brandon’s independent union.

The federal lawsuit, filed on December 14, asks the court to declare the trusteeship void as of February 3, 2018. It cites the 1959 Labor-Management Reporting and Disclosure Act, which mandates that such trusteeships expire in 18 months. The plaintiffs want their union to conduct elections to choose its officers and board members prior to February.

The lawsuit reads:

Specifically, plaintiffs are seeking a Court Order requiring that the democratic process be upheld in that the current Trusteeship should terminate as mandated on February 3, 2018, that the SERVICE EMPLOYEES INTERNATIONAL UNION, LOCAL #73, be restored to self-governance, that the process to hold elections be commenced immediately, and that this Honorable Court mandate that the Department of Labor oversee these elections to ensure non-biased, fair, impartial, Constitutional and democratic processes be maintained throughout.

According to the lawsuit and readers’ reports, SEIU’s trustees have log-jammed members’ requests to hold local elections. On September 23, the trustees held a general membership meeting and some workers showed up wearing T-shirts emblazoned with the words “The time to vote is now.” A motion for local elections was made and seconded from the floor, but the lawsuit says Trustee Denise Poloyac rejected the motion and said the session was not a “general membership meeting.”

The next general membership meeting was scheduled for December 16. Here’s what happened, according to the lawsuit:

The general membership meeting scheduled for December 16, 2017 was cancelled unilaterally without cause by Trustee Poloyac, and this was communicated to the members via an email from Martha Gallegos, the Office and Special Project Manager for Local #73 sent on December 12, 2017.

Just two days after the trustees announced the cancellation of the meeting, thirteen union members filed their suit in Chicago federal court. The suit alleges:

Defendants have failed and refused to schedule a membership meeting of Local 73, have failed to seek nominations for a ballot and have generally failed to comply with the election procedures necessary in order to return control of Local 73 to its members following the February 3, 2018 termination of the Trusteeship.

Below is a copy of the lawsuit, which includes a copy of the e-mail sent by Martha Gallegos canceling the union’s general membership meeting on December 16.

For press coverage, see this article: Scott Holland, “SEIU Local 73 members ask judge to order national union to order local elections, restore local control,” Cook County Record, December 15, 2017.

   SEIU Local 73 Members' Lawsuit against SEIU International over Trusteeship: 12-14-2017 by tastysternburger on Scribd

President of SEIU Union in Chicago Appeals Purple Palace’s Trusteeship Decision

Christine Boardman

On Monday, Christine Boardman (President of SEIU Local 73) formally appealed SEIU’s recent decision to continue its trusteeship of the union, which represents 25,000 public-sector workers in Illinois and Northwestern Indiana.

Boardman, in a January 30 letter to SEIU President Mary Kay Henry and Secretary-Treasurer Gerry Hudson, says SEIU’s decision to continue the trusteeship “is fraught with factual and legal errors and is in violation of the SEIU International Constitution as well as the LMRDA,” a reference to the federal Labor Management Reporting and Disclosure Act. Boardman requested a hearing before SEIU’s International Executive Board as part of her appeal. 

A copy of Boardman’s letter is below.

In an e-mail to supporters, Boardman vowed to fight SEIU’s decision, which was first announced on January 27 on Local 73’s website.

Last August, SEIU officials seized control of Local 73 through an “emergency trusteeship.” The action suspended Boardman and Matthew Brandon, Local 73’s Secretary-Treasurer, from their elected positions and also suspended the union’s Executive Board. Henry appointed three of her representatives to run the union as "trustees."

On September 24, 2016, SEIU officials conducted a “trusteeship hearing” headed by a hearing officer, Edgar Romney, to determine whether SEIU’s “emergency trusteeship” was justified and should continue. Romney, who was selected by Mary Kay Henry, is a member of SEIU’s International Executive Board and is the Secretary-Treasurer of SEIU’s “Workers United” division, which happens to owe $16.7 million to SEIU.

SEIU’s trusteeship hearings are typically kangaroo courts in which attorneys from the Purple Palace literally write a pre-ordained decision that's simply signed by the Hearing Officer.

On January 25, 2017, SEIU’s International Executive Board (IEB) approved Romney’s finding that “the trusteeship was imposed properly and should be continued.” 

Surprise, surprise, right? 

The IEB also adopted Romney’s recommendation that Local 73’s Executive Board be disbanded and that Boardman and Brandon be permanently removed from office.

Mary Kay Henry has appointed two trustees to run the local: Dian Palmer (President of SEIU Healthcare Wisconsin) and Denise Poloyac (Director of SEIU’s Property Services Division).

Eliseo Medina, who launched the trusteeship in August, is no longer a trustee at Local 73. At the end of summer, he flew back to California to serve as Henry’s “monitor” of SEIU Local 99 in Los Angeles following alleged misconduct by SEIU officials there.

So what’s the basis of Boardman’s appeal?

She says the trusteeship hearing and the subsequent actions by SEIU’s International Executive Board were “fraught with factual and legal errors” that violated SEIU’s Constitution.

In an e-mail sent to supporters this week, Boardman said the “vast majority” of the witnesses at the trusteeship hearing were from SEIU International. Neither Boardman nor Brandon was allowed to ask questions of SEIU witnesses, whom she describes as “bogus.” Boardman says she was permitted to make a statement during the hearing, but portions of her testimony – including an objection – were never included in the hearing records.

Furthermore, Boardman says SEIU’s justification for the trusteeship is “ridiculous.”

SEIU officials said they seized control of Local 73 because of fighting between Boardman and Brandon. “However,” writes Boardman, “the International used a different standard on [Local 73] than they did on other locals.” She continues:

This includes Local 99 in LA where the President was found to be stealing money and Local 1107 in Las Vegas where the Executive Vice President had an order of protection issued against her because of physical confrontations with the staff.  Six months later the President and Executive Vice President of 1107 filed charges against each other, plus 400 members signed petitions asking that the International trustee Local 1107.  For those locals the International did not have an emergency trusteeship. The International’s position that we [Local number 73] needed an “emergency trusteeship” is ridiculous.

Those familiar with SEIU’s recent history are likely laughing their asses off to see Edgar Romney serving as some sort of judge of moral probity. 

In 2009, Romney and Bruce Raynor joined Andy Stern in SEIU’s attempted hostile takeover of UNITE HERE, the United States’ largest union of hotel, food service, and casino workers. Across the US, labor leaders and observers slammed SEIU, Raynor, and Romney for their underhanded attack on UNITE HERE and its 450,000 members.

  Christine Boardman's Letter Protesting SEIU's Trusteeship of SEIU Local 73 by tastysternburger on Scribd

SEIU’s Mary Kay Henry Removes President of SEIU Local 99

In early December, SEIU President Mary Kay Henry removed SEIU Local 99 President Barbara Torres from office and suspended her membership in SEIU for four years, according to notices distributed to union members and also available online. Henry also removed a second officer, Executive Board member Jacqueline Brown, and appointed Eliseo Medina to serve as a “monitor” of Local 99.  

Based in Los Angeles, SEIU Local 99 represents 25,000 public school workers.

According to SEIU, the actions came after “a thorough investigation and hearing by SEIU International” that reportedly was prompted by charges against union officials.

In October, SEIU’s International Executive Board held two days of hearings in Las Vegas to investigate separate charges filed against the top leaders of SEIU Local 1107, according to the Las Vegas Review-Journal. Local 1107 represents approximately 9000 workers in Nevada.

Eliseo Medina’s assignment to Local 99 is his second such gig in a handful of months. In August, Henry appointed Medina as the “trustee” of SEIU Local 73 after she imposed a trusteeship on the Chicago-based union, which represents 25,000 public-sector workers in Illinois and northwestern Indiana.

Medina addressing Local number 73 members in Chicago

Readers may recall that Local 99 has a troubled history of scandals and corruption by its top officials.

In 2004, Andy Stern appointed Bill Lloyd as the trustee of Local 99.

Lloyd, who subsequently took on the job of Local 99's Executive Director, pocketed no fewer than three separate paychecks from SEIU totaling $224,000 a year along with multiple perks including an eight-year-long, SEIU-paid hotel room at the Wilshire Grande Hotel.

Lloyd is also known for his infamous sexual affair with Local 99’s then-president, Janett Humphries, at the same time that she was embezzling tens of thousands of dollars from the union's members. In 2006, Humprhies pleaded guilty in federal court to four counts of embezzlement and one count of conspiracy.

Steve Trossman -- who reportedly covered up Tyrone Freeman’s million-dollar theft from SEIU members for years -- also did damage control for Lloyd. Trossman now works for Dave Regan as SEIU-UHW’s "Communications Director."

In 2012, Lloyd silently disappeared from his job as the Executive Director of Local 99.

Max Arias currently serves as Local 99’s Executive Director. Arias, a former staffer at SEIU Healthcare Illinois-Indiana, parachuted into California in 2009 as part of SEIU’s trusteeship of SEIU-UHW. Arias was initially assigned to nursing homes, where workers reported about his disrespectful attitude towards workers.