Union Patronage: Millions Paid to Family Members of Union Bigwigs

September 29, 2008 | Filed Under Business, Crime, Democrats/Leftists, Economy/Finances, Media Bias, News, Publius Contributor, Society/Culture, Unions, Warner Todd Huston |

-By Warner Todd Huston

The L.A. Times has really got it out for the Service Employees International Union (SEIU), I have to say. On September 26, the Times published another one of its investigations into the corrupt union activities, this time revealing that SEIU union bigwigs have funneled millions of dollars to little companies owned by family members for “services” being provided the union.

The investigation also showed that union chiefs are starting their own side companies only to get millions of dollars in “contracts” from the union.

It must be nice to be a chief directing budgets of millions upon millions of dollars right into your own pockets and that of you family members!

Here are just some of the shady “services” and payments union chiefs made to their wives, daughters, sons and other family members:

The SEIU and its political affiliate contributed $3 million to America Votes, an advocacy organization that was headed by Cecile Richards, wife of an aide to SEIU President Andy Stern, at the time the payments were made.
Melissa Mullinax was an SEIU political director when the political consulting firm she held a 20%-to-25% stake in, The Edison Group, was paid more than $1 million, including expenses. In addition, the SEIU has spent about $41,000 on a graphic design company owned by Mullinax’s husband, Jason Abbott.
The union paid about $520,000 to a consulting firm co-founded by Democratic Party and labor strategist Steve Rosenthal, the husband of another SEIU director, Eileen Kirlin. Rosenthal, a longtime friend of Stern, also headed America Coming Together, a get-out-the-vote nonprofit that received $23 million from the union.
Pamela Kieffer, wife of a third union director, David Kieffer, has received about $70,000 in consulting fees and in separate payments from a firm that provided recruitment services to SEIU.
In addition, the SEIU and an associated nonprofit paid roughly $210,000 in consulting fees over four years to Don Stillman, husband of the union’s outside legal counsel, Judith Scott. Stillman helped edit a 2006 book written by Stern, a publication that has generated controversy because of how the union president profited from it.

It looks like the best way to become a millionaire these days is to marry a union chief of the SEIU!

And Andy Stern, president of the SEIU and the man at the head of all this corruption thinks he is qualified to advise Barack Obama on the best way to run business and the economy!?

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Warner Todd Huston is a Chicago based freelance writer, has been writing opinion editorials and social criticism since early 2001 and is featured on many websites such as newsbusters.org, townhall.com, New Media Journal, Men’s News Daily and the New Media Alliance among many, many others. Additionally, he has been a frequent guest on talk-radio programs to discuss his opinion editorials and current events. He has also written for several history magazines and appears in the new book “Americans on Politics, Policy and Pop Culture” which can be purchased on amazon.com. He is also the owner and operator of publiusforum.com. Feel free to contact him with any comments or questions : EMAIL Warner Todd Huston