A congressional committee has opened an inquiry into a financial scandal enveloping the Service Employees International Union's biggest California local because of six-figure payments made to firms owned by relatives of its president.
Rep. George Miller (D-Martinez), chairman of the House Education and Labor Committee, announced Thursday that the panel would examine the union's spending practices, which were reported this month by The Times.
"Our committee takes these reported allegations seriously, and we plan to thoroughly review this matter," Miller said in a statement.
A spokesman said Miller had no further comment.
The congressman, a close ally of House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, is known as a friend of organized labor, although he has clashed with unions on occasion. His 49-member committee has jurisdiction to investigate and hold hearings on a broad range of workplace matters, including the rights of union members.
Federal authorities had already launched a criminal investigation of the expenditures, according to people familiar with that probe. Among the agencies involved are two enforcement arms of the U.S. Labor Department as well as the U.S. attorney's office, the sources said.
The Times has reported that small companies run by the wife and mother-in-law of the Los Angeles-based United Long-Term Care Workers president, Tyrone Freeman, received about $405,000 in 2006 and 2007 from the union and a charity that Freeman founded.
According to records and interviews, the local has paid $219,000 to a firm operated by a former union employee who is a close friend of Freeman and his wife, and $16,000 for "public relations" to a now-defunct minor league basketball team coached by Freeman's brother-in-law.
The local also spent at least $300,000 last year on a Four Seasons Resorts golf tournament, a Beverly Hills cigar club, restaurants such as Morton's steakhouse and a consulting contract with the William Morris Agency, the Hollywood talent shop, The Times has reported.
Freeman, who was paid $213,000 in salary and other compensation last year, stepped aside last week. He has denied any wrongdoing. Most of his local's 160,000 members earn about $9 an hour caring for the elderly and infirm. Their dues finance the union's operations.
The leader of SEIU's largest Michigan chapter, Rickman Jackson, also has taken a leave of absence because of an internal union investigation into the Los Angeles local, where he has served as chief of staff.
