Payday may be a small publication, but we do have a big impact. Earlier this winter, a Payday Report investigation into the cover up of sexual misconduct within SEIU was cited in a Senate hearing leading the Washington Post to cover the scandal for the first time while citing Payday.
Strangely, I had not known about this until earlier this week, when a reader forwarded me a copy of the transcript of a Senate Judiciary Committee hearing.
In December, SEIU General Counsel Nicole Berner was facing Senate confirmation hearings for a seat as a federal judge in the 4th circuit. During confirmation hearings, several Senators cited Payday Report in asking Berner about her role in helping cover-up sexual misconduct within SEIU (see transcript here).
Back in 2019, Payday Report exposed how Berner as SEIU General Counsel refused in writing to investigate claims of sexual misconduct in the union. In 2017, Mindy Sturge filed a sexual misconduct case against SEIU Vice President Dave Reagan, who also served as the President of SEIU’s largest local SEIU-UHW in California. (In 2020, the suit was settled out of court for an undisclosed sum of money)
After Sturge filed her lawsuit in the summer of 2017, she says she began receiving threatening phone calls and text messages. In a letter obtained by Payday Report sent in November of 2018 to SEIU President Mary Kay Henry and Vice President Leslie Frane, Sturge invited the international union to come to California to discuss widespread sexual misconduct and retaliation in SEIU-UHW.
On another occasion, Sturge confronted Regan about the culture of sexual harassment at SEIU-UHW. A March 5, 2018 email obtained by Payday Report, sent by Sturge’s co-worker Mike Chavez, expressing his concerns about Regan’s yelling, confirms this story.
“The union’s mission is to provide a fair and dignified workplace for its members, a majority of whom are women. This should be the case for staff, too,” Sturge wrote to Mary Kay Henry. “But staff members are afraid to speak out, and prior complaints about some of the men who created this hostile environment have gone nowhere.”
In a letter, obtained by Payday Report, sent back to Sturge from SEIU General Counsel Nicole Brener in November of 2018, the national union declined to meet with Sturge, saying that the matter was best left to be investigated by the SEIU-UHW, the very local whose President she was suing for sexual misconduct.
“Because each local of SEIU employs its own staff and sets its own personnel policies and protocols, the International Union does not have a direct role in investigating allegations or concerns that may arise in local unions regarding personnel matters,” wrote Berner. “Those matters are subject to the processes established by the locals themselves.”
In violation of SEIU’s constitution, Berner refused to investigate the claims at the national level and instead sent the investigation back to the local, which was presided by the very man facing a sexual misconduct lawsuit.
During her confirmation hearings for a federal judge post, multiple Senators brought up Payday’s expose on Berner’s inaction. Berner defended herself in the hearing.
In the hearing, Berner responded that “because each local of SEIU employs its own staff and sets its own personnel policies and protocols,” her office “does not have a direct role in investigating allegations or concerns that may arise in local unions regarding personnel matters.”
(For more on the hearing, check out this write up in the Washington Post)
While nearly every news organization in the country may have ignored the sexual misconduct scandal within SEIU, Payday’s lonely investigation into the cover up of sexual misconduct within SEIU lead to our work being cited in the Congressional record, thus leading to Payday’s expose being picked up and cited by the Washington Post.
Payday Report may be a small publication, but we have a big impact. Big thanks to our readers who have funded our investigation over the years into the cover up of sexual misconduct in SEIU while other publications ignored it.
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