He was reportedly removed from his SEIU local presidency more than a decade ago, but he never left the SEIU.
A former president of a large SEIU local, who had allegedly “stolen tens of thousands of dollars from SEIU members” in the late 2000s and was removed from office, has reportedly been assigned to California’s SEIU Local 2015 as the Director of its Organizing Department.
Rickman Jackson gained some notoriety back in 2008 as the chief of staff for the SEIU’s Tyrone Freeman—when Freeman’s misuse of funds from the then-165,000 local came to light in the Los Angeles Times.
The housing corporation also paid $2,500 a month to lease the home of Freeman’s former chief of staff, Rickman Jackson, the report says. Jackson, now president of SEIU’s largest Michigan local, went on leave after The Times disclosed his ownership of the property, which the corporation listed as its address.
When Freeman’s chain of corruption came to light, Freeman received 33 months in prison (he’s out now), and the SEIU removed Jackson from office.
Although Jackson was forced to repay the $33,500 he received from the improper lease., he never really left the SEIU.
Jackson, who has been on leave and could not be reached late Tuesday reported the LA Times in 2008 has been reassigned to a staff organizing job at a reduced salary and is barred from seeking union office for three years, Ringuette said. “These are serious penalties,” she said.
In fact, according to UnionFacts.com, Jackson stayed on at the SEIU as an Organizing Director pulling down over $100K per year.
“After Rickman resigned his position in disgrace, Mary Kay Henry quickly hired Rickman into a $130,000-a-year job in SEIU’s DC headquarters,” explained SEIU watchdog SternBurgerWithFries back in 2010. “When some SEIU staff refused to work with Rickman, Mary Kay decided it’d be better to send Rickman to Canada until people’s memories faded away a bit. And then Rickman showed back up in SEIU’s DC headquarters.”
Now though, according to SternBurgerWithFries, “SEIU Local 2015 — the scene of Rickman’s corruption — just hired Rickman as the Director of its Organizing Department, according to a source inside SEIU Local 2015.”
Has the SEIU’s so-called “culture of corruption” returned to California?
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