The IRE Resource Center is a major research library containing more than 23,250 investigative stories — both print and broadcast. These stories are searchable online or by contacting the Resource Center directly (573-882-3364 or rescntr@ire.org) where a researcher can help you pinpoint what you need. Browse or search the tipsheet section of our library below. Stories are not available for download but can be easily ordered by contacting the Resource Center:
Search results for "labor leader" ...
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Corruption in the 2-million-member Service Employees
This investigation of the nation's fastest-growing labor union uncovered corruption in its largest California local as well as questionable financial practices at several affiliated organizations and its national headquarters. The stories revealed that the president of the California chapter - who represented nearly 200,000 working poor people, caregivers making about $9 an hour - had funneled hundreds of thousands of dollars in dues money to himself his relatives, and spent similar sums on golf resorts, expensive restaurants and a Beverly Hills cigar lounge. They also showed that Tyrone Freeman misused two nonprofits for financial gain and political purposes, and that the head of the SEIU's largest Michigan local misappropriated funds from one of the charities. In addition, the stories reported that the SEIU's national office, while holding itself up as a model of reform, paid millions of dollars to consulting firms, nonprofits, and individuals with family ties and other personal connections to the union's top leaders.
Tags: Unions; SEIU; corruption; California; Michigan; Tyrone Freeman
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The Final Hours of Miguel Contreras
Labor leader and Los Angeles power-broker Miguel Contreras was found dead under mysterious circumstances in Los Angeles, the week before the 2005 mayoral election. No autopsy was performed, and doctors were pressured to sign a death certificate. The article outlines political power bases in Los Angeles, and speculates how various issues would have had different results if Contreras had lived.
Tags: organ harvesting; autopsy; botanica; 911 tape; labor leader; coroner; Los Angeles County Federation of Labor; LAPD; United Farmworkers; UFW; Centinela Freeman Memorial Hospital; Daniel Freeman Hospital
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The McConnell Machine
The Herald-Leader investigates U.S. Senate Majority Whip Mitch McConnell of Kentucky, whose campaign fundraising has reached impressive levels to the tune of $220 million, largely on behalf of fellow Republican senators. As the 2006 mid-term elections approached, McConnell was seen as a likely contender for Senate Majority leader, should the Republicans retain control (they did not, and he is now Senate Minority Leader). Anticipating this news, the Herald-Leader "examined McConnell's 22-year record of aggressive fundraising, cozy ties with top donors and related actions in the Senate." The newspaper found that McConnell benefited from his "influence over a little-known foreign aid committee; his marriage to Labor Secretary Elaine Chao, who regulates his corporate donors; and a former McConnell chief of staff turned Washington "gatekeeper lobbyist," whose clients tend to receive appropriations earmarks and helpful legislation from McConnell." McConnell has gained a reputation as an opponent of campaign-finance reform.
Tags: Campaign finance; Mitch McConnell; Elaine Chao; Senate Minority Leader
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Labor's front lines
The story tells the struggles of workers in Chicago -many of them Latinos-, a struggle to become unionized and have access to better salaries and working conditions. Franklin explains the unions have lost a great part of the power and influence they had in the 1950's. In the struggle to gain power and influence back, Chicago is a key city because it is "an old-time labor town." In the story, Franklin introduces several leaders of the new union movement, Margarita Klein, Joe Romano, Kina McAfee, Joe Isobaker and Javier Ramirez.
Tags: Jewish Workers Committee; National Interfaith Committee for Worker Justice; DePaul University Students Against Sweatshops; Union of Needle and Textile Employees; National Production Workers Union Food and Commercial Workers Union; United Steelworkers of America; American Federation of Labor; U.S. Justice Department; Chicago and North Illinois District Council of Carpenters; Northwestern University; University of Illinois; Service Employees International Union
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ULLICO Labor Movement Stock Scandal Coverage: Global Crossing: Labor's Questionable Windfall; A Black Eye for Labor; Labor Chieftans' Secret Stock Deal
This is a collection of three articles that exposed a major scandal in the U.S. labor movement, involving union leaders who made hundreds of thousands of dollars by manipulating the purchase and sale of stock in ULLICO, Union Labor Life Insurance Co.
Tags: Global Crossing; labor; union leaders; ULLICO; Union Labor Life Insurance Co.; Labor Department; labor unions
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Child immigrants worked on line at chicken plant
The Herald-Leader reports on the use of child labor in processing plants in Kentucky and nationwide. The story reveals that as young as 12-year-old children have been hired by Cagle's Keystone Foods. The same practices are common also at Tyson plants in Arkansas and Missouri. The children, who in most cases had entered the country illegally, showed fake IDs and looked older, the plant managers explained. The article reports that, according to the U.S. Labor Department, many chicken processing plants are aware of the fake identities of their immigrant workers. Most plants have policies of recruiting illegal immigrants in the Southwestern border area and even in Mexico.
Tags: illegal immigration; labor; Hispanic; Clinton County; Immigration and Naturalization Services (INS)
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Company Town
Westword tells the story of Pueblo, Colorado, where in 1997 1,000 employees of Rocky Mountain Steel Mills walked out on strike. The aftermath of the strike is still being felt in this mining town. "Free of its labor problems, financial analysts assumed the mill's owner, Oregon Steel Mills, would be able to cut costs and earn record profits out of its Pueblo mill. But the analysts didn't count on the steel will of Pueblo's working families, a group whose roots go back more than a hundred years...."
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"Card-Carrying Victims"
For this investigation, a reporter went undercover as a farm laborer "amid allegations that farmers and crew leaders are requiring workers to obtain 'white cards' to work in the fields." The report focuses on a U.S. citizen who, like the reporter himself, was forced to pay money for identification proving his work eligibility and, some say, his race.
Tags: migrant workers
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State of the Union
"Dateline NBC's four-part report took a comprehensive look at the Hotel Employees and Restaurant Employees union - a labor union representing some of the lowest-paid employees in the country, whose leaders have for decades been the subject of organized crime and corruption probes.... Dateline followed a group of daring union reformers, led by a bartender and a waiter, as they waged a campaign to wrest control of their local chapter in Chicago.... Dateline's report also focused on the latest federal probe into (union boss Edward) Hanley and the union and a little-known report that detailed a litany of financial abuses by Hanley, his family and union associates...."
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No title (id: 9216)
Village Voice (New York) reports on the American Isreal Public Affairs Committee, the leading pro-Isreal lobby in the United States, and exposes AIPAC's longstanding practice of maintaining files--often filled with erroneous or biased information; the group judged politicians and leaders of the various American Jewish communities on their support of the Israeli Likud Party, August - November 1992.