“There was absolutely no misappropriation of one penny of union funds,” Mr. Raynor said in an interview. “This is the flimsiest of charges. What is going on here is an ugly, naked exercise in political retaliation.” Wow. Tell us how you really feel, Bruce. According to the NYT, SEIU filed charges Monday against its executive vice president, former UNITE HERE potentate and Stern BFF Bruce Raynor in a move to consolidate power around new SEIU president Mary Kay Henry. Officially, Raynor is charged with expensing $2300 in meals last year that weren’t about union business. Officially, Raynor claims those were union business meetings with Alex Dagg, a longtime female friend from UNITE now working for SEIU, but he wanted to “protect her from retaliation” so didn’t put Dagg’s name on his receipts. So far this has all the makings of but another gripping sordid steamy SEIU page turner — a nasty union divorce, a billion dollar bank, a simple sweet faced Michigan nurse who rises up to run the largest union in the country with an iron fist and Bruce Raynor lying about something or another to supposedly protect a woman. 
A spokesperson for SEIU denied that the charges against Raynor were in any way political retaliation by President Mary Kay. “This is about the enforcement of an ethics policy that was put in place to protect our members’ resources,” (and not control of a bank) she said, “and quite frankly, Mr. Raynor can share with the hearing officer whatever he’d like to share. This is truly about our ethics policy and trying to maintain the highest standards possible in the organization.” SEIU? Ethics policy? Standards? Huh? Too bad Bruce didn’t get a pre-nup. You’d think by now he’d know better.
