Scandal-Tinged Union Scrutinizes Officer’s Charity

The California-based Service Employees International Union, whose former president is the subject of a federal criminal probe, is looking into the nonprofit activities of one of its Bay Area officers, reports the Los Angeles Times.

James Bryant, an executive board member of the union’s Local 1021, is also president of the San Francisco chapter of the A. Philip Randolph Institute, a labor and civil-rights organization that gets much of its income from the union and from corporate interests.

The Times reports that the institute paid Bryant $117,000 in 2007 — nearly twice his regular salary as a transit-station agent — and contributed $16,000 to the rent on his home. The organization also employs Mr. Bryant’s son, Joseph, as associate director.

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