National Briefing | West: Union Files Suit Against Health Care Local in California

The Service Employees International Union filed a federal lawsuit in Los Angeles, accusing the president and nine other leaders of its giant health care local in California of breaching their fiduciary duties. The lawsuit accused them of setting up an educational fund that the parent union said was used to spend money for internal political purposes off the books and without proper accountability. The lawsuit comes as Sal Rosselli, the president of the California local, United Healthcare Workers-West, has accused Andrew L. Stern, the S.E.I.U.’s president, of being undemocratic. Jonathan Siegel, a lawyer for the local, said its board had approved the creation of the fund and dissolved it last week and returned all the money, some of which was used to educate the local’s nearly 150,000 members about the push for universal health coverage in California.