Members of the United Food and Commercial Workers (UFCW) plan to protest at their union’s convention in Las Vegas this weekend, accusing the union of turning a blind eye to sexual misconduct by one of its top leaders.



Mickey Kasparian, president of the 14,000-member UFCW Local 135 based in San Diego, has settled four different lawsuits accusing him of sexual misconduct in the last year. Three were apparently settled with union money.



According to a review of Department of Labor records conducted by the San Diego Union-Tribune, the union’s spending on legal bills quadrupled in 2017 to $829,856 up from an average of $203,000 a year in the five years preceding.



Kasparian has denied all charges and an internal investigation said the cases were without merit.



The situation is complicated. Under federal law the UFCW says it does not have the right to interfere with its local unions. And local unions once sued have a fiduciary duty to defend themselves.

“The parties involved in the legal cases have all settled and signed non-disclosure agreements, the International [the UFCW’s head organization] is unable to fully and fairly investigate if it cannot speak to the key parties involved,” the union said in a statement.

But union members are still unhappy. “He’s gotten away with too much money that shouldn’t be spent on sexual harassment. It’s just not right and I really don’t understand why he is getting away with it,” Kim Krammer, a member of Local 135 told the Guardian.

“The whole point of being part of a union is that you are not abused,” said Jessica Lopez, a grocery store cashier and 16-year veteran of the union.



One woman who sued Kasparian is Isabel Vazquez, who began working for Kasparian in 2001. She says that he began demanding sexual favors from her and she felt obliged to comply.



“At first I was just kind of starstruck, in a way that he liked me. Then, right away, he dismissed me [after sex]” Vazquez said in an interview with the San Diego Union-Tribune.

In a lawsuit filed last December Melody Godinez, a 31-year-old local government worker, said Kasparian groped her on four occasions, tried to coerce her into group sex and on another occasion described masturbating to her on the phone.

Godinez said Kasparian once forced her on the sofa in his office, lay on top of her, and put his hand inside the front of her pants.



“I felt like I was being raped,” Godinez said in the deposition referenced in her lawsuit.

Union members have petitioned the UFCW president, Marc Perrone, to investigate the situation further and take control of the local union.

In a letter to concerned members sent on 4 April, Perrone said that while his union takes sexual misconduct seriously, federal law ties his hands as he claims not enough evidence exists to show Kasparian engaged in wrongdoing.



“Since the parties involved in the legal issues with Mr Kasparian have all settled with no admission of guilt by the staff that was terminated … the International Union is unable to fairly and independently investigate these issues if it could so,” wrote Perrone.



Perrone further says that an investigation done by the local committee, many of whom were staff hired by Kasparian, found no merit to the charges. Perrone also cites another investigation done by Steve Marrs, the head of the staff union for international union staff, that also found no merit.



Labor law experts disputed Perrone’s characterization that he cannot take over the local and monitor the spending of its finances until an independent investigation conducted by outside counsel can be concluded.

“Mr Perrone seems to me to have broad latitude to take the local into trusteeship if the union is of the view that the settlements were necessitated by misconduct,” said University of Wyoming labor law professor Mike Duff, who worked as a federal prosecutor for the National Labor Relations Board for more than a decade.



The failure of Perrone to step in has angered some UFCW members who argue it has harmed efforts to unionize the low-wage-earning Latina women they are trying to organize in retail and meatpacking industries.



“It’s upset me because we [Latinas] have to work really hard. We have to break past a lot of stereotypes,” said Lopez. “So once we get our foot in the door, to then be abused by someone like Mickey Kasparian, it just angers you because we’re women, but we’re Latina women, we fought hard to get where we are.”



In March, while the union was attempting to unionize a group of 30 Vons grocery delivery drivers, anti-union consultants hired by the company showed workers copies of San Diego Union-Tribune article detailing the lawsuits against Kasparian.



The workers ultimately voted down the union by a margin of 12-18.



“How are people going to be willing to stand up and fight for our rights knowing that we just paid out big lawsuits?” said Lopez.



Lopez said she and her comrades are prepared to fight to make their union a safe space for all. “You have to keep fighting because when you just give up and stay quiet and just let go, the abuse will continue to happen,” said Lopez. “We have to yell and yell loud.”