An SEIU official in California was fired after it was revealed that he had been dismissed for several sexual harassment incidents in Boston.

Pedro Malave became the fifth SEIU employee to be let go following charges of workplace harassment.

Politico:

The Service Employees International Union faced questions last week over how a former staffer fired for inappropriate workplace conduct at a Boston local found work at two other SEIU locals in California. The labor website Payday Report reported last week that Pedro Malave, a former assistant director at 32BJ SEIU District 615, was fired in 2014 after allegations of sexual assault. Malave then found work at two California locals, SEIU-UHW and SEIU-USWW. The locals dismissed Malave after Payday Report inquired about the allegations last week.

"SEIU USWW has zero tolerance for sexual harassment or sexual violence, and had we had prior knowledge of any misconduct or harassment allegations against Mr. Malave, we would never have hired him," USWW spokesperson Stephen Boardman said in a written statement. The union said it was unaware of the allegations until last week. SEIU locals, which are separately incorporated, each have their own human resources departments, and no centralized system exists to share records, a union official told Morning Shift. Malave could not be reached for comment.

Malave is the fifth SEIU official in recent weeks to leave the union following allegations of misconduct, after the October resignations of Executive Vice President Scott Courtney and Chicago Fight for 15 leader Caleb Jennings; the resignation earlier this month of Fight for 15 Organizing Director Kendall Fells; and the firing earlier this month of Mark Raleigh, who ran Fight for 15's Detroit chapter. 

Why haven't we heard more sexual harassment claims from union employees, whose leadership is historically heavily male?

POLITICO's Ian Kullgren last week addressed the question of why unions haven't figured in recent sexual harassment stories coming out of Hollywood and the news media, given that both industries are heavily unionized; policing management abuses of union members is a significant portion of what unions do. One possible answer, Kullgren wrote, was labor unions' own internal difficulties with sexual harassment. Harassment "has been an ongoing problem for unions, especially those that were initially heavily male," Wilma Liebman, a former union attorney who served on the National Labor Relations Board, told Kullgren. "It's been a hard issue to deal with." These latest revelations don't make it any easier.

Little has been made of the dearth of female labor executives over the years.  Feminists see unions as a natural ally and have rarely criticized their hiring practices.

Sexual harassment may be a different story.  Denying women jobs because of their sex is one thing.  Assaulting, abusing, and harassing them in the workplace is quite another.  The current trend of exposing harassment may be altering the dynamics of the liberal-labor coalition, causing friction at a time when it's imperative for the left to have all hands on deck to unite against Republicans.