SECURITY UNIONSSPFPA Disney Local under DOL Investigation

IESA Local 1955, which represents about 1,500 security personnel in California’s Disneyland, became affiliated with the Security, Police and Fire Professionals of America (SPFPA) in October 2021.

In order to convince the leadership of Local 1955 to become affiliated with SPFPA, SPFPA allegedly paid members of IESA the Executive Board — Patrick M. Lemos, the Secretary Treasurer of the Union, and Roger Bediamol, the union’s Vice President — $10,000 each, to gain their support.

Those payments were not part of the Affiliation Agreement, and those board members who were not paid were unaware of these payments.

The U.S. Department of Labor is now looking into these payments.

Ryan Hoover, the president of Local 1955, was given$15,000, and was appointed as SPFPA’s West Coast director, with a salary of $100,000 a year.

Those payments were confirmed by Hoover.

In addition to the payoffs, SPFPA is currently under investigation by the Department of Labor for $160,000 which went missing from the SPFPA local’s accounts.

The missing money was discovered during an independent audit of the IESA bank accounts, when the bank accounts of IESA and SPFPA were merged.

SPFPA boasted about the contract it had negotiated for Local 1955 members, but failed to note that these union members were paid $18.10 to $18.13 per hour - which was the lowest pay for security officers in California.

The new contract will increase the hourly pay to $24.00, which is the lowest pay for Disneyland employees.

Soon after this discovery of this missing money earlier this year, Hoover was suspended as the Pacific Coast Director of the SPFPA International, pending the outcome of the investigation by the Department of Labor.

Roger Bediamol, who became the president of IESA Local 1955 after Hoover took the SPFPA job, was also suspended, pending a hearing.

Hoover had admitted to Tom Nunley, an attorney for LEOS-PBA, that some union funds were deposited in his personal account, which was at the same bank as the Union funds.

Hoover also admitted that he held some $28,500 in “union funds” in cash in a bag in his house. Hoover also said he had several cashier checks, which he used to “pay bills during Covid.”

Hoover told Nunley that if a cashier’s check was for $10,000 dollars, he would cash the check and make out a new cashier’s check.

For example, if he had to pay a bill for $8,000 dollars, he would cash the $10,000 dollar check, write a new cashier’s check for $8,000,and place the $2,000 difference a bag of money at his house.