A pro-Democrat labor union’s San Francisco chapter hired an admitted sex offender to a top position after she served jail time for child sexual abuse at a California high school.
Noelia Linares, a business agent at SEIU Local 87, pleaded “no contest” in 2018 to sex crimes involving a minor. The plea stems from a 2017 arrest, according to documents obtained by the Daily Caller News Foundation. Linares’ group is part of the Service Employees International Union (SEIU), a national organization that backs Democratic political campaigns and helps migrant workers avoid deportation.
SEIU helped spark protests in Los Angeles that led to days of rioting after one of its leaders was arrested for allegedly obstructing immigration raids with supporters.
“The SEIU’s decision to hire a sex offender to leadership shows just how extreme the union has become,” American Accountability Foundation (AAF) President Tom Jones told the DCNF, adding that the SEIU’s hiring choice “is a window into the union’s true priorities.” The AAF obtained information about Linares through a public records request.
Linares and SEIU Local 87 President Olga Miranda did not respond to multiple requests for comment made via phone call and email.
Local media originally reported Linares’ 2017 arrest at South San Francisco High School, where she was a teaching assistant for bilingual students. Authorities charged her with unlawful sexual intercourse with a minor, showing pornography to a minor and several other crimes related to her interactions with four alleged victims at the school.
Prosecutors dropped six of Linares’ charges in exchange for her pleading no contest to two others in 2018, according to court records. The former school employee was convicted of sexual penetration by foreign object, a felony, and child molesting, a misdemeanor, serving one year in jail and nearly three years of probation until it was terminated in May 2021.
SEIU Local 87 hired Linares in October 2022, a sex offender registry document shows. An SEIU business agent can represent the union in collective bargaining agreements with employers and other matters.
“While bankrolling radical left-wing causes and preaching ‘progressive values,’ they protect abusers,” Jones said of SEIU leaders.
The left-wing union has spent millions of dollars supporting Democratic candidates as far back as former President Barack Obama. It also worked with other unions on voter outreach in swing states in the 2024 election cycle, ostensibly to benefit former Vice President Kamala Harris’ failed presidential campaign.
SEIU Local 87 has also vocally opposed deportation operations since President Donald Trump’s first term and said in January that it was advising its members about their “rights” in response to Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) sweeps. The SEIU chapter that hired Linares held a rally days after Trump’s return to defend San Francisco’s sanctuary city policy that bars local officials from helping ICE deport migrants.
SEIU chapters strongly support what the union considers LGBTQ workers’ rights, posting guidance on “creating a trans inclusive workplace” and representing staff from the left-wing Human Rights Campaign.
Linares was pictured chanting with a crowd in January at an anti-Trump rally in San Francisco alongside another SEIU Local 87 leader, according to The San Francisco Standard.
“Nothing is beyond the pale for the SEIU, even molesting kids, as long as you support illegal immigration and are willing to protest the Republican president,” Jones told the DCNF. “The SEIU should be outright condemned for this and forced to clean house.”
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