INSIDE SEAN’S SLAVE PENN
Workers’ complaint accuses actor of being abusive boss
ACTOR Sean Penn has been slapped with a labor relations complaint branding him a slave-driving boss who forces staffers to work 18-hour days with a lack of food and restrooms, leaving them exhausted and in tears.
Critics say self-proclaimed do-gooder Penn also tried to bully young workers at his nonprofit Community Organized Relief Effort (CORE) into silence by saying they were “cyber whining” about conditions — and if they didn’t like things, they could “quit!”
Now the 61-year-old Mystic River star, who founded CORE in 2010 to help in earthquake-torn Haiti, is trashing the Oct. 25 complaint with the National Labor Relations Board as a “betrayal.”
The complaint is linked to CORE’s COVID vaccination drive at Dodger Stadium in January, where L.A. residents waited in line for as long as five hours to get a shot.
But CORE staffers insist it was worse for them. One claims they were forced to work 18-hour days, six days a week. A newspaper article describing the grueling event said “there is Krispy Kreme [doughnuts] for breakfast and Subway for lunch.”
But a staffer slams the report saying: “We do NOT get Krispy Kreme for breakfast. In fact, we usually DON’T get breakfast, just coffee. And the lunch is NOT Subway. It’s the same old lettuce wraps every day.”
Another staffer insists “there is a shipping container on site that is a designated space for overworked staff to go cry in.”
Labor relations attorney Daniel B. Rojas, who represents the complaining CORE staffers, slams Penn as a bully for trying to stifle complaints.
He called the actor an “impetuous ultrawealthy man” who “coerced hundreds of young people into believing discussing wages or working conditions is incompatible with continued employment in the nonprofit sector.”
A lawyer for CORE and Penn says they will “vigorously contest and fight” the charge.