SEIU - Success, Piled on Success...

You just gotta love the clout that comes along with membership in The Purple Plague.

It's obvious as to the reasons why: Bureaucrats gaze in awe upon The Plague. Administrators quake in fear at the very prospect of the horde of action ready to be unleashed at the direction of Our Glorious Maximum Leader. The members of SEIU literally bask in the Warm Purple Glow, as they obviously know that their jobs are inviolate, their working conditions are better than anywhere else on the planet, and if anyone threatens to make any unfounded changes, the SEIU action machine will descend upon that person wanting to make a change and make sure that he or she knows their role.

Of course, that is the spin that SEIU sells to people when it's trying to get people to vote for SEIU to represent them in negotiations.

Then, reality sets in...

ACMC Trustees kick SEIU’s butt – twice in one night!

In its fear and smear campaign against NUHW, SEIU says NUHW “has no clout”, implying that SEIU, with its two million so-called ‘members’ and hundreds of millions of dollars in mandatory union dues, has the ‘clout’ to protect its members. Really?

SEIU’s powerlessness and incompetence were on full display at the ACMC Trustees regular meeting of July 28 as SEIU was handed two more defeats for which SEIU members will, once again, pay the price.
Two items on the Board’s agenda had a direct impact on SEIU members, and the so-called ‘union’ that loves to brag about its size and clout took a kick to the teeth in each case. Clearly, ACMC bosses have neither fear nor respect for SEIU.

SEIU 1021 staff sit silent while ACMC ignores security guards

First up was the matter of selecting a new security contractor for Highland Hospital. Pursuant to a routine RFP, ACMC management and the Board’s finance committee recommended terminating the contract with global security giant Securitas, one of many employers for whom SEIU is a company union, and awarding the contract to non-union HSS, a security company specializing exclusively in health care settings. HSS already provides security services for ACMC at Fairmont, Eastmont and John George.

Several members of SEIU 24/7, the security guard local, pleaded with the ACMC board to retain Securitas and argued that a non-union security contractor would lower standards and bring in unqualified staff.

HSS was represented by several of their top brass in suits and all who stated they paid better wages and provided better benefits to employees than Securitas. (Is it a surprise to anyone that a non-union company would pay workers better wages than SEIU negotiated with its ‘partner’, Securitas? By the way, did you hear SEIU on KCBS radio bragging about its Securitas contract covering Kaiser security guards? They won two days of paid sick leave a year – a real breakthrough, yes?)

When questioned by a board member as to whether HSS would be open to unionization, the HSS VP stated “absolutely not”. ACMC executives then explained that of the five firms responding to the RFP, three finalists had been selected for final interviews and that incumbent Securitas had come in last. They further clarified that, under the proposed contract with HSS, guards would be paid slightly higher wages and the total cost of the contract would be lower than Securitas.

Belatedly, a local Securitas representative then gave a weak plea based on Securitas’ size and global reach. The ACMC board then proceeded to approve the management recommendation over SEIU objections.

And in a real show of purple solidarity, several representatives of SEIU 1021 (which takes mandatory dues from nearly 2,500 ACMC employees), sat there and said . . . nothing . . . while the SEIU 24/7 security guard members twisted slowly in the wind.

Articulate begging by SEIU 1021 staff falls on deaf ears

Next up was a recommendation that the board delegate to its executive committee the authority to approve specific layoffs of about 120 SEIU 1021 members as the full board is not scheduled to meet until the end of September and management wanted to expedite the layoffs pursuant to the newly ratified contract with SEIU 1021. (Yes, remember that one of the many take-aways SEIU 1021 agreed to in the recent negotiations was a management proposal to expedite the layoff procedure).

After three SEIU 1021 paid staffers (there was only one SEIU 1021 member at the meeting) made ineffective pleas against the motion – one of them was practically begging, stating that SEIU 1021 wanted to “partner” with ACMC on the layoffs, the board went ahead and approved the management recommendation, despite SEIU 1021’s pleas and so-called ‘clout’. What a partnership!

And, it’s not like SEIU 1021 didn’t know these layoffs were coming; they knew during the last negotiations, but didn’t say anything to their members about it. So how did it help SEIU members at ACMC to have their purple dues-sucking machine sell them out in the last negotiations?

How is Andy Stern’s ‘21st century union’ helping its dues-paying hostages?

Why didn’t SEIU 1021 mobilize its members for the ACMC board meeting?

Did they run out of food and purple trinkets?

At least those who get laid off won’t be paying SEIU to misrepresent them anymore.

What about those of us still here? How is SEIU helping us?

Time will tell; it always does.

Props once again to the ACMC News crew for laying out both 1021 locally and SEIU in general.