One Quick Question...

Before the Trusteeship, it was clearly spelled out in the KaiPerm contracts (both the National Agreement and the local UHW contract) that there would be negotiation, retraining, and offers of early retirement prior to layoffs.

Now that SEIU is running Zombie UHW, it appears that layoff notices are about to come out this week for somewhere north of 600 NorCal KaiPerm employees - without interested party bargaining, without alternative offers, without offers of retraining - just accept the new position within 45 days or be gone. All of the above has been accepted by SEIU, without elected member participation in the process. The normal layoff process, which is spelled out in the UHW contract, generally takes something on the order of three to six months from the word "go", but this process is not being followed by KaiPerm management, and this process is now being expedited by SEIU, ostensibly for the benefit of Zombie UHW members.

This, according to SEIU, is called "representation," and is also sometimes referred to by SEIU as "defending our contract."

Can someone, somewhere tell me exactly why it is that KaiPerm employees should continue to pay dues to SEIU?