What Color Is The Sky At SEIU?

Evidently, a bright shade of purple. Here's what Zombie UHW has to say in regards to the layoffs:

"SEIU-UHW members and Kaiser have reached an agreement that will protect the jobs of caregivers across California. Despite Kaiser's insistence on eliminating some positions in the state, this agreement will ensure that no SEIU-UHW members are laid off.

"We don't think it's necessary to eliminate any positions, given Kaiser's strong financial performance this year. The company earned $620 million in the second quarter alone, far above their projections. Given that performance, we are disappointed that Kaiser saw fit to send out notices to individual employees notifying them that their positions were being cut. This will unnecessarily alarm those individuals, even though we have negotiated strong options to avoid actual layoffs.

"We intend to keep pressing the Kaiser to maintain the staffing needed to continue providing the highest level of patient care. We will be conducting votes to authorize statewide informational picketing in the coming weeks in order to hold Kaiser to all agreements it has entered into with us, and to force them to take all steps necessary to maintain safe staffing and ensure that no SEIU-UHW members lose jobs."

So, no layoffs, right? WRONG. From BeyondChron:

Last week, 1800 SEIU workers received notices from Kaiser regarding their job status, and while media accounts said there were no union layoffs, NUHW claims otherwise.

Here’s what Kaiser distributed to these workers:

Like all health care organizations, Kaiser Permanente has been affected by the difficult and uncertain business and economic climate. Unfortunately, it has become clear that we must make some workforce adjustments. As a result, we need to notify some employees that their positions are being eliminated.
Therefore, we find it necessary to provide you with a sixty (60) day notice that your position is being eliminated.

As a result of this notification, you will immediately be placed into the redeployment and transition process. The Employer and Union will work with you during the redeployment and transition process in an effort to find you opportunities for job placement.

If we are unable to locate a job opportunity for you by October 19, 2009, you will have a choice between a voluntary severance package including wages and benefits or remaining in a redeployment and transition status. You will be provided with more detailed information on these options during the week of October 19, 2009.

The above italicized section is an exact copy of a letter I had seen that went out to one of my colleagues last Tuesday.

There is no way that the above section can be interpreted other than KaiPerm is fixing to lay people off, and people who got the above letter were ALL covered by Zombie UHW. But according to SEIU, nobody's getting laid off.

Someone wanna help me pound SEIU's square peg into Kaiser's round hole?

SEIU's phony pickets will do nothing to dissuade KaiPerm from going through with these layoffs.

I have a strange feeling that there is going to be a lot of red shirts showing up at the SEIU informational picket sessions.