¡Adios, Andy!

One Final Note

2010-04-14T16:08:00.001-07:00

Given the name of this blog, it would be impossible for me not to comment on this week's blockbuster news that Our Glorious Maximum Leader has decided to hang up his spurs. While the news got out in a forum not of his choosing, eventually he had to come to the fore and make his reasons known...

Such a self-serving fable can only be properly bookended by the statement of Sal Rosselli, who has become Nice Scarf's chief antagonist, and who managed against all odds to remain One Day Longer than Andy Stern...

If the reports are true, and Andy Stern steps down as the head of the SEIU, a sad chapter in the once proud union’s history will come to an end.

Stern’s legacy is that he took control of an organization built by more than a million hardworking janitors, healthcare workers, and public servants, and used their resources primarily to secure his own political power.

Instead of helping SEIU members fight for better jobs and better patient care, Stern gave himself the authority to cut secret deals with corporations and trade away members’ rights.

Instead of helping working people build their own organizations, he “restructured” existing unions, crushed democracy, and put his own loyalists in charge: appointees like Tyrone Freeman and Annelle Grajeda, who could always be trusted to vote with Stern, even if they couldn’t be trusted to keep their hands out of the till. Stern’s allies have been exposed for financial corruption and connected to the Blagojevich pay-to-play scandal.

Instead of uniting the labor movement’s strength, Stern tore apart the AFL-CIO and created the “Change to Win” federation, only to tear apart Change to Win four years later with an unprecedented raid on SEIU’s closest partner in the federation, Unite Here.

Last year, tens of thousands of SEIU healthcare workers in California realized that if they wanted to stand up for their patients and fight for their work to be valued, they would have to do it in an independent union outside SEIU. When Stern came to take control of their local union, they founded the National Union of Healthcare Workers.

Stern’s multi-million-dollar fights against these healthcare workers and against Unite Here have diverted resources away from healthcare reform and employee free choice, weakening the former and scuttling the latter. These wars of choice have taken a toll on the union’s finances as well as on Stern’s credibility.

Wherever Stern parachutes himself next, he will leave a workers’ organization in disarray, with a crisis of leadership from top to bottom. His likely successors, Mary Kay Henry and Anna Burger, have been tarred by the same ethics scandals and failed policies that marred his tenure. Stern’s legacy is that SEIU has become a rogue union, undemocratic, unable to pay its bills, and unwilling to defend its members at the national level.

The challenge for SEIU is not simply to choose a successor, but to reverse years of bad policy, restore accountability, and steer away from the brink.

I seriously doubt that SEIU will be able to pull back from the brink - the two most likely successors in the short term (Anna Burger and Mary Kay Henry) both owe their souls and their careers to Andy Stern, and thus are unlikely to engineer any course other than to endeavor to continue the prior path of undemocratic and corporate-style "unionism" which is much more concerned with management's rights and the union's bottom line than it is the lives and choices of the workers that SEIU is purported to represent.

¡Adios, Andy! Don't let the door hit ya where the Good Lord split ya.

The Long And Winding Road

2010-03-04T19:13:00.000-08:00

To say that this journey has been a long and strange one would be a serious understatement. However, like all journeys, this one must come to an end.

When starting out this blog, my original intent was to bring forth an article once or maybe twice a week, recounting all the issues that SEIU was creating with their misbegotten trusteeship. Little did I realize that SEIU would be such a self-destructive font of information. There were several months during the run of this blog where I was able to put up one post a day, and sometimes more than that on average.

I had also originally intended to continue to write this blog until such time as I was given the opportunity to cast my vote on what was going on inside KP vis-à-vis the trusteeship. In retrospect, that may have been a bit of an ambitious goal; then again, I had trusted (naively, I must admit) that the Kaiser management team would recognize the clearly stated will of its employees, and ask the NLRB to conduct an election based on the stated will of a majority of its employees.

Alas, as we all know, that was not to be, and instead we NUHW partisans have had to fight a Maquis-like insurgency against the lies and terror being perpetrated by SEIU, while being actively colluded against by both SEIU and KaiPerm management.

We all saw what the result of that collusion turned out to be for SEIU down south via the SoCal Tsunami, as well as the overwhelming verdicts at Santa Rosa and the other smaller nursing facilities.

Having seen those results, and having witnessed personally the scornful attitude that SEIU organizers have for the KaiPerm rank-and-file, it’s pretty clear to me that Zombie UHW’s days are numbered within KaiPerm.

When I started this blog, I had no idea of the level of passion and commitment that the NUHW supporters shared throughout the UHW-organized facilities. I have met and become online “friends” with a cross-section of healthcare workers and union activists that will (I hope) last years into a bright and gentle future when the true, democratic way of NUHW will become the norm throughout hospitals in California, rather than just a hopeful exception.

I stand in awe of what the NUHW supporters have done so far, and I am honored by the level of commitment that these people have given to what initially had to have been seen as a quest that would make Don Quixote stand up and take careful note.

To my readers and commenters – you have my sincerest gratitude and respect, for you are people who have been attached to an idea that might does not always make right, and that the quality of the members of an organization stand for much more than the sheer number of members in that organization. I am proud to have been an occasional chronicler of this battle, and I hope that I have done right and well by the long and winding road on which we all collectively find ourselves.

It is for that reason, and because the demands on my personal and professional time have grown far and above what was available to me one year ago, and far and above the free time required to keep ¡AA! both fresh and relevant, that the time has come for me to put ¡AA! to bed. As selfish as it may seem, I would prefer to end the blog well, rather than to continue on a path that must inevitably lead to an inferior presentation. I will instead be concentrating my pro-NUHW agitation at my local KaiPerm facility as well as other locales nearby.

For posterity’s sake, commentary on prior posts will remain open for about two weeks or so, at which time all further commentary will be closed, but I will leave the blog up for public review until the trusteeship is consigned to its well-deserved dustbin of history.

In the meantime, I leave the commentary on all things NUHW and SEIU in excellent hands, and I would encourage all interested readers to go over to Tasty’s place, or go over to Red Revolt and see what Keyser has been up to out in Wine Country USA. And who knows – maybe someday even Perez Stern will make a triumphant return to blogdom.

Until then, keep the faith, and remember that no matter where Andy Stern may find himself, I have no doubt that he will always see RED people.

Farewell, and take care.

SEIU 1021 Tosses Out Andy's Appointees

2010-02-27T09:31:00.000-08:00

The results are in from SEIU 1021's election, and Andy's Appointees had a Very Bad Day.

Almost the entire "Change 1021" slate was elected, and most of the current 1021 E-board members who stood for election or re-election (since the offices were re-jiggered for this election) were tossed out.

The Newest Face of SEIU's Thug Squad

2010-02-27T08:37:00.000-08:00

Ooops...wait...wrong mugshot...

Okay, here we go - meet Liz Castillo, a paid Zombie UHW staffer, trying her best to fight off the organization effort at Garden Grove...

As it can be plainly seen, she takes the "fight" part seriously.

A police report has been filed with the Garden Grove Police Department (case #10-02687), and the whereabouts of Liz Castillo remain unknown at this time.

Sometimes the Jokes Just Write Themselves...

2010-02-26T14:31:00.000-08:00

From TPM Cafe, via the AP...

Obama makes picks for debt commission

President Barack Obama's four appointments to the bipartisan debt panel he established last week include the head of manufacturing giant Honeywell and a former top-ranking Federal Reserve official.
Obama will name David Cote, chief executive officer at Honeywell International, and former Federal Reserve Vice Chairman Alice Rivlin to the panel today, an administration official said. He will also appoint Andy Stern, president of the Service Employees International Union, and Ann Fudge, the former chief executive officer of Young & Rubicam Brands.

The only way this makes any kind of logical sense is that in order to sit on this panel, you need to have run up a bunch of debt that you have no hope in hell of paying off. That's something that Our Glorious Maximum Leader knows all about.

Block And Copy

2010-02-26T13:34:00.000-08:00

It appears some of the Zombies have been practicing their Word-fu. Too bad they didn't have someone independently check the document before sending it out...

(image on Scribd, courtesy of Tasty)

Having 52 signatures representing 51 facilities strikes me as something less than a grass-roots movement.

A St. Louise Organizer Speaks Out

2010-02-24T20:09:00.001-08:00

From the Gilroy Dispatch...

Dear Editor,
I've been a respiratory therapist at Saint Louise Regional Hospital for 18 years. I want to tell our community the truth about what's been going on in our hospital over the last year, and why things are about to get better.
For the last eight years, my co-workers and I have been part of a labor union. You may have seen us on the sidewalk once or twice with picket signs, and wondered what was going on.
I helped organize the union because caregivers at Saint Louise were concerned about our patients as we worked harder and harder caring for more patients with not enough staff. We were tired of spending long hours caring for people in our community, only to come home unable to afford quality healthcare for our own families. We were tired of having no way to make things better.
Organizing the union was hard. We weren't prepared for how hard hospital administrators would fight to keep us from having a voice in decisions. They threatened us with discipline and told us we'd lose everything - but that wasn't true.
With our union, we finally had a way to solve the problems we all faced at work. We won contracts in 2002 and 2004 that improved patient care and helped attract and retain good, experienced caregivers.
But while we were moving forward here in Gilroy, trouble was brewing on the other side of the country. Officials of our union's parent organization had hatched a plan to centralize power in Washington, D.C., and take control of negotiations away from healthcare workers like us.
The Service Employees International Union wanted more members and more dues money, they didn't care who they hurt in the process. In time, we saw them make secret deals with nursing home companies to take away residents' rights, and undermine many of the gains hospital workers had made in California. Then they tried to take our rights away.
Together in our local union, we stood up to SEIU and told them "No." In retaliation, they took over our union last year, removed the co-workers we'd elected to represent us, and replaced our elected leaders with unaccountable staff from Washington, D.C.
SEIU took over negotiations at Saint Louise, and settled a contract that is nothing but takeaways - on scheduling, healthcare, job security, and more. They lied to workers about the deal, and made us vote on a contract we'd never seen. Employees at Saint Louise are sad and upset. Many of us have been targeted and threatened by SEIU.
It's been painful to see this happen. I spent 10 months of my life under fire from management, organizing this union so that my co-workers and I would have a voice of our own. Now the bullying and intimidation are coming from our own union. We have no voice, and little protection if we speak out for our patients.
Saint Louise workers are taking our union back, by building a new union that belongs to us and no one else. A majority of us petitioned last year to join the National Union of Healthcare Workers, and an election is coming soon so we can make the change official. NUHW was founded by healthcare workers like us, and the experienced negotiators who helped us win our first two contracts are now supporting us in NUHW. Thousands of workers at Kaiser and at hospitals and nursing homes have already joined NUHW.
We're voting NUHW to restore democracy and integrity to our union at SaintLouise, so we can keep standing up for quality patient care and better jobs in our community.
Kathleen Volle, registered respiratory therapist,
Saint Louise Regional Hospital

Looks like the vaunted DOCHS unity rally didn't generate as much unity as they wanted.

Blog Status Update

2010-02-23T17:33:00.000-08:00

Very light material, very little news, with very much else going on in the "real" world has led to a dearth of posts of late, for which I apologize. As always, excellent coverage can be seen over on Red Revolt as well as at Sternburger With Fries.

Zombie Follies

2010-02-17T16:00:00.001-08:00

Even though not much has been happening in the news of late, things are beginning to cook out in the facilities. One of our Facebook sources passes this story along from Providence Tarzana...

First day on the job at Tarzana Hospital for our NUHW Rep. and Security attempted to throw him out. A group of workers who were having lunch at the next table promptly stood in his defense against security stating that "SEIU is in here every day bothering us but because he's NUHW you wanna throw him out?!!!" He stayed

Not to be outdone by such amateurish attempts at intimidation, we have this story courtesy of SBWF, wherein a Zombie nursing home rep decides to confront a rank-and-file nursing home worker who is gathering signatures for NUHW, and when that intimidation fails, the rep tries to get that worker fired...

So the SEIU rep hauls her to the boss's office and does her best to continue intimidating her there. The worker stands her ground, and begins to lecture this idiot SEIU rep about her fiduciary obligations to serve the interests of the workers and to HER specifically. And the worker reminds the SEIU rep that her monthly union dues are paying her salary.

The SEIU rep, lacking any thoughtful response to these arguments, simply threatens to have her fired if she continues her support for NUHW.

Go to Tasty's place to get the full rundown, but suffice it to say, it doesn't end well for the Zombie rep.

More Elections Coming...

2010-02-12T14:23:00.001-08:00

It appears that the blocking charges for both Providence Tarzana and Olympia Medical Centers have been dismissed by the NLRB.

Those two facilities now join USC for upcoming elections to be scheduled within the next 60 days.

Binge, Purge, Binge, Purge

2010-02-09T20:02:00.000-08:00

Nothing much going on right now. Waiting for specifics on some elections coming up, especially USC. Also waiting for some possible other elections to be released by the NLRB.

RUMOR ALERT - Rumblings are that SEIU got an order to show cause last Friday on about 100 similarly worded petitions before the board, and that they had seven days from that time to show cause why their blocking charges should be maintained.

And yes, I am aware that Craig Becker's nomination to the NLRB failed to clear a cloture vote in the U.S. Senate, which means that his nomination is, for all intents and purposes, stalled. As it stands right now, only 52 senators wanted the debate to go forward, which is minimalist support at best - and that support can only keep going down, based on some of the writings that Becker has had his name put to in the past. Obama may have no choice but to use a recess appointment if he really wants Becker on the NLRB.

Weekend Reading

2010-02-05T14:30:00.000-08:00

Cal Winslow. Go. Read.

Here's a taste...

There existed in UHW, before trusteeship, a powerful, democratic and militant workplace culture – based on workers. And years of struggle. It was the foundation of a member driven union. This included a deep respect for the capacity of workers to organize, self-organize, for their courage and creativity – all so absent in SEIU. It still exists, a little battered perhaps, but if these three Kaiser units are any indication, it is, if anything, tougher than ever.

Like I said - Go. Read.

Meet The New MAPE, Same As The Old MAPE

2010-02-04T16:24:00.000-08:00

(image courtesy of www.new-mape.org)

Clan Barney evidently just can't catch a break.

It appears that one of the old legacy locals of SEIU 1021 is getting itself ready for a petition to pull out of 1021 in favor of going their own way.

The new Marin Association of Public Employees, largely composed of the leadership and rank-and-file of the old legacy SEIU 949, last Friday turned in petitions to the state PERB indicating their wish to separate from SEIU 1021.

Their reasons for doing so can be found on their website, but those reasons sound (once again) eerily similar to those reasons being given by NUHW supporters for wanting to break away from Zombie UHW. Things like wondering where dues money goes, lack of representation, lack of ability to vote on pocketbook and dues issues, etc., etc.

And SEIU 1021 is evidently regurgitating some of the very same lies that they have been and are using against NUHW.

You have to wonder what is going through the head of Our Glorious Maximum Leader right now, seeing as he now has brushfires burning in UHW, 6434, 721, 1021, 221, and a thriving reform movement going on right now in 521 - all locals that were either trusteed by Andy Stern, or were created out of thin air by Andy Stern out of previously functional locals.

When you keep getting whacked in the face by things that you create, wouldn't you think about stepping back and wondering if your creations are getting a bit out of hand?

Certifiable

2010-02-03T19:15:00.000-08:00

NUHW is now officially the exclusive collective bargaining representative for the SoCal KaiPerm employees formerly represented by Zombie UHW.

Any other questions, Zombie supporters?

Rumor Has It...

2010-02-02T20:06:00.000-08:00

From the NUHW Facebook crew...

NLRB just released blocking charges at USC University Hospital in Los Angeles. SEIU, get ready for your next Smack Down!!

I have a suspicion that USC is NOT one of the facilities that Zombie UHW wanted released by the ~~NUHW~~ NLRB...

UPDATE - 2/3 @ 7:30 p.m. - Confirmation from the NLRB!!!

Q: How Can You Tell a Zombie Is Lying?

2010-02-01T18:54:00.001-08:00

A: It's lips are moving.

From a KP source...

Ok it has started in wcr... ths scabs are going around telling everyone that the LA kaiser employees lost their benefits because they voted for nuhw

Those are some SERIOUS sour grapes...

"We Did It!"

2010-02-01T18:46:00.000-08:00

Enjoy a bit of video coverage of the SoCal Tsunami...

The LMP Shakedown

2010-01-31T18:32:00.000-08:00

It seems Clan Barney isn't too pleased with NUHW leaking details of their Sooper Seekrit Backroom Deals...

(click to embiggen)

Wow. Once again, KaiPerm is trying to get the membership to pay for something that has benefitted management for almost 13 years, and it appears that SEIU has decided to go along for the ride.

Memo to Brave Sir Regan: There is a difference between negotiation and capitulation, ya know.

Right now, SEIU's best financial hope is to get a whole bunch of money transferred into the LMP trust, and into an account that they will still try to control once they get their miserable asses kicked to the curb come June.

For an example of how something like this may well go down, check out the Randy Shaw writeup on how SEIU tried to get control of UNITE/HERE's Amalgamated Bank.

An Urgent Request

2010-01-30T11:48:00.000-08:00

From a member of the Providence Tarzana NUHW crew...

Two nights ago the husband of one our NUHW leaders at Tarzana Medical Center was brutally shot in the head. He is the hospital in very grave condition. Out of respect for the family's privacy I am not mentioning her name. She is a very strong NUHW leader who fought threats of termination and SEIU's bullying in order to see that EVS workers had a fair election. She needs our help now. She has a child with special needs and her family was just getting by before this horrific tragedy.

I am asking everyone who will be at next weeks leadership meeting in L.A. to bring a donation to help her family. This has devastated the workers at Tarzana and we have been collecting money for the past two days but so much more is needed. Give as much as you possibly can.

To those of you who may be attending that leadership meeting, please consider donating anything and everything you can to the family of this true rank-and-file labor leader.

If and when any details regarding a contribution fund are uncovered, they will go up here ASAP.

In the meantime, spread the word that one of our family is in trouble and needs our help.

Tasty's Asked the Question...

2010-01-28T20:38:00.000-08:00

...anybody got an answer?

Tasty hears that recently the trustees gathered up the staff and essentially said 'you gotta win or there won't be money to pay your salaries.'
Now after 2 huge losses, has it begun?

According to some of the commentary in the LA Times blogs regarding the SoCal Tsunami, it may well have begun...

Dear Brothers and Sisters, on behalf of the 81 organizers brought in from all corners "we apologize", Dave Regan and Anna Burger have threatened our livelihoods for the last time.

We were weak, we all believe in the labor movement, however, after 57 of us have been "laid off, pending review" we seek forgiveness.

While we here at ¡AA! generally subscribe to the notion that it is far better to ask for forgiveness than permission, it is regrettable that the forgiveness had to be asked for after having come out here to be a part of Andy's Zombie Army.

SEIU's Whiteboard of Extinction

2010-01-28T19:41:00.000-08:00

Fans of the reimaged Battlestar Galactica will know all about the "Whiteboard of Extinction", upon which the President of the 12 Colonies would write down the number of human survivors remaining after each calamity that would befall the Ragtag Fugitive Fleet at the hands of the Cylons.

Evidently, such a Whiteboard of Extinction may well exist at Zombie UHW Headquarters as well, what with the "UHW Report" coming out today with some very interesting numbers...

Small Kaiser Group Votes to Take Risk with NUHW

Ballots counted Tuesday, January 26 in an election among 2,300 Kaiser professionals, psych-social workers, and RNs show that those workers voted to leave SEIU-UHW to join NUHW. The election only affects this small group in Southern California and not the nearly 50,000 other SEIU-UHW members at Kaiser who are launching the biggest and most active statewide contract campaign in history.

NUHW has put these workers at grave risk for their own purposes. These workers had their raises and benefits locked in for almost two years. Now, they will have to re-bargain their contract on their own in this economic crisis--at the same time Kaiser is cutting healthcare and other costs among management and non-union workers.

Over the past year, 53,464 SEIU members have chosen to stay united in SEIU-UHW for better wages, healthcare, and other benefits. Only 2,600, including the recent Kaiser workers, have chosen NUHW, which still has no members under contract and few resources to fight for workers

As most readers will recall, that number of members who have "chosen to stay united" in Zombie UHW has routinely (at least until today) been "over 55,000" - notwithstanding the fact that a huge chunk of that people having "chosen to stay united" were forced to do so by the NLRB.

It appears that Zombie UHW and SEIU are doubling down on stupid where it comes to their tone and how they come off to others.

Hot Off The Presses

2010-01-27T17:41:00.000-08:00

...from the NLRB...

(click on image to embiggen)

One Man's Open Letter to SEIU

2010-01-27T17:34:00.000-08:00

From the Facebook crew...

MY LETTER TO SEIU--- After celebrating today’s NUHW victories I wanted to thank the people I felt were most responsible for our success. So, here goes.

I would first like to thank Elesio Medina for being the most unqualified person to lead a Trusteeship. You...r lack of leadership, vision, and compassion are what motivate me... every day to lead and support NUHW.

Next I would like to thank the second least qualified person to lead a Trusteeship, Mr. Dave “stake thru the heart”, “old school ass whooping” Regan. They certainly broke the mold when they made you (thank God). Lucky for you that you were born without a conscience, otherwise the disgusting and despicable things that you do and say might actually bother you. Must be a real asset for you.

Next I would like to thank Gerrald Hudson for being a stupid, lying idiot, and a total suck up to Andy Stern, that helps us a lot.

That brings us to Mary Kay “back stabbing liar from hell” Henry. The only person in my life I have ever met that happily dips bullshit in chocolate and covers it with colorful sprinkles and serves it to you with a smile. You should open your own store in the mall, Mary.

And Anna “I wish I had a penis” Burger. Your disdain for members actually wanting to participate in their own future is so written on your face. You cringe at the mere mention of member democracy. Your lust for power and control consumes you the way the power of the ring consumed Gollum in The Lord Of The Rings. And you look like that contorted, bug-eyed freak too.

Ah but the Granddaddy of them all. That’s right, the Grand Poobah of Tyranny himself. Mr. Andrew “control at all costs” Stern. Your obtuse and narrow thinking have brought SEIU and the labor movement to the brink of collapse. Your desperate quest for relevance has blinded you to the reality that surrounds you. You are a small and pitiful man. I want to personally thank you for calling workers, myself included, selfish during our bargaining with our employer. I don’t know what world you live in, where workers who fight to get other workers who have no benefits, health insurance and vacation time are deemed selfish. It must be in a world outside your $300,000 a year Ivory Tower.

Oh, and Andy, thank you very much for mocking us at last year's convention and treating us as insignificant. That really helped us more than you’ll ever know. Again, thanks one and all. Your leadership created NUHW and you should be proud of that. You fucked up SEIU but you brought about the makings of a new and vibrant Labor movement in NUHW.

P.S. Here's your sign

Preach, brotha!!!

The Trusteeship At One Year of Age

2010-01-26T21:17:00.001-08:00

I had planned a detailed explanation of just what a disaster the Trusteeship has been for SEIU and UHW, but the nice folks at NUHW beat me to the punch, with their review of where NUHW stands one year after its founding.

Follow the link and you will have an exact layout of the elections won and lost by each party (it's 7-2 for NUHW by the way). The NUHW piece takes a much more optimistic and forward-looking tenor to its report.

I, on the other hand, am a cynical and backward-looking fellow, and in preparing for this "year in review" of UHW, I got a chance to actually read through the archive (as well as that of the dear, departed PerezStern, SonomaRedRevolt and TastySternburger), and I find myself truly appalled at what has gone on with UHW, and what SEIU has done to that once-great organization.

Who in their right mind would have believed that, one year removed from the imposition of the trusteeship, that the remains of UHW, with SEIU's full and complete backing, would have lost five straight elections, and to have the cumulative "no union" vote be almost equal to, if not greater than, the number of people voting to stay with Zombie UHW?

The beginning of the end for Zombie UHW within KaiPerm came much sooner than anyone could have expected, just about two months into the trusteeship, with the sounds of Esquirol Medina's robocall still echoing in my head about how "everything will be the same," and then the form letters went out to all the stewards who did not swear a loyalty oath to SEIU uber alles, and as a result were summarily fired as stewards.

That, in a nutshell, really set the wheels in motion, because as a result of that mass dismissal of stewards, Zombie UHW no longer had the support staff within KaiPerm to withstand the anger of the KaiPerm UHW membership. We've seen the pension giveaway, the allowance of KaiPerm to violate the contract regarding force reductions, the Pharmacy staffing double-cross, and now Zombie UHW's intent to raise dues, combined with Brave Sir Regan's desire to extend the Trusteeship beyond its legally alotted three years.

And so, when finally given an opportunity to voice their opinion on the matter, the SoCal KaiPerm membership told Zombie UHW precisely where it can go and what it should do with itself.

Of course, Zombie UHW remains utterly tone-deaf in this regard, as evinced by the statement that their spokespunk, Steve Trossman, put out in the wake of today's drubbing at the hands of NUHW...

"While today's election results are disappointing, the fact is only about 2,600 SEIU-UHW members have chosen NUHW over the past year, in contrast to more than 55,000 SEIU members who have chosen to stay united in our union.

"What's more, NUHW is seeking to stop union elections for nearly 5,000 hospital, nursing home, and home care members at 42 facilities because they know if the elections take place they will lose. Although the National Labor Relations Board, SEIU-UHW, and several of the employers have all agreed to election dates in early February, NUHW has refused to enter into the agreements.

"The bulk of SEIU-UHW's 50,000 Kaiser members are now launching the largest and most active contract campaign in history with the full support of the union's 150,000 California health care members. SEIU-UHW members at Kaiser are also part of the 100,000-member Coalition of Kaiser Permanente Unions, and expect to be at the bargaining table this spring as part of the coalition to negotiate a new national agreement.

"Meanwhile, NUHW has put these workers at grave risk because they will no longer be part of the Kaiser coalition and will have to try to bargain a contract on their own."

That bulk of Zombie UHW's 50,000 Kaiser members are already chomping at the bit to get out of SEIU's grip, and today's results will only double down on that desire. It is the height of arrogance for Trossman to think that he speaks for those of us who are stuck in Zombie UHW, because in about five months UHW is going to (once again) get kicked to the curb. The only way for Zombie UHW to preserve its position within KaiPerm is to check its hubris, up its humility, and take a good, hard look at what it is doing to the membership - because for damn sure it's not doing anything FOR the membership.

And now it is apparent that SEIU and UHW-West are going to prove to everyone around that they are the sore losers that they now appear to be, by forbidding admittance of a legally and duly-elected union in the Coalition of Kaiser Permanente Unions.

So Happy Freekin' Birthday to the SEIU-UHW West Trusteeship. You all have quite a track record built up so far.

Analysis of the KaiPerm SoCal Vote Count

2010-01-26T17:06:00.000-08:00

First, I think a video is in order here...

"SEIU Organizing - An Interpretive Dance"

Okay, then.

There is no amount of polish that will be able to put a shine on what just happened to Zombie UHW today. Three bargaining units, all overwhelmingly voting for NUHW.

The cumulative vote today was 1652 for NUHW, 254 for Zombie UHW, and 33 for neither entity.

Put another way - of a total of 1939 valid votes cast today, only 13.1% were cast for the vaunted, long-standing, nationally powerful SEIU-UHW West.

In the meantime, the broken-down-before-it-even-starts-up newcomer to the race, NUHW, picked up a cool 85.2% of the vote today.

In Randy Shaw's article yesterday, he mentioned that John Borsos had called Zombie UHW's performance at SRMH almost exactly (Borsos had it at 15, it was really 13), and he predicted a 60% margin for NUHW over UHW - that margin actually turned out to be 70% and change.

The pro-SEIU voices (what there are of them) are predictably silent today, while the NUHW folks, especially those on the ground down in SoCal, are rightfully jubilant at today's results.

It will take a day or three to fully digest what went on today, but as it stands right now, SEIU and Zombie UHW are in a world of hurt, which they have have brought entirely upon themselves with bad service, bad negotiation, bad agreements, and a generally bad attitude toward their customers.

This election result today should come as a shock to nobody outside of Our Glorious Maximum Leader's syncophantic E-board.

Look for Brave Sir Regan and Esquirol Medina to suddenly find themselves with other more pressing matters within SEIU while the dust settles from this interstellar ass-kicking they received at the hands of NUHW.

LiveBlog of Vote Count

2010-01-26T10:51:00.000-08:00

Courtesy of Paul Delahanty at Calitics...
http://calitics.com/showDiary.do?diaryId=10987

So far...

Today marks the ballot count for elections held among three Southern California Kaiser chapters representing 2,300 healthcare workers.

The the three chapters are:
-Kaiser Sunset/LAMC RNs -Southern California Kaiser Psychsocial Professionals -Southern California Kaiser Healthcare Professionals
The counting should get underway soon, so here we go!

All parties have arrived at the Los Angeles Headquarters of the NLRB at 888 Figueroa Street and NUHW is represented with a strong showing of supporters who've gathered in anticipation of the ballot count.

We'll have more updates as I get them. In the meantime, if you haven't read Randy Shaw's excellent article on this election, you should.

And of course, visit NUHW Solidarity on Facebook to catch the latest from NUHW activists.

Updated 9:30am: The ballots are being separated into three separate counts in three separate conference rooms at the NLRB. That means the count process will happen simultaneously for all three chapters. Things should get going soon.

Update 9:45am: The box containing RN ballots being opened now. It was signed by dozens of nurses when it was sealed on Jan. 7th.

Update 10:00am: The Healthcare Professionals ballot count room is now beginning process as well.

Update 10:15am: Word is: all three ballot counts are close to being underway. NUHW supporters awaiting word are hopeful and quiet.

Update 10:30am: RN counting underway!

Update 10:40am: Lots of people wearing RED and NUHW buttons at the NLRB today. One person on the ground reports: "What's amazing about the crowd is there are NUHW activists from every corner of Southern California, Kaiser and Non-Kaiser alike."

Update 10:50am: The Healthcare Professionals ballot count is now underway. The RN ballot count is in full swing as well.

Update 11:00am: Healthcare Professionals still counting. RN counting is well along.

Update 11:15am: Report from RN ballot count: Kaiser Sunset RNs vote to NUHW! Final Count: 746 NUHW, 36 SEIU 3 Neither

Update 11:20am: Kaiser Sunset/LAMC RNs vote to join NUHW!!!

Update 11:30 am: FINAL Healthcare Professionals ballot count 189 NUHW, 29 SEIU, 13 Neither.

Update 11:35am: Kaiser SoCal Healthcare Professionals vote to join NUHW!! Report from the ground is that workers supporting NUHW are happy and celebrating.

Update 12:00 Noon: Kaiser Psychsocial Professionals ballot count is underway. No word yet on when we will hear the final result.

Update 12:30pm: while we are waiting, and it could be a several hours, for the Psychsocial results here's a link to an article on this election from In These Times.

Update 1pm: Word is that the intitial procedures are complete and they may begin counting Kaiser Psychsocial chapter ballots soon. It is the largest chapter of the three, with 1058 members who work at 89 different facilities and clinics across Southern California. We will keep you up to date.

Update 2:30pm: Labor Notes covers NUHW victories. And we're still waiting on news from the Psychsocial Chapter ballot count.

Update 2:45pm: And...the Pyschsocial Chapter ballot count is beginning.

Update 3:15: Hundreds of ballots in the 1050 member unit have been counted. We're getting close here. Remember, SEIU conceded defeat in all three elections before the first ballot was counted for this chapter.

Update 3:45 PM: NUHW is buzzing with excitement in expectation of three decisive victories. Here in the North the office is beginning to stream with visitors.

Update 4:00 PM: It's OFFICIAL. NUHW Wins: SoCal Kaiser Psychsocial chapter joins NUHW!

Final count: 717 NUHW, 192 SEIU, 7 Neither
_____________

Many thanks go out to Paul Delahanty for his coverage of this historical event in California labor relations. I'll have thoughts and analysis in a later posting.

SoCal Kaiser Vote Count Update

2010-01-25T20:03:00.000-08:00

From one of my Facebook sources...

Per John Borsos, NUHW VP: We were just notified by the NLRB that the board has DENIED seiu and Kaiser's request for review meaning the ballot count will commence at 9 am tomorrow. Onward to victory.

Remember, folks - these are the same folks who are wetting their collective undies because NUHW wants elections to go forward for ALL petitions, not just the ones that SEIU can pick and choose.

And they are now on record as trying to suppress the outcome of this vote before the votes are even counted.

The True Genius of Google

2010-01-25T18:39:00.001-08:00

So I get to my Gmail box, and I see this...

Nothing much out of the ordinary, until I notice that there's something in the "Spam" folder (a quite rare occurrence for a site such as mine). So I open up the "Spam" folder and I see...

Way to go, Zombies. Now Google thinks you're putting out spam.

Fear The Turtle, An Update

2010-01-24T18:43:00.000-08:00

Some other folks associated with the University of Maryland have had a chance to weigh in on the story of the SEIU-paid stooge and visiting professor to their University who put out a letter to some members of Zombie UHW under the letterhead of the University of Maryland. Not to put too fine a point on it, the University is NOT pleased...

A professor at the University of Maryland, College Park is facing conflict-of- interest questions after he used university letterhead to deliver a legal opinion in his role as a consultant to a labor union.

Fred Feinstein, an adjunct professor at the School of Public Policy, wrote a letter saying that California health care employees could jeopardize their contract benefits if they left Service Employees International for a competing union. Feinstein received $240,000 in consulting fees from SEIU in 2007 and 2008, which he did not mention in the Jan. 12 letter that was distributed as a flier in the continuing union battle.

Officials of the rival National Union of Healthcare Workers say Feinstein implied that he was speaking for the university and thus compromised its academic objectivity. The Web site Inside Higher Ed first reported Feinstein's role in the conflict.

College Park officials said Feinstein violated university policy by writing the opinion on official letterhead. He signed the letter as a "senior fellow and visiting professor."

"Mr. Feinstein violated university procedures by improperly using university letterhead in the course of his outside work," Donald F. Kettl, dean of the School of Public Policy, said in a statement. "This activity was wholly unrelated to his work at the University of Maryland, which has no involvement or stake in this outside matter. He should not have written the material on university letterhead nor invoked his title as a university employee. In addition, he should have disclosed the payment he received from one of the parties in the issue on which he commented."

Kettl said he reprimanded Feinstein in writing and asked him to inform all recipients of the SEIU letter that he was not speaking for the university.

Mr. Feinstein, for his part, is convinced that the fault lies not with himself, but with us and our lyin' eyes for even making an issue of this obvious conflict of interest...

Feinstein, a former general counsel for the National Labor Relations Board, said he made a mistake using the letterhead but said the competing union, NUHW, is trying to exploit his carelessness to get a leg up in the bitter labor battle.

"I wasn't as conversant as I should have been with the guidelines for using letterhead," Feinstein said. "It was an unfortunate oversight. But this is part of a pretty intense battle, no holds barred, and I think it's important to understand that context."

Feinstein said he stands behind the opinion he delivered and doubts that the letterhead made much difference to workers reading the document.

Feinstein's consulting, a matter of public record because of union financial filings, does not violate his contract as a part-time professor, Kettl said. Feinstein said he felt no need to disclose his relationship with SEIU in the letter, because readers would understand without being told that it is a lawyer's job to deliver opinions on behalf of paying clients.

Translation - it's up to the reader of that letter (on UMD letterhead) to know, beforehand, that Feinstein is SEIU's paid stooge so that we can discount the fact that the letter is, indeed, written on UMD letterhead, and Feinstein's signature is slugged with his UMD title.

Only then can we understand the True Brilliance of Feinstein's Completely Neutral Analysis.

Color me amazed that such a person is in the employ of Our Glorious Maximum Leader.

What You Leave Behind

2010-01-24T17:12:00.000-08:00

I have previously reported on the efforts of Monty Kroopkin to enact reform down at one of SEIU's SoCal FrankenLocals, this one being 221 down in San Diego County. Now, anywhere you see a SEIU local "xx21", that's a pretty good indicator that the local has been merged out of a bunch of smaller locals by Our Glorious Maximum Leader, whereupon he decides who will run said merged local - and with SEIU, 100% of the time that person is somebody from Andy's inner circle, and almost all the time that person has no experience with that particular area.

And so was the case with the Stern-appointed president of FrankenLocal 221, in which Andy Stern appointed Sharon-Frances Moore to head that local comprised of San Diego County Employees, based (apparently) largely on her ability to host a quality fundraising party in the Tribeca section of New York.

Her efforts down at 221 were rewarded with "re-election" to her post as President of SEIU 221 last July. The details of that "election" merit some very specific study, in that a substantial amount of the eligible voters for that election did not receive their ballots, but almost all of the Moore supporters DID receive their ballots. But now, roughly six months after being "re-elected" to head 221, Sharon-Frances Moore has resigned as President of SEIU 221 for "personal reasons," according to the U-Trib's article.

But, as always with The Purple Plague, there's more to the story. The people who stepped in to fill the "void" left by Ms. Moore, who were also on her re-election slate last July, kicked things off down at 221 with a bang...

The Local 221 Acting President, James Slade, began tonight’s Executive Board meeting by “entertaining” a motion to “suspend the rules”. The motion passed, 7-2. Slade then announced that he, as chair of the meeting, would not recognize any non-board members to speak. The union’s constitution expressly states that members of the union have the right to be recognized and to be heard at Executive Board meetings. Although procedural rules adopted by the board may be suspended, the board has no authority to suspend the union’s constitution.

The constitution expressly provides that “The meetings of this Local Union shall be governed by Roberts Rules of Order” and “Subject to reasonable application, no provision of these Bylaws, rule of parliamentary procedure, or action by the Union or its officers shall be administered in such a way as to deprive individual members of the following rights: …The right to appear and be heard by the Executive Board of the Local Union.”

During the course of the meeting, a number of members did seek to be recognized or to make points of order, and Slade claimed they were out of order. He went further and said, at one point, that members who would not stop trying to speak would be held to be “insubordinate”. Members are not employed by the union and cannot be held to be “insubordinate.” Members pay union dues and support an annual union budget of more than $7 million dollars, and have legal rights of participation under both state and federal laws, as well as the union constitution and bylaws.

Slade also “ordered” the union’s paid staff to leave the room. They all did so, but the senior staff then returned to the room and stated that under the Local Union’s constitution and bylaws, the senior staff are dues paying members of the union, and cannot be forced to leave a normal meeting of the Executive Board. Using his new power as Acting President, Slade then told the senior staff that if they did not obey his order for them to leave the room that they would be “insubordinate”. Staff can be fired or disciplined for insubordination. The President of the union has hiring and firing power over the union’s paid staff. The staff did leave the room, under protest.

The Executive Board then approved a severance package including more than $107,000 in severance pay to Moore. The package, which was not provided to the board in written final form, was said to also include a waiver of Moore’s right to exercise her rights regarding any liability of the union.

The Acting President then informed the meeting that the union’s constitutional provision for division of the president’s powers would be implemented, because he works full time for the city of National City and is not willing to assume the president’s duties as a full-time job. The union’s constitution provides that the powers will be shared between the Vice-President, the Treasurer and the Secretary of the Local Union.

However, the position of Secretary has been vacant since July 2009 when Secretary Omar Lopez took a job at San Diego State University, and was therefore no longer a member of the union. Slade announced that one of the Executive Board members, Richard Lovett, would be “Acting Secretary” and would share the presidential powers. The union’s constitution does not allow the President to make any such appointment to fill a vacancy on the board. Only a vote of the Executive Board can fill a vacancy, and there has been no such vote.

Members are questioning if the severance package deal is “hush money” and asking if the union’s officials are trying to avoid another major press scandal over allegations of misuse of union funds.

The meeting was video taped, and members have the right to view the tape at the union hall.

The Local Union’s Constitution and Bylaws are available at the union’s website at
http://www.seiu221.org/bylaws/Default.aspx

The above incident evidently was too much even for Our Glorious Maximum Leader to stomach...

I have received a number of complaints raising serious allegations regarding the approval of a payment to the former President of Local 221, the approval of a consulting agreement with the former President of Local 221, the exercise of executive authority at the local union, and the conduct of the local union meeting held on January 19, 2010.

In addition, charges against Local 221 based on the matters contained in the complaints have been received by the International Union.

Pursuant to my authority under Article VIII, Section 7(g) of the SEIU Constitution and Bylaws, I have appointed Executive Vice President Eliseo Medina and SEIU Organizing Coordinator Ray Dzialo to be my Personal Representatives to Local 221 to assist Local 221 in meeting its internal needs (including investigation of these allegations), and to attend local union meetings.

I have directed my representatives to report to me within 30 days on the situation in Local 221.

In the interim, I counsel the Local 221 officers and Executive Board not to
execute or implement the challenged payments and contract at this time.

So good news and bad news for the rank-and-file of 221. The good news is that even Andy Stern can be forced to listen when confronted with overwhelming evidence.

The bad news is that the folks down at 221 now have Esquirol Medina on hand to "help" them, while establishing a sub-rosa trusteeship without the benefit of even a kangaroo court investigation.

And speaking from personal experience as a soon-to-be-former member of Zombie UHW, Medina's "help" can frequently leave much to be desired.

Fear The Turtle

2010-01-21T19:06:00.000-08:00

So what's a major university Back East got to do with the goings on in Hotel California?

Well, it seems that one of their visiting professors, who also was the lead counsel for the NLRB during the Clinton Administration, penned an "open letter" to the membership of Zombie UHW (strange, that letter hasn't made its way to NorCal KaiPerm yet, so maybe it's just running around SoCal and other areas where elections be happening), in which he suggests that "California health care workers could receive “less favorable” benefits if they left SEIU for another union."

One problem with that, though - this "professor" wrote that letter under the letterhead of the University of Maryland...

...while failing to disclose in that letter that he is also a paid stooge of Our Glorious Maximum Leader.

Even worse, he also apparently wrote this letter without the knowledge or consent of the Board of Governors of the University of Maryland, and in so doing breached longstanding university policy on such matters, according to an article on the E-zine Inside Higher Ed.

William Powers, executive dean of Maryland’s School of Public Policy, said Wednesday that Feinstein “violated university policy” with his actions.
“In writing and submitting the letter, Mr. Feinstein was not acting within his role as a university faculty member but in his personal capacity as an adviser to the union,” Powers wrote in an e-mail to Inside Higher Ed. “It was thus a mistake for him to use university letterhead or in any other way to imply that the university was engaged in this matter or stood behind his opinions."
Powers went on to say that the university would be “firmly informing” Feinstein that he’d violated university policy, adding that Feinstein will need to tell recipients of the letter that he wasn’t acting as a faculty member when he rendered the opinion.
While Powers affirms that university policy was violated by use of the letterhead, he would not say whether Feinstein violated conflict of interest policies that govern consulting or other outside work.

Of course, "Professor" Feinstein sees nothing wrong at all with his actions, or the light into which it has cast the University for which he serves as a visiting fellow...

Reached by phone Wednesday, Feinstein said he was perplexed that his memo had caused such a stir. What’s wrong with a lawyer taking money for giving his advice, he asked?
“I was asked by SEIU, who I am a consultant to, for my legal opinion, on this question,” he said. “The fact that I am a consultant to SEIU and paid as such is a matter of public record.”
That’s true. Unions file annual reports with the U.S. Department of Labor that require disclosure of compensation, and Feinstein’s payments are listed in 2007 and 2008 reports. There has been much discussion of late, however, about whether disclosures of potential conflicts in public documents are sufficient, or if instead professors have an obligation to take additional steps -- say an overt mention of conflicts in their writings and publications -- to ensure transparency.
“This isn’t an instance of a researcher saying this is a good drug or this is a good company," Feinstein said. "It’s more of a technical thing that’s going on here, saying what is the law.”
As for the matter of using university letterhead, Feinstein didn’t make much of that either.
“Obviously I’m not speaking on behalf of the University of Maryland,” he said. “Anyone who suggests that’s implied [by the letterhead] of course is incorrect. That’s a stretch.”

The reader is referred once again to the image of the letter above as to whether or not the backing of the University of Maryland is either explicit or implicit in his letter.

Check also the opinions on this matter rendered by both Tasty and Keyser's Red Revolt.

The Tribe Has Spoken...

2010-01-21T18:29:00.001-08:00

...it's time for you to go.

Hospital admits NUHW won majority in union election, agrees on challenged ballots

"Sour grapes": With less than 3% of vote, defeated SEIU still trying to stand in workers' way

Santa Rosa, Calif.—One month after a hotly contested union election at Santa Rosa Memorial Hospital, both hospital management and the newly-elected National Union of Healthcare Workers (NUHW) have agreed to accept a determination by the federal government that resolves the question of 13 challenged ballots and gives the new union an absolute majority.

"There's no question that my co-workers and I are joining NUHW," said Melissa Bosanco, a care partner at the hosptial. "We voted NUHW because we want a voice to make our hospital a better place to work and a better place for our community to get care."

The National Labor Relations Board determined that 12 of the 17 challenged ballots should not be counted because the voters were not eligible under the rules of the election; another ballot will not be counted because of stray marks on the ballot. The four challenged ballots left unresolved are not enough to affect the final result: 283 votes for NUHW, 263 for No Union, and 13 for SEIU.

Both the union and hospital management have signed an agreement accepting to the labor board's determination, but the defeated SEIU, which tried unsuccessfully to interfere in the election, has not. After being soundly rejected by more than 96 percent of voters, SEIU officials are still refusing to accept the outcome, a move that could cause another short delay for workers hoping to get to the bargaining table as soon as possible.

"Isn't that the worst case of sour grapes?" asked Bosanco. "SEIU said they cared about workers at our hospital, but it looks like they were just lying to try to get our votes."

Memorial Hospital management is still pressing forward with objections to the election, claiming that workers were confused when they voted for union representation. Those objections could be dismissed within weeks.

Elected officials and religious leaders have called on hospital management to drop its objections, including Sonoma County Supervisor Shirlee Zane, Congresswoman Lynn Woolsey, State Senators Mark Leno and Pat Wiggins, Assemblymembers Jared Huffman, Noreen Evans, and Wes Chesbro, local Catholic leader Monsignor John Brenkle, and former Sister of St. Joseph of Orange JoAnn Consiglieri.

It is not surprising to see a certain lack of grace regarding this outcome from SEIU. However, much like the drubbing the Purple Plague took at Doctor's, they just can't seem to wrap their minds around the concept of people rejecting their brand and their leadership.

13 votes, children. You seriously cannot expect to hold up this election having gotten a grand total of 13 votes out of almost 600 cast.

The tribe has spoken, Andy, and it's time for you and your cloven-hooved minions to go.

Reganomics

2010-01-18T15:18:00.000-08:00

Imagine you are running a company with an economic problem. Your long-term contracted customers are unhappy with the level of service that you currently provide. They intensely disagree with some of the decisions that your upper management has made on their behalf. They are being offered the opportunity to switch a viable, less expensive, and better-operated competitor by the end of the year, once the contract expires and there is a window to switch.

Given the above, most self-interested companies would try to do some combination of any of the following three strategies in order to keep the existing customer base:
A) Improve service to your customer base.
B) Cut the rates that you charge to your customer base.
C) Improve communication with your customer base.

As is readily apparent to the normal reader, though, Zombie UHW is most decidedly NOT a normal, self-interested company - so much so that they have determined that they are going to raise their representation rates, and they are planning to do so WITHOUT a vote of their customers (the rank-and-file membership), even though in past practice such raises were required to be voted upon and approved by the workers.

(click to embiggen)

Read the whole flyer, and prepare to be appalled. Paying KaiPerm a per-hour portion of your salary just to be part of LMP. Not fighting at bargaining time. Wanting to extend the trusteeship. Unbelievable.

And for all that, Brave Sir Regan wants a dues INCREASE.

The only rational explanation for the above is that SEIU and Zombie UHW know that they are going to lose Kaiser statewide to NUHW, and SEIU is just looking to get as much loot out of the KaiPerm workers as possible while they still can.

It is also entirely possible that Brave Sir Regan actually believes that his leadership of Zombie UHW thus far actually merits an increase in dues payments - but that's not rational.

There Is No Rational Midground...

2010-01-15T13:34:00.000-08:00

...or at least, so sez NUHW's lawyer, and he's absolutely correct.

So what're we getting into? Well, as reported here before, Zombie UHW put out a presser demanding that elections go forward in a select few locations where they themselves, in their own words, "filed Unfair Labor Practice charges with the NLRB that blocked the elections, citing employer abuses and NUHW misconduct that seriously jeopardized workers' rights."

Understandably, NUHW's position was to tell SEIU to go pound sand, that the NLRB should open up ALL the contested locations to election, not just those that Zombie UHW wanted open.

Not surprisingly, Zombie UHW put out a presser, professing shock and surprise, and stating that NUHW was now "attempting to stop union elections for more than 4000 workers." I was concerned that Zombie UHW was trying to set up a rhetorical trap for NUHW, in that the side that has been most clamoring for elections would now be put in the awkward position of asking that selective elections be withheld until all blocking charges be either fully adjudiciated or dismissed. As it turns out, I was correct to have that fear...

In a stunning turnaround, the ousted leaders of the Service Employees International Union - United Healthcare Workers West (SEIU-UHW) now say they want to stop union elections for more than 4,000 workers because giving the workers a democratic vote would be "unfair."

In a letter to the National Labor Relations Board (NLRB), the National Union of Healthcare Workers (NUHW), a group started by the ousted leaders, is insisting that elections be halted at 29 hospitals and nursing homes unless the board capitulates to their demands for elections at other facilities.

"They are hypocrites. Last week NUHW officials were complaining that elections were not scheduled, and this week they are complaining because elections are going to be scheduled," said Romel Gorospe, an Emergency Room Technician at Sutter Solano Medical Center. "They have been trying to ruin things in my hospital for almost a year, and we're ready to vote them out."

"They obviously know that if these elections are held they will lose," said David Esparza, a dietary aide at Windsor Gardens of Salinas.. "If they don't want to go forward with elections they should withdraw their election petitions and leave us alone once and for all."

Fortunately, the folks at NUHW are (not surprisingly) a move or two ahead of both me and Andy's Zombie Army, and was ready to hit back with their own presser - and was prepared once again to back up their reasons with facts, rather than just boilerplated palaver...

After a year of stalling union elections for more than 100,000 of their own members to quit SEIU, SEIU officials have cast themselves as champions of democracy in a cynical move to manipulate the election schedule in their favor. Since last February, SEIU has blocked or delayed elections at more than 360 healthcare facilities in California where caregivers are organizing to join the National Union of Healthcare Workers (NUHW).

"In election after election, healthcare workers have chosen NUHW," said Kathleen Volle, a respiratory therapist at St. Louise Regional Hospital in Santa Clara County. "SEIU knows their days are numbered and they're trying to grab anything they can on their way out."

SEIU's latest move comes just a week after 70 percent of nurses at Kaiser Permanente's flagship Los Angeles hospital pledged their votes to NUHW in a government-supervised election—and just one month since workers at Santa Rosa Memorial Hospital chose NUHW 283-to-13 in what the Los Angeles Times called "a crushing defeat for the SEIU."

For almost a year, SEIU has filed frivolous charges with the labor board to try to deny workers a choice. In June, SEIU President Andy Stern told the Los Angeles Times that his organization had a "legal responsibility" to try to stop these elections.¹ But yesterday, SEIU asked the board to withdraw SEIU's charges at a small number of facilities where SEIU believes it has a chance of winning, so that those elections would be scheduled first, before more SEIU members vote to join NUHW.

At the same time, SEIU is struggling to explain to the labor board why the exact same charges they're trying to withdraw should continue to block elections for the majority of workers who want to join NUHW.

"SEIU has made the same ridiculous charges everywhere to avoid a fair election," said Ami Fanaika, an licensed vocational nurse at Seton Medical Center in Daly City, where SEIU is still trying to deny workers a choice. "Now they want to pick and choose who gets to vote. SEIU should stop trying to divide healthcare workers and get out of our way."

In a letter to the NLRB², NUHW attorney Jonathan Siegel explained that out of the 51 petitions that workers filed to join NUHW on February 2 of 2009, SEIU has filed a request to selectively proceed with only 12 of those elections "with no rhyme or reason except their obvious strategic belief that these are favorable playing fields."

At the Daughters of Charity Health System, SEIU has requested to proceed with elections at only two of the four facilities in the system, even though workers at all four facilities bargain together. Within the Sutter Health system, SEIU has requested to proceed at only one out of six facilities where workers have sought to join NUHW.

Gee, whiz - only requesting two out of four DOCHS hospitals to go forward, even though all four vote collectively. Only wanting one out of six Sutter Health hospitals to go forward with an election - while the other five are made to wait. Yep, that's SEIU-style democracy for ya.

I would encourage the reader to read the entirety of the Siegel letter to the Labor Board, but there is one passage that stands out, toward the end of the letter, which must be highlighted...

The position of the NUHW in these matters is simple:

a. We believe that all petitions should be unblocked, and the parties should sit down together with the Regional Directors of the respective Regions and work out a reasonable schedule for the holding of all blocked elections. Sufficient time has passed since the alleged ULP's for any possible "taint" to be dissipated; or

b. In the alternative, and the much less preferred one, we believe that the Regional Directors should reject the requests to proceed on such an obviously manipulative and selective basis. The NLRB Case Handling Manual, Part 2, Representation Proceedings § 11731.1(c)). If the generalized conduct alleged really necessitates blocking elections, it is the same for all filed facilities. Or, alternatively, as we believe, the conduct does not justify blocking any elections. There is no rational midground.

Indeed, the NUHW believes that the long passage of time since these petitions were filed has given an unfair and undue advantage to the incumbent already. The calendar has been manipulated in favor of incumbency in a gross way. Proceeding on only those elections which the intervenor chooses, without any factual, legal or logical rationale other than the intervenor's desire to determine the process only prejudices us further. This is an obvious and naked strategic gambit based on their apparent internal assessment as to where they have some chance of succeeding. That is not a legal basis for a Regional Director to accept a request to proceed.
(snip)
Thus, again, we believe you should either unblock all the elections or not accept the request to proceed on this basis. Alternatively, we would support the issuance of an Order to Show Cause to all parties to further brief and address these issues before moving forward further on the requests to proceed.

(points of emphasis by me)

Note how the NUHW lawyer is repeatedly asking that ALL elections should be unblocked. Not some, not just the ones in NorCal hospitals, not just Kaiser facilities, but ALL petitions should come down. SEIU believes otherwise. Based on the above, the question of which side believes more in democracy is left to the reader.

Now, nobody reading this should expect anything other than rank cynicism when it comes to SEIU and its former outspoken local but now loyal dogsbody in Zombie UHW. The NUHW position is attempting to place sunshine (the world's best disinfectant) on ALL of the blocking charges, not just those that SEIU can pick-and-choose as their best option for a desperately needed victory over NUHW.

Hell Hath No Fury...

2010-01-13T14:17:00.000-08:00

...like Jane Hamsher scorned. (h/t to Tasty for this one)

An E-zine columnist has picked up on some of the unique ways that Hurricane Jane Hamsher (she of Firedoglake.com fame) has been fighting against the compromise going on in health care reform, while at the same time bonding (at least temporarily) with Grover Norquist over her request that Rahm Emanuel be investigated, and has penned a semi-fictitious "Dear God" letter that Andy's Ex might have written to The Almighty, given the chance...

I didn’t know if the world turned upside down or my moral compass lost its magnetism. That’s what I get for sleeping with Andy Stern, I guess. To make matters worse, something within me wants the personal attacks on me to continue. This feeling alone has caused me to reconsider my place within the progressive political community.

Ouch One. Here comes Ouch Two...

If there’s anything I learned from Andy, it’s that you don’t need balls to get shit done around here. A good grip will do.

Yee-haw. Nothing like Our Glorious Maximum Leader having even satirical shots being tossed at him from the left side of the aisle.

Move, Countermove

2010-01-10T18:59:00.000-08:00

Lost in the noise of the prior week was a Zombie UHW presser, in which they indicated that they would be pressing for elections "as soon as possible" at several facilites throughout Northern California, and which may represent a change in Zombie tactics given their recent spate of losses down south and in Santa Rosa...

OAKLAND, Calif., Jan. 8 /PRNewswire-USNewswire/ -- Healthcare workers at 26 California hospitals and nursing homes are seeking elections to join more than 55,000 other union members who have already chosen to stay united in the Service Employees International Union - United Healthcare Workers West (SEIU-UHW), rather than switch to an organization formed by the union's ousted leaders.

The SEIU-UHW members are asking the National Labor Relations Board (NLRB) to schedule the elections as soon as possible so they can continue to improve their jobs and patient care without the distraction of another organization in their facilities.

During the past year, petitions seeking decertification of SEIU-UHW as the workers' union were filed with the NLRB by the National Union of Healthcare Workers (NUHW), an organization formed by the union's former officials who were ousted in January 2009. SEIU-UHW members filed Unfair Labor Practice charges with the NLRB that blocked the elections, citing employer abuses and NUHW misconduct that seriously jeopardized workers' rights.

In many places, members have negotiated strong new contracts that lock in raises and benefits for up to three years - improvements that would be put directly at risk if workers were to leave SEIU. In others, NUHW is creating division as contracts are being bargained - a situation that management is trying to take advantage of. Members have decided the time has come to get NUHW out of their affairs and end the division.

"NUHW did nothing but help management as we fought to win strong new contract protections," said Tami Garver, an environmental services worker at O'Connor Hospital in San Jose. "We've spent the last year cleaning up the confusion and mess left by the leadership that was thrown out and now we just want NUHW and their disruption to go away."

"I'm excited that we're finally going to be able to vote for our union - SEIU-UHW - and put the distraction of NUHW behind us," said Sandra Newman, a certified nurse assistant at Sunbridge Heritage Care Center in Stockton, CA.

Note the section in bold up above - these are facilities which have had successful NUHW petition drives, but were delayed by Zombie UHW blocking charges, and the Zombies are now requesting that those blocking charges be vacated such that elections can be conducted "as soon as possible."

Up until now, SEIU has been fighting every election tooth-and-nail. And as such, courtesy of a very compliant NLRB, the elections have been happening very rarely, and certainly only one at a time. This has allowed NUHW to concentrate its organization efforts in relatively few locations - with much greater effectiveness than anybody at SEIU or Zombie UHW are willing to let on in their presser above.

Is SEIU and Zombie UHW now going to try to "flood" out a bunch of elections in the hope of catching NUHW too thin in multiple locations to conduct an effective organization?

And will NLRB now just wave the magic wand and allow these elections to go forward notwithstanding disposition of all these charges SEIU has made - and will NLRB just allow the facilities mentioned above, or will they allow the full content of petitions to go forward?

Another Day, Another ULP

2010-01-08T09:39:00.000-08:00

Just got this one in from a reader down in the Bay Area...

Friends - after only three days of voting, SEIU acknowledges it's headed towards a defeat in the Kaiser elections. As you'll see in the email below, SEIU yesterday filed NLRB charges in a desperate effort to delay the vote count and challenge the election results. Rest assured that we'll make every effort to ensure that Kaiser workers' ballots are counted on the 26th.

As many of you have experienced, the support for NUHW is truly overwhelming. For example, in the days before the election, 70% of the RNs signed their names to a public petition in support of NUHW.

As for SEIU, it appears that after their experience at Santa Rosa Memorial Hospital, they're now trying to preemptively block the ballot count rather than face another landslide victory by NUHW. SEIU's actions will be seen for what they are: a sign of weakness and another failed attempt to stop workers from exercising their democratic vote.

Keep up the great work and let's make sure that every NUHW supporter in the Professional units gets a chance to vote.

Sal

Whazzat? SEIU's already filing charges regarding this election - and it isn't even done yet? Well, let's take a look at SEIU's "charges," shall we?

This week Kaiser RNs completed voting on January 6 and 7th, and the ballots have now been impounded by the NLRB. Healthcare Professionals and Psych-Social Workers have received their mail-in ballots which must be received by the NLRB by January 25. The ballots in all units may or may not be counted at that time depending on the decision of the National Board in Washington, D.C. In either case, the final results of this election could be in question due to the actions of NUHW staff.

Before and during the election process NUHW staff engaged in behavior that undermined the democratic process, interfered with patient care and threatened SEIU-UHW members. Kaiser Management initiated a number of unlawful policy changes that allowed NUHW to operate in ways that compromised our workplace.

SEIU-UHW has filed the following Unfair Labor Practice charges:

Unilateral change and unlawful application of access policy

* Kaiser allowed NUHW staff to conduct meetings in non-public areas: Kaiser's policy states that only Kaiser employees, vendors or people with business with the hospital (patients, patient visitors, etc) can access Kaiser facilities except for public cafeterias and other places where commercial business is conducted. NUHW staff has routinely accessed patient care and other non-public areas of the facilities to conduct meetings, in some instances with the explicit authorization of Kaiser Management.
* Kaiser allowed the distribution of unauthorized materials: Kaiser's access policy clearly states that there shall be no distribution of unauthorized materials on Kaiser's premises by anyone - employees or non-employees. NUHW routinely passed out literature, stickers and posters on Kaiser's premises in violation of the policy and Kaiser has done nothing about it.

Kaiser Management unlawfully negotiating with NUHW

Despite the fact that NUHW is not the bargaining agent of Kaiser employees, Kaiser Management negotiated with NUHW staff and representatives about access issues on December 30.

SEIU-UHW will be filing more charges regarding other unilateral changes that Kaiser has made affecting Kaiser RNs, Healthcare Professionals and Psych-Social Workers in the coming weeks.

Oy.

I can only suppose that part of this is derived from Zombie UHW's definition of "NUHW staff" which is composed almost entirely of rank-and-file activists and former UHW stewards who have decided to side with Team Red. Because NUHW does not have the resources of Zombie UHW and its Purple Plague overlords, we have to do our organizing on the "retail" level, in other words person-to-person, instead of killing entire forests for throwaway hit-piece mailers, and NUHW is smart enough to know the KP staff isn't going to stand for a bunch of Robocalls from back east.

Bottom line - SEIU and Zombie UHW know they are going to lose this election, and in fact may well get very badly mauled similar to what happened at SRMH, and so they are trying to muddy the waters so much that the election effectively is "nixed" until such time as they can get a more favorable ruling from the NLRB in regards to this election.

Zombie UHW no longer has the wontons to stand on its own, and is now merely a proxy organization, a shell entirely subservient to the whims of Our Glorious Maximum Leader and his cloven-hooved minions Esquirol Medina and Brave Sir Regan.

Kaiser Vote Update

2010-01-08T08:07:00.000-08:00

This came in through the comments, but I thought this should find its way to the main page...

A report on the ground states that Southern California nurses overwhelmingly voted for NUHW. SEIU cry babies say that this was possible only because the "Phillipino Mafia" got involved and lobbied other nurses to vote for NUHW. What a crock! SEIU was trounced in Southern California. And this is just the beginning. Over the next year, SEIU will realize that they bit off more than they can chew when Andy decided to take on Sal Rosselli and the old UHW. More importantly, it is the members themselves that have handed SEIU this devastating defeat. There will be many more to come.

I'm ordinarily reluctant to post such mid-election reports, but I thought we should see what the SEIU "response" is going to be in the (hopeful) case that they should lose this election, so that measures can be taken to get ahead of the spin.

BeyondChron's Guest Comment

2010-01-07T19:52:00.000-08:00

In yesterday's BeyondChron there was a guest editorial penned by Suzanne Gordon, who quite heartily endorsed NUHW in the upcoming SoCal KaiPerm elections.

Prior to getting into her commentary, I think it worth a look at who Suzanne Gordon is, what her track record is, and whether or not she can just be painted by the Zombies as just another NUHW stooge. Long story short, she isn't...

Suzanne Gordon is an award-winning journalist and author. She has written for the New York Times, the Los Angeles Times, the Washington Post, the Atlantic Monthly, the American Prospect, the Globe and Mail, the Toronto Star and others. She’s the author of seven books including Life Support: Three Nurses on the Front Lines which was originally published by Little Brown & Co. and which has just been reissued by Cornell University Press with a new forward by Claire Fagin and epilogue by the author; and co-editor of three books and co-author of From Silence to Voice: What Nurses Know and Must Communicate to the Public. Her book on the nursing crisis –Nursing Against the Odds: How Health Care Cost Cutting, Media Stereotypes, and Medical Hubris Undermine Nurses and Patient Care — is out in paperback published by Cornell University Press. She is also co-editor ,with Sioban Nelson, of Complexities of Care: Nursing Reconsidered, also by Cornell University Press. Her latest book, Safety in Numbers: Nurse-to-Patient Ratios and the Future of Health Care was published by CUP in April 2008.
She has been a health care commentator in the U.S. for CBS Radio News and Public Radio International’s “Marketplace” business program, and a popular lecturer. She is also Visiting Professor at the University of Maryland School of Nursing and Assistant, Adjunct Professor at the University of California San Francisco’s School of Nursing. Gordon is co-editor of Cornell University Press’s series on the Culture and Politics of Health Care Work.

Given the above bona-fides, here is what Ms. Gordon had to say about the upcoming elections...

RNs today face mounting difficulties. Hospital budget-cutting is once again eliminating the jobs of nurses and increasing their workloads — a trend that may only get worse due to the troubled state of our local economy and “health care reform” in Washington that may fall short of our hopes and needs.

Even at a health care employer as heavily unionized and profitable as Kaiser, we see the danger signs: cost-cutting that could lead to under-staffing and erosion of quality patient care. At such a critical moment, nurses need an organization that can advocate effectively for their own interests and those of their patients.

It has been my long-standing policy not to get involved in organizational decisions involving RNs. I’ve worked with many different nurses’ associations and unions, professional organizations, and specialty groups, in the U.S. and abroad. They all have their strengths and weaknesses, good points and bad. But it is up to nurses themselves to make them better vehicles for achieving personal, professional, and workplace goals.

In this case, however, I feel I must stand up for one union that I have come to know very well and greatly respect. The National Union of Healthcare Workers (NUHW) has not abandoned the coalition of patients, care givers, and health care advocates that helped achieve past gains for RNs and their communities in California.

More than ever before, nurses need a union that will fight to uphold California’s landmark safe staffing law. They need a union that will help them be more pro-active in dealing with hospital restructuring, work reorganization, and the introduction of new computer technology. They need a union that can make labor-management relations at Kaiser a real partnership again, rather than an LMP dominated by people who are not — and in some cases, have never been — bedside nurses.

I believe that having a democratic union, responsive to both professional issues and day-to-day job concerns, is the only way to improve the status and role of nursing within KP. Just as RNs seek to build good working relationships with doctors and administrators — based on recognition of their skill, experience, and professional autonomy — working nurses also deserve the same kind of respect from the organization that negotiates and administers their union contract, while collecting dues from them in return.

Size alone does not guarantee union effectiveness or greater responsiveness to the membership. A bargaining unit run by and for its own members, relying on their professional dedication, creativity, and ideas, can move mountains.

The current campaign to restore a real “voice at work” for RNs and other care-givers at Kaiser in California is important for nurses everywhere. I look forward to working with you and other members of NUHW, now and in the future.

The lack of independent voices who will speak on the behalf of Zombie UHW is kinda glaring. Almost all of the independent contributors to the discussion have come in on the side of NUHW.

Misery Loves Company

2010-01-07T16:21:00.000-08:00

From one of my anonymous Facebook sources...

Hey seiu, I've got a great idea! You should totally get the "Lead organizer" that ran the Santa Rosa campaign to "Lead" in Salinas! Wait, you did! Good work! Seiu always learning from their mistakes! :)

I'm sure that the ideas that led to SEIU's 13-vote performance in Santa Rosa will do wonders down at Salinas Valley.

KP Professionals Explain the Issues...

2010-01-07T16:07:00.000-08:00

Courtesy of NUHW, here's where you can hear the KP professionals in their own voices, explaining the issues relating to this election...

Jim Clifford, Therapist, KP - San Diego - MP3
Tessie Costales, Registered Nurse, KP - Sunset/LAMC - MP3
Marty Needleman, Psychiatric Social Worker, KP - Fontana - MP3
Stacy Eldridge, Registered Dietitian, KP - Bakersfield - MP3

Healthcare professionals at nearly one hundred Kaiser Permanente hospitals and clinics are voting today to switch unions. They say their old union, the Service Employees union or S-E-I-U, has shut them out of negotiations with employers—and cut deals that hurt healthcare workers and their patients.
The 2,300 workers include registered nurses, therapists, dietitians, and psychiatric social workers across Southern California. They’re part of an exodus of more than 100,000 S-E-I-U members who are organizing to join the National Union of Healthcare Workers, or N-U-H-W.

The movement began almost a year ago, when S-E-I-U officials from Washington, D.C. took over California’s healthcare union and put themselves in charge. Healthcare workers formed N-U-H-W as a way to regain control of their union and have a stronger voice at work.

A majority of Kaiser workers asked the labor board to vote on the switch last February, but the S-E-I-U was able to stall the election and stop them from leaving—until now. Registered nurses at Kaiser Sunset are voting at work today and tomorrow; other professionals are voting by mail over the next two weeks. The ballots will be counted on January 26.

An even bigger election is expected later this year, when the rest of Kaiser’s 50,000 California employees will be eligible to vote.

It's too bad that we're going to have to wait for almost three weeks to hear the results. In the meantime, let's be optimistic and let these people explain the issues as they see them.

Kaiser LAMC Nurses Voting Underway

2010-01-07T15:58:00.000-08:00

The voting has started for the nurses' unit at Kaiser LAMC, and the ballots have been mailed out to the Healthcare Professionals and the Psychosocial groups.

I believe that counts won't be available until the 26th, when all three groups will be counted simultaneously.

To those who have gotten their ballots by mail, follow the example of this individual, and get your ballot in, and make your voice heard.

A Strange Tale From The Great Northwest

2010-01-04T11:17:00.001-08:00

It seems that the decert bug that is so troubling SEIU is beginning to spread outside of Hotel California, and has now invaded a branch of SEIU 1199NW, covering Kitsap Mental Health Services in Bremerton, Washington...

Labor representatives have sent a memo to top legislators accusing Kitsap Mental Health Services management of union-busting and misusing state-appropriated funds to do it.

KMHS Executive Director Joe Roszak calls the accusations from Jonathan Rosenblum and Ellie Menzies of the Service Employees International Union “without merit.”

The SEIU represents more than 200 people who work at the county’s only public mental health agency in a wide range of capacities, including therapists, office workers and janitors. SEIU Healthcare 1199NW has been the only union at KMHS.

In the Dec. 18 memo to legislators, Rosenblum, the union’s assistant to the president, and Menzies, its legislative director, alleged that KMHS management used a “hostile” approach last spring in its dealings with the union that involved delays, demands for large concessions and failure to keep union representatives in the loop.

Pretty straightforward they-said, they-said stuff - but here's where it gets strange...

Management encouraged workers to drop out of the union in the fall, according to the memo. Rosenblum and Menzies alleged management offered each employee a $1,000 bonus as an inducement.

The union representatives also alleged that the $1,000 bonuses were a misuse of state funds and suggested a state investigation.

Rochelle Doan, spokeswoman for KMHS, had no comment Monday on the alleged $1,000 bonuses.

The union memo also suggested that KMHS management instigated a petition-gathering campaign to decertify the union. That petition, however, apparently got signatures from a majority of workers. It was submitted to management Dec. 11.

Doan suggested the petition came from below, not above.

“This was a choice of the staff. That’s the bottom line,” she said.

What? Management offering $1K bonuses to quit the union? Certainly there must be more to the story, and that is provided in this follow-up piece by the same author, a day later...

The National Labor Relations Board may ultimately decide whether workers at Kitsap Mental Health Services still are represented by the Service Employees International Union.

While one employee said there is some division among staff over the current status of the SEIU, many said Tuesday they want no part of it. The union has represented KMHS employees since about 1991 under two locals, including the present one, SEIU Healthcare 1199NW.

SEIU leaders recently sent a letter to high-ranking legislators accusing KMHS of union-busting and misuse of state-appropriated funds. A day after that news was published in the Kitsap Sun, KMHS employees gave their perspectives on the story.

Some employees aren’t ruling out other union representation in the future.

“I felt like the union wanted me to believe that the management was bad and that I needed the protection of the union,” said therapist David Secrest. “I want a union that communicates and works with management without an adversarial relationship.”

Said clerk Jackie Fitzgerald, “I think we can do this ourselves.”

Agreed Tina D’Astoli, an office coordinator, “We’re going with no union ... We can always bring in another union; we could even be our own guild.

“It was anything but SEIU.”

That above quote, as well as the other quotes from the employees, have a seriously familiar ring to them, no?

The trouble started last spring.

A two-year contract covering about 200 employees was to expire March 31. Negotiations between management and the union weren’t going well.

“There was a distrust on both sides that was caustic,” D’Astoli said.

One of the issues taken up during bargaining appeared to break the camel’s back. An earlier dispute between the union and management over a state-authorized 1.4 percent pay hike that never materialized had been taken to arbitration. Management won, representatives for both sides said.

But the union resurrected the issue at the bargaining table, which D’Astoli said somehow widened the gap not only between the union and management, but the union and employees it represented.

Negotiations continued over many months.

In November, management came up with a proposal that included maintaining health-insurance premiums for one year before raising them modestly the second year; and wage increases held until July, when a 3 percent increase would begin to take effect.

It also called for a one-time $1,000 lump-sum payment for each employee, but it did not contain the 1.4 percent pay increase, according to D’Astoli.

And so we see the rationale for the $1K bonus that SEIU was so torqued off about in the first article.

What is also clear is that the rank-and-file and the SEIU officials bargaining on their behalf were undergoing a serious failure to communicate.

Workers said the union never brought the contract to them for a vote. D’Astoli said the union was sore about the 1.4 percent increase, that the management proposal didn’t include a provision to get Veterans Day off and there was no provision for a closed union shop.

Union representatives could not be reached Tuesday.

KMHS Executive Director Joe Roszak was reluctant to talk Tuesday, due to the pending charge of unfair labor practices recently brought by the union to the NLRB.

Relations between some staffers and the union apparently continued to sour, with the members believing the union was too aggressive.

In early December, D’Astoli began a petition calling on management to withdraw recognition of the union. She said it was signed by 55 percent of workers covered by the previous union contract.

Regarding union allegations that management coerced staffers to sign the petition, D’Astoli and many other staffers told the Kitsap Sun that wasn’t the case.

“This was of my own volition,” D’Astoli said.

She and the staffers also said management did not use $1,000 payments it had offered as a carrot to get them to decertify.

The petition was delivered to management Dec. 11. After that, management distributed the $1,000 payments, workers said.

Meanwhile, Roszak and Tom Hyde, KMHS board president, have been trying to neutralize any impact from a memo written by union leadership on Dec. 18 to legislators alleging unfair labor practices and illegal use of government funds for the $1,000 bonuses.

On Dec. 23, they wrote their own.

“There has been absolutely no misuse of Medicaid and/or NonMedicaid dollars by KMHS, and we have not used these or any other dollars to engage in ‘union-busting’ activities,” it stated.

As for the $1,000 payments, they wrote, “KMHS does not provide staff ‘bonuses’ or did KMHS provide staff a $1,000 ‘bonus’ as an inducement to decertify the union.”

For now, workers appear to have put a certain level of trust in management, even without a contract.

“I have no problems trusting what management was doing,” D’Astoli said.

Wow. Those SEIU 1199NW members are being placed on-record as trusting management over their union "representatives."

I have to confess that the $1K lump sum bonus or payout or however you want to phrase it looks fishy, but you have to wonder what the people at 1199NW are thinking in allowing such a disconnect to occur in the first place.

The comment threads in both articles are actually pretty good, and have input from multiple employees of KMHS, some who signed the decert and some who did not - and both sides seem to be able to maintain some amount of mutual respect for each other, but very little respect for Andy's Army.

It is apparent that these folks probably would like union representation, and that NUHW quite conceivably could be a good fit for them once Team Red gets away from all the red tape and NLRB hassles that are under way right now.

Still and all, decert petitions and wanting to get out of SEIU are not limited to Hotel California, and SEIU would be wise to pay closer attention to proplerly serving the people it has now, rather than focusing so much attention on keeping captive people who have expressed the clear desire to leave SEIU's clutches.

Kaiser SoCal Balloting Begins This Week

2010-01-03T18:05:00.000-08:00

The Kaiser SoCal Psychosocial chapter and the Healthcare Professionals Chapter will have their ballots mailed out beginning tomorrow. The AFN-RN unit at Kaiser LAMC will vote on Wednesday and Thursday.

Vote early, vote often, just get out there and VOTE!

Check SBWF for the latest dirt on what the Zombie organizers are up to.

NUHW rising!

Looking Back at 2009

2010-01-02T09:54:00.000-08:00

Tasty has done a 2009 top-ten countdown of SEIU bloopers, and I can't really put anything more to the list than what Tasty has done. Part one, bloopers 10 through 6, can be seen here, while part two, bloopers 5 through 1, can be seen here.

There's very little I can add to the list, save for the image of the UHW Chicken appearing at the San Francisco FUD fundraiser, followed the next day with the egg-tossing attacks by SEIU members down at the Los Angeles fundraiser, including nailing the VP of the United Teachers of Los Angeles with a long-distance egg-o-gram. It took what was seen largely as an "inside fight" within a union and gave SEIU an image of a bully which cannot brook dissent in any manner or shape or form.

All in all, 2009 has been a very bad year for SEIU in general, and SEIU-UHW in particular. Andy's army came into 2009 with practically unlimited access to the levers of power in Washington and in the Lamestream Media, and promptly began to piss it away - because "practically unlimited" evidently just wasn't enough for Our Glorious Maximum Leader. Beginning with the ghost-write of the Marshall Hearings findings (thus giving him the ostensible excuse to place UHW into trusteeship), selling out to Rose Ann DeMoro and CNA, and then injecting SEIU into the UNITE/HERE breakup, and now with the breakup of Change To Win and several unions leaving CTW and returning to AFL-CIO - all of these have contributed largely to the tarnishing of Stern's image, as well as that of SEIU.

On the ground here in Hotel California, it seems that Brave Sir Regan's pledge to drive a stake into the heart of NUHW hasn't quite come to pass. In head-to-head election competition, where SEIU defeated NUHW it did so by close margins (Fresno IHSS, Hawkins), but where NUHW has defeated SEIU it has done so by decisive margins (Doctors, Santa Rosa Memorial), occasionally even forcing SEIU to retreat from the field (Los Alamitos) or try to hide the outcome of the vote (Providence Tarzana).

Going forward into 2010, it will be interesting to see just how bad the financial picture is at UHW. I know that the UHW COPE contributions have plummeted, and I'm thinking that their dues revenue has taken a hit as well, as scads of UHW-covered rank-and-file employees have changed their status from having automatic deduction to paying monthly - if at all. Add that to the fact that UHW has not organized one new hospital in all of 2009, it's going to be interesting to see if UHW will even try to paper over their revenue issues on this year's upcoming LM-2 reports.

In the meantime, it appears that the beat will go on for NUHW, with elections coming up this week at KaiPerm in SoCal as well as others opening up as the NLRB finally figures out that SEIU's delaying actions are largely just that.

Happy New Year, all...

Death and Taxes

2009-12-30T16:48:00.000-08:00

It's been said that the only sure things in the world are Death and Taxes.

Well, to that list can be added the appeal of a close loser to an election before the NLRB...

Memorial Hospital administrators have filed objections to the recent election during which hospital employees voted to join National Union of Healthcare Workers, alleging that the union, union agents, and/or third parties negatively affected the election. Did articles published on EmpireReport.org contribute to a flawed election? Disclosure- This report involves allegations that may implicate the author of the report.
On Tuesday, December 29th, only 11 days after voting to unionize with National Union of Healthcare Workers, Memorial Hospital employees received an administration memo notifying them that the administration filed election objections with the National Labor Relations Board.

According to the memo, which was signed by the hospital's Vice President of Human Resources, the objections were filed because the administration was "concerned that NUHW's conduct during the weeks leading up to the vote created an atmosphere of confusion and fear," an atmosphere which "compromised our employees' rights and ultimately unlawfully affected the outcome of the vote."

The memo does not note if any hospital employees 1) expressed fear or confusion, 2) stated fear or confusion affected their vote, or 3) alleged that their rights were violated.

However, instead of including the objections in the memo, or sending the document containing the objections through email, the administration memo contained an italicized passage emphasizing that employees would have to log into the hospital's computer network to view a copy of the objections filed with the NLRB.

Employees who did so found a December 28th document titled "Employer's Objections to Conduct Affecting the Election."

While the hospital administration's memo to its employees limits its allegations to "NUHW's conduct," the December 28th document lists objections against the union, union agents and/or third parties, and even the National Labor Relations Board itself.

SRMH management is evidently protesting some of the video newsgathering conducted by Empire Report, as well as complaining about the "font" that the "no union" option was printed on with the ballots, e.g. the "no union" selection was significantly smaller than that for NUHW or Zombie UHW.

The only real effect this protest is going to have is to postpone the inevitable. Because of this filing, the disposition of the 17 challenged ballots will probably be put off indefinitely (the challenges filed at San Pablo Doctor's Hospital are still yet to be resolved), but NUHW has already achieved the tactical victory it needed over Zombie UHW going into the Kaiser SoCal election.

The Zombie UHW Charm Offensive Rolls On...

2009-12-29T17:28:00.000-08:00

From Tasty's place...

On Christmas Eve, Terri Fernandez, UHW Zombie and rep with a reported history of being aggressive towards members, was at Kaiser Sunset doing her job as rep-i.e. eating lunch in the cafeteria.

One of the Sunset RNs saw Terri's purple shirt and decided to introduce herself and say, "I'm one of the RNs and I pay your salary and I just thought you'd like to see the union that we're voting for." She then showed Terri a leaflet that had dozens of RNs pictured on it.

Terri was NOT amused by this and grabbed the leaflet and ripped it in half said "I don't want anything that you have. You're a thief."

Some other RNs attracted by the ruckus came over and they were also treated to the Fernandez warmth-Terri proceeded to stamp, point her fingers at both of them and repeat, "Thief, thief!"

The RN's, who remain unclear why their rep would call them thieves, turned to their Kaiser co-workers who are still waiting for a decert election from the board and pointed out that the lady in question was not an errant psych patient, but the woman who was supposed to represent them for the union.

Gotta love those Zombies.

Senate Rejects Andy's Lawyer for NLRB

2009-12-28T17:25:00.000-08:00

It seems that the U.S. Senate does not think much of the prospect of Our Glorious Maximum Leader's in-house counsel to sit on the board of the NLRB, so much so that the Senate has returned Becker's nomination to the White House.

The Obama Administration will now either be forced to wait until the next session of the Senate to resubmit Becker's nomination, or they will have to use a controversial "recess appointment" in order to get Becker seated.

Stronger Together.

Go To The Source...

2009-12-28T17:11:00.000-08:00

Much as Red Revolt was the source for the best info regarding the SRMH election, it's turning out now that Sternburger With Fries is turning out to be the place to go regarding the inside dope on what's going down with the SoCal Kaiser election.

Tasty's place has a story about what happens when SoCal KaiPerm nurses complain about Zombie UHW bugging them, as well as what a Zombie UHW organizer is "offering" to the KaiPerm nurses if they will just vote SEIU's way.

Check it out...

Kaiser Professionals - In Their Own Words

2009-12-28T17:05:00.000-08:00

KaiPerm Professional workers from SoCal explain in this video why they are preparing to choose NUHW over Zombie UHW...

Lost In The Turmoil

2009-12-21T16:38:00.000-08:00

One item that came out last week has gotten little if any notice but has a direct relationship to one of Zombie UHW's proclaimed "victories" in bargaining.

It seems that the Alameda Hospital District may be looking to ask its staff to take some pay cuts - and instead of telling management (and everybody else) that a deal's a deal (like was told to the KaiPerm Pharmacy staff recently), the Zombies announced that they would be "willing to talk to management."

Now, SEIU crowed about the raises given the Alameda workers, but they neglected to brag about the fact that those workers are now, for the very first time in recent Bay Area healthcare history, being asked to assume a substantial amount of their health care insurance benefit.

It looks like those raises are now back on the table and subject to negotiation (downward), and the Alameda workers will still have to shell out for their health care coverage.

Stronger Together.

SRMH - Post-Election Discussion

2009-12-21T16:18:00.001-08:00

The press and the blogosphere is beginning to realize and to document the EPIC level of FAIL demonstrated by SEIU and Zombie UHW in the Santa Rosa election...

"The result was a crushing defeat for the SEIU..." according to the Los Angeles Times.

"NUHW is Decisive in Santa Rosa, SEIU Tries to Postpone Defeat" per Labor Notes.

The article in the Santa Rosa Press-Democrat had this quote from Zombie UHW:

Adriana Surfas, an official with SEIU-UHW, said of the vote, “We are disappointed, and we wish the Santa Rosa workers well.”

Much like Forrest Gump, that's about all they gotta say about that.

Randy Shaw at BeyondChron has weighed in, and in the article SEIU is laid low...

After a relentless campaign attacking NUHW, its staff, and its very right to call itself a union, SEIU lost 283-13 among workers desiring a union. It’s going to take a heckuva spinmeister for SEIU to explain to workers in other hospitals why they should trust SEIU over NUHW when those at SRMH clearly did not.

SEIU’s brand is badly tarnished in California, both from its fight against NUHW and its failed struggle against UNITE HERE. The union has alienated multiple local labor councils, threatened John Burton (the state’s leading progressive and union hero), and is burning bridges with the religious community.

SEIU paid a steep price for its all-out campaign in Santa Rosa, and should have withdrawn from the election months ago, as many urged. Now, it has undermined its ability to compete against NUHW for the nearly 9000 other non-union workers in the St. Joseph's Health System chain, and will be under statewide pressure to withdraw from contesting NUHW's organizing rights in these facilities.

How does a union spend that much money, using messaging produced by the highly regarded San Francisco-based BMW political consulting firm, only win 2% of the total vote? And only 2% despite multiple attack pieces on NUHW, while the victorious union only could afford a single glossy leaflet during election week (the NUHW piece was designed at no cost by San Francisco political consultant Eric Jaye, and explained why workers needed a union and only referenced SEIU as a purple grinch in the corner)?

NUHW spokesperson Jon Borsos thinks he has the answer. He described NUHW’s win as a “tremendous victory for democratic unionism, as health care workers stood up to corporate health care and to corporate unionism.” Longtime SRMH union supporter Nancy Timberlake echoed Borsos, adding “to win against a behemoth like SEIU and our employer’s own anti-union campaign is true vindication and a true miracle.”

Tis the season for miracles, something SEIU also overlooked when it successfully delayed the election until a week before Christmas.

This election may well be having downstream consequences down at KaiPerm in SoCal as well, according to Tasty...

Sources report that very high level SEIU staffers in DC are saying that SEIU is going to lose the Kaiser Pro election.

Behind the scenes the word is, "...there is no way to win this election. The workers simply won't talk to us."

Tasty doesn't know if that is true, but it seems like DC doesn't have much confidence in the Trusteeship Team.

Now it's on to SoCal Kaiser...

SRMH - Numbers and Scenarios

2009-12-19T12:49:00.000-08:00

And now it's time to crunch the numbers.

As it stands right now, 283 votes were cast for NUHW, 13 for Zombie UHW, and 263 for neither. If that result were to stand, the NUHW wins an absolute majority at 50.62% of the total votes cast.

Unfortunately, this is not currently the case, because there are 17 ballots that stand at challenge. Those 17 ballots cannot by themselves make NUHW lose the election, but they can prevent NUHW from avoiding a runoff, and as such they can also prevent any results from being certified by the NLRB.

So let's look at those 17 ballots, and what permutations can be derived out of them. The first and easiest scenario - all 17 ballots being rejected - results in an outright NUHW victory with the percentages stated above.

The next scenario - all 17 ballots being included in the voting pool - raises the total votes cast to 576, of which 283 have already been cast for NUHW. In order to prevail in that scenario, all NUHW would have to achieve is 6 votes out of those 17 challenged votes cast (roughly 35%); by the same token, in order to force runoff, the "no union" slate has to get 12 out of the 17 challenged votes (70.5%).

There are multiple additional scenarios possible regarding those challenged ballots if only part of them are added, etc. All in all, though, the numbers would suggest that NUHW has prevailed in this fight - the only thing that remains now is to determine whether or not either Zombie UHW or SRMH management will concede the defeat handed them last night.

Video Coverage From SRMH Vote

2009-12-19T12:38:00.000-08:00

The Empire Report has been all over the SRMH election fight, and now has an excellent compilation of video coverage from last night's results at SRMH...

First up is an announcement of the "unofficial" vote count...

Next is an announcement from John Borsos, indicating that SEIU has unilaterally decided to prevent the certification (but if they didn't, then management would)...

Next is one of the NUHW organizers explaining some of the upcoming technical challenges toward getting this count certified and completed...

There are additional reactions that can be seen either at Empire Report or by clicking directly into the Empire Report's YouTube channel.

SRMH Election Update

2009-12-18T19:51:00.000-08:00

From Sadie Crabtree at NUHW...

Memorial workers vote to join NUHW after six-year struggle

Caregivers reject a rival organization that stood in their way

Santa Rosa, Calif.—Caregivers at Santa Rosa Memorial Hospital voted to join the National Union of Healthcare Workers (NUHW) today in an election victory that caps their six-year struggle to win a voice at work.

"We are all so excited to finally have a voice to make our hospital a better place to work and better for our community," said Nancy Timberlake, a telemetry technician at the hospital. "We stuck together for six years and we finally did it. I'm so relieved and so happy that we won."

The vote was 283 for NUHW, 263 for No Union, and only 13 for SEIU, a rival organization that tried to interfere in the election. Despite SEIU's devastating loss, as of 7:00 p.m. Friday night they were still trying to stop the labor board from certifying the results. Seventeen ballots were cast by workers not on the board's list of eligible voters, and SEIU wants those ballots counted in the hopes there will be enough "No Union" votes to trigger a runoff.

The workers' effort drew national attention last year after political leaders and religious leaders rallied with caregivers at the motherhouse of the Sisters of St. Joseph of Orange, the founding order of St. Joseph Health System, which owns Memorial. Under pressure from the community, hospital administration agreed to negotiate with workers' representatives to establish ground rules for a free and fair union election.

This April, a majority of Memorial caregivers petitioned the National Labor Relations Board for an election to join NUHW. But the election was delayed for more than five months because of frivolous "blocking charges" filed by SEIU, the rival organization. When the labor board rejected those charges, SEIU demanded a spot on the ballot and blocked negotiations over ground rules—giving hospital management a free hand to mount an aggressive anti-union campaign.

SEIU ignored appeals from religious leaders, the North Bay Labor Council, and even former Labor Secretary Robert Reich to negotiate ground rules. Despite having virtually no support at Memorial Hospital caregivers, SEIU bombarded workers with dozens of mailers and visited them constantly at home and at work, urging them not to vote for NUHW.

NUHW filed charges with the labor board on Wednesday, after workers alleged that hospital administrators broke the law by engaging in illegal surveillance of union supporters, threatening and disciplining union activists, and giving SEIU staff unfair access to caregivers at work so they could campaign against the union.

"It was really transparent what SEIU was doing," said Melissa Bosanco, a Care Partner at the hospital. "It was like they were management's anti-union team. They wanted us to fail. But we saw through it and stuck together in NUHW."

Next month, more than 2,300 Kaiser Permanente professionals in Southern California will vote to quit SEIU and join NUHW. In all, a majority of 100,000 workers at 360 facilities across California have petitioned to join NUHW and are waiting for similar elections.

Again - NUHW puts out the particulars on the vote, unlike SEIU who never does. The only question right now is whether or not SEIU will allow the challenged ballots to be fully and fairly judged.

More as it comes in...

There's a New Joke Going Around...

2009-12-18T19:24:00.000-08:00

Have ya heard it?

NUHW: "What did the five fingers say to the face?"

Zombie UHW: "What?"

NUHW: "SLAP!!!"

Vote tally thus far, as of 7:30 p.m.

NUHW: 283
No Union: 263
Zombie UHW: 13

No, folks, that is not a mistype - after all those slick mailers and dues dollars poured into the org fight, the Purple Plague got a grand total of 13 votes.

According to on-site sources, Zombie UHW is unwilling to resolve the issues of challenge ballots this evening, so there may not be a final tally until some time tomorrow - or even possibly early next week. Updates will be provided as they come in.

In the meantime - SEIU's 747 (assisted by a pro-SEIU hospital management team) just finished third with an anvil to a broken-down Citroen with no back wheels.

"Stronger Together..."

Let's Get It Done!

2009-12-16T17:39:00.001-08:00

To my readers at SRMH: Send a message to St. Joseph Health Systems, to SEIU and Zombie UHW, and to your colleagues at other SJHS facilities, and send a big-time message to the labor world in general.

Make your voices heard, make your decision clear. We're with you.

Until Friday...

Here Comes The Flood

2009-12-16T17:21:00.000-08:00

All of a sudden, all sorts of people are reporting on the Great California Union Foodfight.

First up is Labor Notes, who gives a pretty bare-bone rundown of the Santa Rosa issue, but then gets in some good jabs at Zombie UHW in reference to their "representation" of Kaiser employees...

NUHW supporters are preparing for an election at Kaiser next month. Three bargaining units in Southern California, including nurses at Kaiser’s Los Angeles Medical Center complex and psychiatrists, therapists, social workers, dieticians, speech pathologists, and other professionals at 100 facilities across the region, will choose between SEIU and NUHW. Nurses will vote on-site January 6 and 7, with ballots mailed to the 1,300 other professionals on January 4. Votes will be counted January 26.

Jim Clifford, a therapist at a clinic in Otay, says SEIU’s removal of elected stewards and worksite leaders left members hamstrung, whether trying to stand up to unfair discipline or to share Kaiser’s use of electronic medical records.

“At the start of the trusteeship we couldn’t figure out what phone number to dial to get an SEIU staff representative who could work with us,” he said. “We’ve got grievances from January going nowhere.”
David Mallon, a psychiatric social worker at the Bellflower medical center, said, “Kaiser is running amok. They have shut down the performance sharing bonus program, we aren’t participating in program development anymore, and now there is incredible pressure to increase workloads.

“How are you going squeeze more time in today to see patients and still do the documentation, which has become more and more detailed?”

Cuts to the Kaiser pension plan have also sparked member dissatisfaction. Earlier this year SEIU, along with other Kaiser unions, agreed to cut lump-sum pensions by as much as 15 percent starting December 1. The cuts were a response to the sagging stock market, but there are no plans yet to restore pensions in light of the stock market rebound or Kaiser’s $1.6 billion profit in the nine months of 2009. More than three-quarters of Kaiser retirees take the lump-sum pension.

Meanwhile SEIU says it will block the professional staff from participating in the Coalition of Kaiser Permanente Unions if they vote to join NUHW. The coalition was created to coordinate bargaining with Kaiser as well as oversee union participation in Kaiser’s labor-management partnership.

EXTERNAL SUPPORT GROWS

Since its narrow loss to SEIU in a homecare workers’ election in June, NUHW has made strides recruiting allies. The strong showing in Fresno convinced many outside California of NUHW’s viability.

At the same time, SEIU’s escalating battle with the hotel union UNITE HERE has pushed NUHW and UNITE HERE closer together.

UNITE HERE locals in California dispatched organizers to the Fresno campaign, provided office space and material aid, and assembled nearly two dozen Cantonese-speaking lost-time member-organizers to assist NUHW’s San Francisco homecare drive this summer. More recently, UNITE HERE sent organizers to help in Santa Rosa.

In retaliation, the trustees running UHW threatened to withdraw the 150,000-member local from the San Francisco Labor Council, which is headed by a UNITE HERE local president. That threat united many Bay Area labor leaders behind UNITE HERE and NUHW.

This fall the North Bay Central Labor Council also lined up with NUHW in its drive at Santa Rosa. The council asked SEIU to withdraw from the election since “it is clear that Memorial workers have chosen NUHW as their union.”

SEIU has also pushed unions in Southern California closer to NUHW, most notably by attacking a November 17 public forum held at the United Teachers-Los Angeles hall. Attendees were pelted with water bottles and eggs by SEIU staff and members protesting the event.
(snip)
KAISER IS A ‘CIRCUS’

Looming large in 2010 is the Kaiser Permanente health system, representing a third of UHW’s membership and a standard-setter for union hospitals across California. NUHW looks to capitalize on SEIU’s acceptance of unprecedented mid-contract concessions. Trustees agreed to 1,300 layoffs in August, despite a no-layoffs clause in the contract. Kept from a vote over the job cuts, Kaiser workers are fuming.

“They are making a circus of our contract,” said Cindy Benko, a 19-year pharmacy tech in Stockton. “They don’t know which end is up. Kaiser should be paying them union dues, not the members, because that is who SEIU is working for.”

Benko thinks the loss of workplace control under the trusteeship is swinging support to NUHW.
“Most people wanted to believe it was just the leaders who changed, that it would still be the same union,” she said. “But no one can deny the damage SEIU has done. This is what our future looks like if we don’t get our union back.”

Also getting into the act are Bill Fletcher and (finally) Nelson Lichtenstein in an article in In These Times entitled "SEIU's Civil War." It's a pretty lengthy expose of Our Glorious Maximum Leader's rise and (probable) fall in the U.S. Labor movement, and views SEIU as more of a Cult of Personality rather than a functional, dynamic, representational union...

Assessing what to make of NUHW and its potential is, at this time, a matter for speculation. Despite having pitifully few resources, the new union is capable of winning. In the NUHW’s key jurisdictions, particularly Kaiser Permanente, it is quite conceivable that they will overwhelm the SEIU’s imported and maladroit leadership.

This is true for at least three reasons. One, the former UHW has a very capable steward’s system and member involvement at Kaiser. Two, the trusteeship is an affront to thousands of staunch unionists and their allies in California where NUHW has won the backing of some prominent liberal politicians and many key unions, including San Francisco’s big hotel local.

Three, many among the SEIU staff, imported to California or back in the East and Midwest, are demoralized and do not see NUHW as a true enemy. Thus, if the NUHW can win just a few NLRB certification elections and restart the dues flow, then it will have sufficient resources to hire key staff, “organize” among a wider group of workers, and prevail in California over the still alien group of leaders imported into the state by SEIU. Recent NUHW victories at Los Alamitos Medical Center in Southern California and at an assisted living facility in the Portola Valley indicate that this strategy may be working. There is no reason, short of resources, that NUHW cannot prevail, irrespective of whether they choose to return to a reformed SEIU.

Translation: Tide...turning.

Next up is an article in the E-zine for the Archdiocese of San Francisco, "Catholic San Francisco", which looks at labor relations in Catholic hospitals through the lens of the six-year fight at SRMH which is about to come to a head tomorrow...

The Santa Rosa Memorial campaign achieved one of its long-term goals when, in 2008, the St. Joseph Health System agreed to discuss election ground rules, according to NUHW. That October, union organizers at the hospital began gathering workers’ signatures in support of an election. By January, they had enough names to put the question of unionization to a vote.

However, in late January the effort was set back when the SEIU placed the West Coast organization in trusteeship. That action, and the SEIU’s later intervention in the election sought by the new union, halted the progress that workers had been making toward negotiating ground rules, Timberlake said.

“The irony of the whole thing is the employer said they would not sit down with us,” Timberlake said. “They would only discuss ground rules with both unions.”

The employer had agreed to negotiate guidelines with any union that showed it had standing to represent employees.

“There were two unions that demonstrated a show of standing,” Kevin Andrus, a spokesman for the St. Joseph Health System, said. “We agreed that we would sit down with both of those unions and work out guidelines between the three of us. The SEIU refused to meet with us and the NUHW and thus we were not able to negotiate.”

As always, read the rest.

The Return Of Brave Sir Regan

2009-12-15T20:10:00.000-08:00

Brave Sir Regan ran away.
Bravely ran away, away!
When losing reared its ugly head,
He bravely turned his tail and fled.

Yes, brave Sir Regan turned about
And gallantly he chickened out.
Bravely taking to his feet,
Zombie UHW beat a very brave retreat...

In a report in today's BeyondChron, Randy Shaw writes that Zombie UHW wanted to punk out of the SRMH fight, but SEIU International has told them to stay in the fight, primarily so that they can keep standing to help spread the anti-NUHW venom...

SRMH workers begin casting ballots Thursday, with votes tabulated Friday night. The outcome hinges on whether the massive anti-union campaign jointly waged by SEIU and management convinces enough workers to reject the demonstrable financial benefits and increased job security that comes with joining a union.

As I recently wrote, SEIU’s Santa Rosa campaign has been almost entirely a massive attack on NUHW. SEIU has combined full-page newspaper ads, mailers, and flyers with an estimated forty organizers on the ground this week – most wearing yellow t-shirts with slogans attacking NUHW – to prevent an NUHW victory.

SEIU even scheduled a statewide rank and file training for Petaluma to coincide with the SRMH election. It brought about 400 workers to a rally in front of SRMH, but they made no effort to meet with SRMH workers or to persuade anyone to vote for SEIU.

SEIU’s weak support among workers apparently led it to ask the NLRB last Thursday about the process for removing its name from the ballot. This would prevent SEIU from suffering an embarrassing third place finish, but had two potential downsides.

First, it would prevent SEIU from bashing NUHW during the crucial final week.

Second, since management had agreed to fair election ground rules so long as all parties to the election did likewise (SEIU had refused), SEIU’s departure would also prevent management from engaging in anti-union conduct in the lead-up to the election.

After rumors spread that SEIU was leaving the contest, its local officials were reportedly overruled by SEIU staff in Washington DC on Friday morning, though the cause of SEIU’s reversal cannot be confirmed.

The vaunted strength of SEIU is proving of late to be somewhat of a ceramic veneer - tough and polished on the outside, but once cracked it is next to useless.

"Stronger Together*" indeed.

It seems now that the only hope SEIU has of saving face is for them to continue to assist the SRMH management in so totally muddying the waters as to generate a 50% no-union vote.

*(with management)

SRMH Going Down Swinging

2009-12-15T20:05:00.000-08:00

It seems the management at SRMH really, really doesn't want a union in there. See the Empire Report for details...

SoCal KaiPerm Election Dates Announced

2009-12-15T19:42:00.000-08:00

From a NUHW E-mail...

On Monday, January 4 the NLRB will mail ballots to members of the Psychsocial Chapter and the Healthcare Professionals Chapter. The AFN-RN unit will vote at Kaiser LAMC on January 6 and 7, 2010. This is our election and our chance to put Kaiser professionals in charge of our contract and our future.

In NUHW, we'll have a voice again to solve problems and work together on our professional practice issues. We'll vote on our stewards, our bargaining teams, and our contracts again.

In contrast, SEIU has done everything in their power to stop us from voting. Just last week, SEIU filed a new motion to stop our election. Despite SEIU's efforts our election is now set.

We want to share a letter from Dr. Winnie Allen, one of the very first members of the Kaiser Psychsocial Chapter. Dr. Allen helped organize our Chapter in 1975, and shares her perspective on how our chapters have historically led the way in Kaiser, including being the first to develop the tools of the LMP. Click here to read her letter and share it with your co-workers.

We are excited that we have a date to take back our union. When you get your ballot in the mail, it will come to your home. We enthusiastically encourage you to fill it out and send it back. This will be a vote for unity, integrity and democracy in our union at Kaiser. Our vote is for NUHW.

The letter referred to in the E-mail above reads as follows...

My Fellow Professional Chapter colleagues:

My name is Winnie Allen. I have been a steward and a member of the Kaiser Psychsocial Chapter since we organized our union in 1975, becoming the first union in the country for professional workers.

I strongly endorse our chapter’s certification of NUHW as our future union. We are on the threshold of an historic event. Soon, we will participate in a federally sanctioned vote conducted by the National Labor Relations Board. That vote will determine what kind of union we will be part of: SEIU, the union that has imposed a trusteeship and eliminated all membership rights and structure, or NUHW, our union that actively seeks our input and participation on how to move forward on labor issues critical to us. Our choice will have a sweeping and positive influence not just throughout Kaiser, but throughout the entire labor movement.

As clear as this choice is for me, I am aware that SEIU is trying to create doubt and fear among many of us. They have said that when we choose NUHW, we won't be "big enough" to negotiate successfully with Kaiser for the wages, working conditions, and level of participation in the Partnership that we want. Let me diminish that fear by sharing some bargaining history from the Kaiser Psychsocial Chapter.

Over the past 25 years, our chapter bargained its contracts with Kaiser approximately every three years. I know this because I was on many of those bargaining taskforces. In the 1990s, it was our Psychsocial unit that introduced the partnership tools of issue resolution, consensus decision, and interest-based problem solving into the bargaining process.

This was years before the first National Agreement enshrined the tools of partnership, long before the Coalition even came into existence, and long before partnership was universally desired by KP and the unions. The LMP that our chapter spearheaded in our contracts became the basis of the major goal of the first National Agreement.

We have long led the way in making Kaiser a better place to work—not because of SEIU, but because our chapters have always had the autonomy and democracy to make our voices heard. Joining NUHW will continue that tradition and keep our chapters strong.

Please join me in voting for NUHW.

Winnie Allen, Ph.D.
Clinical Psychologist
Kaiser Watts and Kaiser Sunset

Thank you, Dr. Allen.

LMP should be bigger than Andy's ego - this upcoming vote in January is certain to put that concept to the test.

Strength In Numbers

2009-12-11T16:21:00.000-08:00

The best part about having co-bloggers SternBurger With Fries and Red Revolt on the case is that when things are slow around here, the other two usually will have some nice fresh material, and that's certainly the case today.

Over at SternBurger, we have Our Glorious Maximum Leader's minions channeling their inner Marie Antoinette, and also there is a report from a former UHW staff rep who spent some time organizing in Africa after the trusteeship, and has returned in the wake of the NLRB decision to assist in the Kaiser org effort down in SoCal.

Keyser over at Red Revolt, meanwhile, has an outstanding compare-and-contrast session between a Zombie flyer and a NUHW flyer, as well as a man-on-the-street report from the recent Zombie "protest" at SRMH in which they brag on bringing out 250 people, none of whom were SRMH employees.

Happy surfing, everyone.

SEIU Threatens To Dissolve CKPU

2009-12-08T20:18:00.000-08:00

The Coalition of Kaiser Permanente Unions is the group of unions that, along with KP management, make up the Labor-Management Partnership which was so instrumental in bringing KP up out of the ashes of the strikes in the late 1980's. SEIU is evidently so afraid of losing its monopoly position within KP that they are threatening to sunder the entire coalition, rather than to admit NUHW as a member in that coalition...

Now facing an election they spent millions of dollars to block, SEIU officials are circulating an email threatening to break up the Kaiser Coalition if the professional chapters vote to maintain their autonomy by joining NUHW.

Their threat is nothing but a last-ditch effort by Washington, D.C. officials who prioritize their own personal power over the needs of healthcare workers like us. And that's exactly why we chose NUHW.

SEIU knows that when Kaiser professionals join NUHW, the rest of the Kaiser employees will follow, because our chapters have always led the way in achieving the highest wages and benefits. We will continue the rich history of our chapters in NUHW with the people who have been working with us side-by-side on our professional practice issues for years.

In less than a year since SEIU took over, they've given away part of Kaiser workers' pension, agreed to eliminate 1,800 jobs, and gutted the Labor/Management Partnership by removing virtually all of the elected stewards and other members who served on LMP committees.

We're voting NUHW to put an end to these divisive tactics, protect our wages and benefits and our April wage increase, and restore democracy and integrity to our union. We won't let SEIU keep tearing down our contract and we won't let them break apart the Coalition.

One of the members of the SoCal KP units wrote a letter to the Executive Director of the CKPU regarding SEIU's threat...

Mr. August,

I am a Kaiser employee, Clinical Psychologist, and currently a UHW member. I have been very involved in LMP as a UBT member both locally and regionally, LMP co-lead, and trained LMP facilitator, and highly value the LMP process. I received your statement today from the CKPU regarding membership to CKPU and participation in LMP.

Firstly let me say that I have always respected your work with Kaiser and LMP. You have done wonderful things in the past to bring employees and managers together to discuss ways to make Kaiser the best place it can be for our health plan members and for employees.

Today however I am very disappointed with your statement and decision. I certainly do understand that Andy Stern is the head of CKPU and you are under his employ, and as such are in a difficult position to follow his demands or lose your job.

You should know that we as members ARE supporting NUHW and WILL win our decertification vote because we have been very disappointed with the direction Andy Stern and the UHW trustees have taken our union and do not agree with their policies, corporate unionism, and back-door deals with management.

I am very disturbed that you do not support our members' right to determine which union we want to represent us. You are threatening that if we choose NUHW through a federal legal process, exercising our rights, that you will not allow us to be part of CKPU or LMP.

Is not a union made up of it members and members voices? Is not unionism a democratic process where we as members have a right to take their union in the direction we feel is best for us and for those we serve? Does not LMP consist of union members (no matter which union) working together with management for the good of all?

I just don't understand how banning NUHW from participation does anyone any good. It does not benefit CKPU, LMP, Kaiser, or any of the other unions in the coalition. It is simply one more of Mr. Stern's scare tactics to not lose his union members.

As of today I have lost all respect for you and see now that you are simply a puppet in Mr. Stern's hands to manipulate and carry out his agenda within Kaiser. I don't think you understand that you are dealing with intelligent, highly educated professionals within these three professional bargaining units, who are not going to be fooled by SEIU (and now CKPU) propaganda and will not fall to your threats.

Charlie Morgan, Ph.D.
Clinical Psychologist
Kaiser Permanente San Diego

Should you wish to amend Charlie's excellent letter, Mr. August can be contacted by E-mail at "johndavidaugust@gmail.com".

NUHW's Q&A Response...

2009-12-08T20:06:00.000-08:00

In the light of the recent Q&A document put out by SEIU, the NUHW folks have put out their own Q&A document, which basically takes the SEIU document and grinds it to dust...

Q: What choices will be on the ballot?

There will be three choices on the ballot: SEIU-UHW, NUHW, or No Union. Whichever of the three receives 50% + 1 of the actual votes cast will win the election. If there is no clear majority, there will be a run off between the two highest vote getters.

Q: What happens to our contract when we change unions?

All of the wages, benefits, and other provisions of the contract stay in place until we negotiate a new contract. The NLRB ruled in 2001 that when workers change unions current wages, scheduled contract wage increases and current benefits continue. If we don’t change unions, SEIU-UHW can continue trading away our jobs and benefits and we’ll have no right to vote on changes, as they did with the pension reductions and layoffs.

Q: What will dues be in NUHW?

Our dues will be 25% lower than they were in SEIU-UHW. At NUHW’s founding convention, our professional chapter representatives, along with other delegates voted to reduce our dues since we would no longer be sending part of our dues to SEIU in Washington, D.C.

Q: I read a Q&A written by a law firm that claimed we’ll lose money if we choose NUHW. Are they being truthful?

No. It is a total fabrication. Our existing wages, scheduled wage increases and existing benefits remain intact. Under the law there can be no changes unless we and Kaiser agree to any changes. SEIU’s pamphlet was written by the same attorneys who used legal tricks with the labor board to hold up our election for nine months. The NLRB just ruled that none of SEIU’s charges were valid. SEIU’s attorneys carefully worded the pamphlet to mislead us and create as much fear as possible.

Q: SEIU says Kaiser can change our wages if bargaining reaches an “impasse.” Is that true?

In the more than 25 years of bargaining with Kaiser, the professional chapters have never reached impasse. It is an insult to every one of us for SEIU-UHW to imply that the strongest units at Kaiser could fail to bargain a contract when we have successfully negotiated the best contracts with the same experienced NUHW negotiators and professional chapter leaders on our side.

Futhermore, a “lawful impasse” is a rare situation that can only be certified by the NLRB, and it requires that the employer has bargained in good faith.

Q: When do we start bargaining with Kaiser?

After we elect a rank-and-file bargaining team and meet with the membership to determine improvements we want to make. We will develop proposals and then notify Kaiser that we’re ready to start bargaining.

Q: Do we need a big Union to protect our contract?

SEIU didn’t win our contract. We did. We won together in Local 535, and we won in UHW until the trusteeship, because professional chapter leaders and members were in control. It’s always been about our power and our strength.

By contrast, since SEIU has taken over UHW, they have begun to gut our contract, by removing our elected stewards without a vote, giving away part of our retirement package against our will and without our knowledge, and made a backroom deal to lay off 1,800 of our co-workers. We cannot trust them with our contract.

In NUHW we’ll protect our wages and benefits just like we always have.

Q: What has SEIU done to our pension since they took over in January?

SEIU made a deal with Kaiser to cut our pension, forcing many workers to retire early. SEIU didn’t let us vote on whether we wanted to give up our benefits. Kaiser’s justification was that the stock market had dropped below 8,000, lowering the pension funds’ value. Now the market is back up to 10,400, but SEIU didn’t ask for any reinstatement of benefits when the market recovered. Joining NUHW is the only way to stop SEIU from making more deals like that.

Q: What has SEIU done to our job security since they took over in January?

SEIU eroded our job security rights by negotiating a lay-off agreement with Kaiser behind our backs. They allowed Kaiser to terminate on-calls instead of laying them off with recall rights, allowed Kaiser to move employees within 45 miles of their worksite or face termination, and allowed Kaiser to reduce the health insurance benefits of the employees taking severance. SEIU did not let workers vote before they signed this deal with Kaiser. They even denied the deal existed until NUHW got a copy and shared it with workers.

Q: Is it true that we could end up with no union?

The three options on the ballot are NUHW, SEIU, and No Union, and if there’s no clear majority then there will be a run-off between the top two. The only way we’ll have no union is if a majority of us – 50% plus 1 of those who vote — decide we don’t want a union.

Q: How do we know NUHW will be better than SEIU?

Because we are NUHW. Nearly 100% of the Professional Chapter leadership and officers who have worked side by side with the professionals for the past 25+ years, all support NUHW. Our union is not about the name, it is the people, their vision and commitment. We elect our stewards, bargaining teams, and union officers, and we vote on every agreement with Kaiser. SEIU-UHW has no constitution to protect member’s rights—SEIU officials can agree to anything and they don’t have to let us vote. NUHW is led by the same healthcare workers and experienced negotiators who won current our contract.

Q: What about the rest of Kaiser’s 50,000 union members?

A majority of all Kaiser workers chose NUHW in March, but SEIU delayed their elections with the labor board. Kaiser workers in other units are circulating a petition to join us in NUHW next summer.

Q: Why did SEIU officials from Washington, D.C. take over our union and remove the people we elected?

SEIU ordered our elected leaders to force 65,000 long-term care workers that worked in Northern California into the Southern California Homecare Workers Union, Local 6434, without a vote.

We said that we would only support the move if: 1. The workers got to vote on what union they were part of, and 2. Kaiser professionals and other healthcare workers would always have a direct voice in negotiations with employers, with no backroom deals by SEIU.

SEIU would not accept those terms, and our union was put in trusteeship because our leaders refused to give up our right to vote and our right to negotiate with employers openly and transparently.

To cover up for their actions, SEIU has repeatedly claimed that our local union stole an ever-changing amount of money—sometimes $6 million, sometimes $3 million, and most recently $500,000. No money was stolen.

The best way to face misinformation is to confront it with a serious dose of truth, and we get it here in spades.

Fred Ross to SEIU and SJHS: "What're Ya Afraid Of?"

2009-12-08T19:48:00.000-08:00

Fred Ross penned an open letter to the workers of SRMH this morning, and it is deserving of a full and complete read...

I met some of you for the first time in December 2004 at a rally with United Farm Workers co-founder Dolores Huerta, when she joined your call for St. Joseph Health System (SJHS) to negotiate ground rules for a free and fair election process. For the next four years, as an SEIU international organizer, I worked with you to build a powerful campaign that, by the fall of 2008, had convinced SJHS to sit down and negotiate.

But in March 2009, after ten years, I decided to leave SEIU. The tipping point came when I learned in February that the international union had decided in August 2008 to withdraw support for your campaign. This was at a critical moment. We had conducted our week of action in Orange County in July of that year at the SJHS motherhouse, and won unprecedented national publicity.

How did I find out that SEIU had withdrawn support for you when you needed it most? Last February, SEIU leaders from Washington took over its California healthcare local, SEIU-UHW. The campaign was suspended. Days later, over 200 SRMH workers were informed of impending layoffs. I offered to fight the layoffs alongside an experienced organizer who had spent two years on the campaign. However, this organizer was told by the new SEIU-UHW leadership, installed by Andy Stern, that SRMH workers were no longer a priority.

Several days later, a national leader of SEIU told me that SEIU could probably get a free and fair election agreement from SJHS by that June. I was shocked by what he admitted next: that the international union made a decision in August 2008 no longer to support workers at SJHS or put pressure on the system, because they did not want you to have the opportunity to vote for a union led by Sal Rosselli. SEIU broke faith and trust with you by deserting you when you most relied on them. This misconduct seriously undermined the opportunity you had to win a fair election agreement with SJHS in the fall of 2008.

Later in February, the international union learned that many of you had decided to form a union with NUHW. SEIU made a last-ditch appeal that I lead a campaign to win your trust. Because of SEIU’s breach of faith, I could no longer represent SEIU in good conscience.

I was disappointed but not surprised when SEIU rejected the offer of former Secretary of Labor Robert Reich and Monsignor Brenkle to mediate a fair election agreement, while NUHW accepted. Both SEIU and SJHS fear that if you have a free and fair election process – with no intimidation, retaliation, or negative campaigning – you will vote your conscience and select NUHW: the union whose leaders have stood by you for the past six years. SEIU’s actions have had the effect of encouraging SJHS to mount a very aggressive anti-union campaign.

I suppose none of this is any great secret, except for the acknowledgement that it always was SEIU's intent to undermine any advancements that may accrue to the benefit of UHW while Sal Rosselli was still in charge. This puts to the lie all of SEIU's propaganda in the months leading up to the Marshall hearings when they would proclaim to everyone who would listen that it was not their intent to break up UHW, when it was perfectly clear that is absolutely what SEIU's intent was. Mr. Ross then goes on to describe SEIU's track record of late...

SEIU has raised the issue of track record, so it is only fair to review its own recent track record. SEIU President Andy Stern is currently embroiled in costly, divisive battles on several fronts. He is waging a union-busting campaign against the union representing his own employees; he is fighting and raiding his former ally, UNITE HERE.

SEIU is bogged down in conflicts of its own making at a time when the labor movement has a once in a lifetime opportunity to make historic gains with the Obama Administration and a Democratic Congress. And now the labor movement is being tarnished, as numerous Stern protégés and appointees have been forced to resign amidst charges of rampant corruption.

Sadly, SEIU has chosen war with the former leaders of one of the most vibrant and successful healthcare unions in the country. Dissent has become equated with disloyalty.

SEIU – once the fastest growing union in the United States – has hit a wall. It has abandoned organizing campaigns at five major health systems around the country, after spending tens of millions of dollars, leaving pro-union activists vulnerable to management retaliation.

But ask Andy, and he'll tell you he's always about looking out for the common worker, right? Mr. Ross then goes on to describe what happens to those who deviate from The Purple Script...

Across California, prominent local leaders are joining in support of NUHW, because they know this California-based and member-led union will fight the hardest for healthcare workers. Stern’s trustee for SEIU-UHW, Dave Regan, has failed in his attempt to threaten and coerce Local 2 UNITE HERE! President Mike Casey into withdrawing his support for NUHW.

When SEIU tried the same bullying tactics on John Burton, California Democratic Party Chair and legendary champion of working people, it backfired. Burton publicly supported the character, integrity and leadership of Sal Rosselli. But SEIU reached a new low when it resorted to physical violence against the Vice President of the United Teachers of Los Angeles (UTLA) and other labor supporters of NUHW at a recent event in Los Angeles.

Not surprisingly, significant numbers of very talented staff have left SEIU. This represents a talent and idealism drain in the union that once was a beacon for idealistic young people.

Mr. Ross then closes with a very clear and concise description of the choice that lays ahead for our (future) colleagues at SRMH...

The danger, of course, is that your co-workers become discouraged and vote for neither union. It has been 39 years since I went to Delano to work for Cesar Chavez. I helped organize the successful campaign to defeat the all-powerful Teamsters in the 1970s.

Today you have an historic opportunity to cast your vote for NUHW, whose leaders have a long and proud track record of building a member driven union that has won voice in patient care, respect, and the highest benefits of any healthcare union west of the Mississippi. NUHW is organized and led by the people you know and trust. Workers in over 80 healthcare facilities and systems in California are in the process of joining NUHW because they want a union that they control themselves.

Keep your eyes on the prize. You can withstand SJHS’s anti-union campaign. You will overcome SEIU’s campaign of smear, fear and futility. By voting for NUHW, Memorial Employees will have the voice you need and deserve for yourselves and your patients. It will also send a powerful message to SJHS and SEIU and inspire workers in the rest of SJHS and in Catholic hospitals across this country.

Hopefully we can carry successfully this message from his pen to our actions out in the field.

SEIU Brings The Fear

2009-12-04T11:27:00.000-08:00

The ever-so-helpful people at Plague Central have decided to put out a presser indicating the Sturm und Drang that would befall us all should Kaiser workers kick Zombie UHW out of their bargaining units. So let's go through the release question-by-question, shall we?

Based on several questions received from members of the SEIU-UHW Kaiser Division Steward Council, the firm of Rothner, Segall, Greenstone and Leheny put together the following question-and-answer document regarding a potential decertification election among three units of Kaiser members. The information included is based on the National Labor Relations Act and precedential decisions of the National Labor Relations Board and the courts.
We hope that this document can be helpful in answering many of the questions you may have. Please feel free to pass this information on to all KDSC members, other SEIU-UHW leaders, and your fellow members.
Q: What happens to our contract if we vote to change unions?

A: If you vote to change unions, your current SEIU-UHW collective bargaining agreement becomes null and void as of the date that the results are tallied. If there are objections to the election, your current collective bargaining agreement will become null and void as of the date that the election results are certified.

Wrong answer, lawyer boy. After we vote in NUHW, federal labor law requires our employer to maintain the wages, benefits and other conditions of employment in our current contract. With the terms and conditions of that contract in place, we’ll sit down and bargain for the improvements that we want to make in our next contract. The National Labor Relations Board and the U.S. Supreme Court state that it’s illegal for an employer to unilaterally change the terms and conditions of our work after we select a union to represent us. Such actions would violate Section 8(a)(5) of the National Labor Relations Act. NLRB v. Katz, 369 U.S. 736, 743 (1962); Consolidated Printers, Inc., 305 NLRB 1061, 1067 (1992).

Q: How soon can we negotiate a new contract if we change unions?

A: That depends. If you change unions, your contract automatically terminates. While the employer would have a legal obligation to bargain with NUHW, there is no guarantee that this bargaining would result in a contract any time soon. In fact, you may not get a contract at all (on average, first-contract negotiations fail 44% of the time and only 38% succeed within one year ). Also, nothing can guarantee what the terms of a new contract would be. Given the ongoing economic crisis and takeaways Kaiser is imposing on non-union and management employees, if you give up guaranteed pay raises, healthcare and pensions by switching to NUHW, it is very possible you will not achieve the same level of wages and benefits.

You forgot to mention the takeaways that Kaiser is imposing on union membership - with your tacit blessing and agreement - and notwithstanding any votes taken by the membership.

Q: Why is NUHW telling people that if we change unions, NUHW will just take over our current contract, and everything is guaranteed to stay the same?

A: If no contract is in effect, the employer is required to maintain wages, benefits, and other conditions of employment in the prior contract until the parties bargain to impasse - that is, only until the parties have reached a stalemate and further bargaining over a new contract is futile. At that point, the employer is free to enforce its last offer, even if the terms of the offer are worse than those existing in the prior SEIU-UHW contract.

See the lawyer's response to the first question above, and compare it to this answer - they are dimetrically opposite. Either the standing contract remains in place after Zombie UHW is kicked to the curb, or it doesn't. You can't have it both ways.

Q: If we change unions, will we be able to take part in national negotiations with Kaiser management?

A: No. National negotiations are conducted by the Coalition of Kaiser Permanente Unions (CKPU), which represents more than 100,000 workers nationwide. As a member of the CKPU, SEIU-UHW participates fully in these negotiations, and all SEIU-UHW Kaiser agreements (including your current contract) are based on the national agreement. NUHW is not a member of the CKPU, does not participate in these negotiations, and would not be a signatory to the national agreement. Instead, NUHW would have to go it alone and bargain directly with management for three separate agreements for fewer than 2,500 Kaiser workers spread out over almost 100 worksites. Also, the Labor Management Partnership between the CKPU and Kaiser is governed by the national agreement. Because NUHW is not a member of the CKPU, NUHW members are not eligible to participate in the LMP or its initiatives.

Wrong, wrong and wrong. The moment that NUHW is recognized by one of its bargaining units, CKPU will admit NUHW as a member - unless, of course, SEIU or Zombie UHW unilaterally attempts to block NUHW's entrance into the Coalition. However, given the fact that the NUHW leadership is the group that actually put together both the CKPU and the LMP group, I'm thinking that NUHW will be the ones joining the coalition and it will be SEIU who will be "going it alone."

Q: If we change unions, could I lose the upcoming raises and performance payments that are scheduled in our SEIU-UHW contract?

A: Yes. Although the employer is required to maintain terms and conditions of employment while it bargains with the new union, if impasse is reached, it can enforce its last offer. Hence, if the parties reach impasse prior to a scheduled wage raise, and the employer's last offer does not include the wage raise, the once-guaranteed wage raise would disappear.

Pick one and go with it, shyster! Either the existing contract is in force upon a bargaining unit change, therefore bargained wage increases stay in place, or it isn't. There isn't going to be a unilateral declaration of impasse before bargaining starts with NUHW (as that is a sure-fire way to lose an arbitration), and because of the contract bar language such negotiations are not going to take place until less than eight months prior to expiry of the existing contract. Unless, of course, Zombie UHW tries to rush through an extension of the existing contract. Which would then be in force until it expires, no matter the bargaining unit. Or not. (Sorry, I just can't follow the Zombie UHW lawyer's logic path)

Q: Are my current health/retirement benefits guaranteed if we change unions?

A: No. Like wages, health and retirement benefits are terms and conditions of employment that an employer must maintain only until it bargains to impasse. Once impasse is reached, an employer may enforce its last offer, even if it contains terms and conditions which are worse than the previous contract.

See above regarding impasse.

Q: Could we end up with no union?

A: Yes. In an election, the choices would be SEIU-UHW, no union, or NUHW. If neither union wins a majority vote, there will be no union at all. If no union wins, not only is your contract is null and void but your employer will be allowed to set wages and working conditions without bargaining with anyone. Additionally, all employees will be at-will, since there will be no grievance procedure or requirement that the employer have just cause to discipline or discharge an employee.

Bull, and shit. In a three-way election, if there is no clear majority expressed, a run-off election is conducted 30 days hence with the top two vote-getters going forth. There is no way a "no union" vote is going to win at Kaiser, unless SEIU sides with KP management to achieve that end (see posts below regarding SRMH for more Zombie UHW background on that).

Q: If we change unions, can we still appeal firings, layoffs, or other unfair employer actions to an independent arbitrator?
A: No. Arbitration would not be available to resolve disputes arising while no contract is in effect. SEIU-UHW could only pursue arbitration of grievances that arose under its contract before it became null and void.

Oh joy, we're back to the "contract will disappear instantaneously" line. I really do wish they'd pick a position and stick with it.

Folks, this stuff is tiring, but the tactics are clear - it is SEIU's wish to scare the living shit out of its membership, such that they can maintain their control. They are using fear and misinformation in order to (IMHO) terrorize common, everyday workers into trusting them with their money and their collective future. This is not the behavior of a strong and progressive and powerful union, but more similar to the behavior of a cult.

The NUHW website says it best:

Q: Why are SEIU organizers using scare tactics?

A: Think about it. The SEIU organizers have little to rely on besides scare tactics. SEIU UHW-W is run by trustees who don’t even come from California
and have absolutely zero experience in bargaining with our employers.
The few contracts that they’ve negotiated are vastly inferior to contracts bargained by the old local. What kind of track record is that? Furthermore, virtually all of the trusted staff from the old local have quit their jobs because they want to be part of NUHW – a union of trusted leaders who have decades of experience and a proven track record of winning industry-leading contracts for healthcare workers.

Fear has NEVER been a good long-term motivator. It's too bad that a once-great union has tumbled to this.

Anatomy Of A SEIU Raid

2009-12-04T09:08:00.000-08:00

Go forth and give this document from UNITE/HERE a read, and see how many SEIU traits are also being reflected at Zombie UHW.

Inactions Have Consequences, Updated

2009-12-04T08:44:00.000-08:00

In a previous post, I had noted how SEIU, by their unwillingness to discuss election ground rules, was acting as a pro-management and anti-union front in the upcoming SRMH election. Randy Shaw at BeyondChron also made note of that in an article published on December 2nd.

Another wrinkle came up in this whole mess regarding a group called "Catholic Scholars for Worker Justice (h/t to SternBurger), in which SEIU got together with the Catholic Scholars and other groups back in May of 2009 to push Congress to pass EFCA. SEIU was quite proud of this alliance, so much so that SEIU pushed this very same meeting out on its own blog as well.

Fast forward 6-1/2 months, and the Catholic Scholars have noted that SEIU isn't exactly living up to the message it was attempting to send back in May, and they're further displeased with St. Joseph management for going along with SEIU's plans...

December 3, 2009
Mr. Kevin A. Klockenga

President and Chief Executive Officer

St. Joseph Health System Sonoma County

Sent Via Email

Dear Mr. Klockenga,

In your letter of Oct. 5, 2009 to Catholic Scholars for Worker Justice you explained that “SRMH leadership was scheduled to meet with NUHW officials to attempt to reach mutually agreed-upon ground rules for a future election.” We in CSWJ rejoiced in this statement since it demonstrated a new openness on the part of SJHS to improve labor relations and it was the first concrete application of the joint USCCB, CHA, and labor union document, “Respecting the Just Rights of Workers: Guidance and Options for Catholic Healthcare and Unions.”

We have followed developments in this matter and are disappointed that SEIU refused to attend a meeting with SJHS and NUHW to decide upon ground rules for an election. We believe, however, that you still had a moral obligation to meet with NUHW since the interests of the workers should not be held hostage to one party who refuses to attend a meeting. Simply meeting with a union to discuss ground rules in no way constitutes an endorsement of that union by SJHS. In the name of the common good, we urge you to meet at the earliest possible moment with NUHW to discuss ground rules for the last two weeks of the campaign. SEIU should, of course, be invited but it they refuse to attend we urge you to schedule the meeting anyway.

In addition, we are deeply alarmed at reports that SJHS has reverted to an earlier form of behavior and is actively seeking to bust the union movement at Santa Rosa. It is a violation of Catholic Social Teaching on workers’ rights for an employer to demonstrate anti-union sentiments. The decision for or against a union is rooted in the natural right of free association and the employer may under no circumstances violate or denigrate this right through actions or conversations with workers that have a clear anti-union prejudice. Accordingly, we call upon Saint Joseph Health System to cease its anti-union campaign and to follow the norms that are set forth in Respecting the Just Rights of Workers: Guidance and Options for Catholic Healthcare and Unions.

Sincerely yours,

JOSEPH J. FAHEY

Chairperson, Catholic Scholars for Worker Justice

Now, the average SEIU patron is either going to mumble something about "that was then this is now" or proclaim that SEIU has to save the poor workers at SRMH from the evil that is NUHW because, well, NUHW disagrees with SEIU.

Still, it's pretty clear now that SEIU would rather workers have NO union, rather than to be affiliated with a competitor - even one that may be (by SEIU's own description) broke, ineffective, wheels falling off, bla-bla-blah. Zombie UHW basically cannot point to any accomplishments in the past nine months, because it has none. All of the contracts at Sutter were negotiated prior to the trusteeship (by NUHW), and all of the Kaiser agreements negotiated after the trusteeship have been complete and total fiascos.

What's amazing to me is that anyone wonders why SEIU is the Manager's Choice in a union election.

Spin Cycle - NLRB Announcement Edition

2009-12-02T17:19:00.000-08:00

Not surprisingly, each side has come out with a presser in the wake of yesterday's NLRB ruling. The text of the NLRB ruling can be found here.

It's not hard to figure out how NUHW feels about the decision...

More than 2,300 healthcare professionals at dozens of Kaiser Permanente facilities across Southern California will soon vote to leave SEIU and join NUHW.

A majority of the workers filed petitions to join NUHW in February, but SEIU delayed the election by filing frivolous charges which were rejected yesterday afternoon in a ruling by the National Labor Relations Board. The election should be scheduled within 42 days.

“We’re joining NUHW because we want democracy and integrity in our union again,” said Jim Clifford, MS, a therapist at Kaiser San Diego. “SEIU has made deals behind our backs to cut our pension and lay off 1,800 of our co-workers. We’ve been waiting months for the chance to join NUHW and put members in charge of our union again.”

Clifford and 74 other workplace leaders signed a letter to their colleagues announcing the election and urging a vote for NUHW.

NUHW was founded by SEIU reformers in January and sparked a mass exodus from the troubled union. The movement for an independent union stems from efforts by the SEIU’s top Washington, D.C. officials to make secret deals with employers and push healthcare workers out of negotiations.

A majority of 100,000 caregivers at some 360 hospitals, clinics, and nursing homes have taken action to join NUHW, including more than 45,000 other Kaiser employees who are circulating a petition to quit SEIU next summer.

For its part, Zombie UHW sent out a presser stating that all of us in Kaiser are doomed, DOOMED!!!! because of the decision...

A decision issued today by a regional director of the National Labor Relations Board (NLRB) has put at risk the guaranteed raises, healthcare coverage, and pensions of Kaiser Permanente RNs, social workers, and professionals in Southern California.
"We have worked for years to achieve standards at Kaiser that give us security and allow us to provide the professional care our patients need," said Jeanette Cryer, Licensed Clinical Social Worker at Kaiser Corona/Riverside Psychiatry. "This decision puts all of that at risk and holds out the real threat that we will lose what we've fought so hard to achieve."

The decision by James F. Small of Region 21 of the NLRB to call for a union election among those professional employees could nullify the currently negotiated contracts covering the workers. Those agreements provide for a 2% raise in April, and profit-sharing that many of these workers are scheduled to receive in early 2010 and again in 2011.

Nullification of the agreements would put these guaranteed benefits at risk. It also opens the workers up to cuts in healthcare coverage and pensions that Kaiser has already imposed on managers and non-union employees. In all, each individual worker could lose as much as $15,000 in guaranteed income and benefits over the next two years.

The NLRB decision, which runs counter to a decision by the NLRB in northern California, calls for an election between the workers' current representative, the Service Employees International Union, United Healthcare Workers West, and an organization run by the union's former leaders, who have formed an organization called the National Union of Healthcare Workers. The former SEIU-UHW officials were ousted in January for transferring $3 million in members' dues to a bogus non-profit organization for their own use, stashing another $500,000 in a lawyer's bank account, and undermining the democratic rights of SEIU-UHW members.

SEIU-UHW will seek review of this decision by the NLRB in Washington.

I suppose the SEIU position is the result of a basic misunderstanding of labor law, that being that when representative bodies change, the existing contract stays the same. SEIU will now try to convince some of the KaiPerm workers in SoCal that every little bit of their contract will suddenly go --poof-- once NUHW is elected, and that is a flat-out lie.

And SEIU knows it is.

No matter. I'm just waiting for SEIU to try to appeal the NLRB ruling on the same basic grounds that NUHW did back in June when NUHW's initial petition was rejected by NLRB because of contract bar. They can practically take NUHW's brief and that case and just insert "Zombie UHW" where it says NUHW, and it'll be darn near complete. And it will also be a darn near complete failure.

Clock's ticking, plaguesters!

NLRB to SEIU: Time to Vote!

2009-12-01T18:24:00.000-08:00

This just in from the NUHW KaiPerm director:

Some really great news today. We just won an important decision from the NLRB. The NLRB notified us today that they are ordering an election for the three Chapters in Southern California. The Kaiser bargaining units are:

1. AFN (Registered Nurses at Los Angeles Medical Center)
2. Psych-Social Chapter in the Southern California Region (Medical Social Workers, Psychologists etc.)
3. Health Care Professionals (Health Educators, Dietitians, Speech Pathologists, and Audiologists)

Good news all around.

I hope SEIU has a big bullpen, because they're gonna need quite a few egg-throwers in the upcoming month or so.

Inactions Have Consequences

2009-12-01T16:15:00.000-08:00

When Zombie UHW decided not to agree to ground rules regarding campaigning in the SRMH election (in contravention to a stated policy desired by St. Joseph Health Systems), those of us on the Red Side knew that inaction on Zombie UHW's part would have downstream consequences on management conduct in future elections.

Unfortunately, St. Joseph and SRMH took the bait and used that inaction for this upcoming election as well...

(click on the image to enlarge)

Keyser at Red Revolt does a top-to-bottom takedown of this particular piece of trash, but I cannot help but think that Brave Sir Regan and Esquirol Medina are grinning deep and large at this flyer and are hoping against all hope that the SRMH workers decide (in less than three weeks) to go the no-union route.

What kind of labor organization would stand by and actively assist management in defeating a union election in a previously non-union facility?

One word, four letters: S-E-I-U.

SEIU: Stolen Election, Illegitimate Union

2009-12-01T16:08:00.000-08:00

John Burton: Enemy Of The State

2009-11-24T16:18:00.001-08:00

Confirmation from another source that The Plague has decided John Burton is now on Andy's Enemies List due to Burton's support of NUHW in general, and Sal Rosselli in particular...

California Democratic Party Chairman John Burton says one of the state's most politically powerful unions has threatened to cut off funding for the party over his support for a group that has broken away from the labor organization.

The rift could drive a wedge between the party and one of its most generous donors. The state council of the Service Employees International Union has directed $700,000 to the Democratic Party since 2007 and millions more to Democratic candidates and causes.

Burton said SEIU’s California president, Bill Lloyd, made the threat as Burton was set to appear last week at a San Francisco fundraiser for the splinter group, the National Union of Healthcare Workers.

"They threatened me," said the 76-year-old Burton.

The roadside is littered with politicians and union officials who have made such threats to John Burton. He was actually somewhat understated in his public response to this threat...

Burton said that he was championing union workers "when [SEIU's national president] Andy Stern was in college." He hailed the breakaway union's leader, Sal Rosselli, as a lifelong friend and “one of the strongest labor leaders in this state.”

Translation: "I crap bigger than you."

When asked about this threat, SEIU's spokespunkette tried desperately to backfill, and failed miserably...

Mary Gutierrez, a spokeswoman for SEIU’s state council, would neither confirm nor deny any warning from Lloyd to Burton. “Formal discussions haven’t been had with our board," which would have to vote to cut off funding, she said.

Translation: "So, you see, we're not really gonna do it, we've just talked about it, but we really can't do it until we take a vote on it, and we don't know if we're gonna vote on it, so..."

No matter. SEIU can donate to the CA Democratic party, or not donate. Burton knows this is already functionally a one-party state, even if SEIU does not, so there is minimal (if any) leverage to be gained by leaning on him in this manner. This is made even more foolish by the fact that other unions in CA, such as UNITE/HERE, Teamsters, UFW, UTLA, and others, will now be more than happy to increase their per diems in order to make up for SEIU's shortfall.

Just keep scoring them own goals, Andy.

If I Worked For Zombie UHW...

2009-11-23T20:43:00.000-08:00

...I'd drink on the job, too.

You can find out more about Oriana Saportas on her LinkedIn page...

Props to SternBurger for catching this one.

Prosit!

Introducing...Sternburger With Fries

2009-11-20T13:35:00.000-08:00

Just recently passed along to us is a new entrant in the ongoing BlogWar against SEIU, SternBurger With Fries. They have more lowdown on the "Wrong Number" that the Providence Tarzana workers received when they protested SEIU's hijacking of their vote, and they also have a report on what happens when Zombie UHW brings 45 pizzas to a protest but no protesters show up to eat said pizza.

Enjoy, and a welcome shout-out to SternBurger.

SEIU's Egg-Cellent Adventure

2009-11-18T17:52:00.000-08:00

The folks at Labor Notes were evidently on hand to witness SEIU's pathetic attempt at intimidation at the NUHW forum last night down in Los Angeles. Here's their view on what went down...

To get to a public forum featuring speakers from the National Union of Healthcare Workers (NUHW) yesterday, attendees in Los Angeles had to pass a demonstration of a few hundred SEIU staffers and members who had arrived on buses.

The SEIUers chanted, beat on drums, and threw eggs and water bottles in an unsuccessful effort to intimidate people from attending. One attendee said SEIU was only making more enemies. For others it recalled SEIU’s failed attempt to invade the Labor Notes Conference in Dearborn in April 2008.

Nonetheless, NUHW is gaining allies in Southern California. The forum drew 100 union leaders and rank and filers from at least seven unions and a number of community organizations. It was organized to introduce NUHW to a broader audience, share the story of the union’s remarkable breakaway from SEIU and its plans for tremendous growth, and garner both political and financial support for the 10-month-old union.

The forum was held at the headquarters of the Los Angeles Teachers union (UTLA). Josh Pechthalt, UTLA vice president, said he was glad the teachers union had hosted NUHW, despite threats by SEIU that there would be “war” if UTLA hosted the event. SEIU threatened to come after charter school teachers UTLA is trying to organize, according to Pechthalt. UTLA refused to buckle, and the room burst into applause.

Barbara Lewis, a former leader of United Healthcare Workers-West (UHW) before it was trusteed by SEIU and now a leader of NUHW, explained that the old UHW was one of the most successful unions in SEIU by every measure: in organizing new members, achieving among the highest contract standards for health care workers in the country, and building member-run union structures at the worksites.

She said most SEIU locals had failed in these areas, and rather than develop a better plan for achieving success, Stern and his inner circle abandoned building a member-driven union and opted for a top-down, corporate model of unionism.

Michael Torres, a hospital worker and NUHW leader at USC Medical Center, explained how he became disillusioned with SEIU when he and other bargaining committee members learned that top SEIU officials were meeting secretly to work out a new contract behind the backs of the elected bargaining committee.
Many NUHW rank-and-file activists from various hospitals spoke movingly of their fight to get elections set at their facilities so they can get out of SEIU and formally join NUHW.

Strong solidarity between NUHW and the hotel union UNITE HERE was evident at the forum. Many rank-and-file leaders from both unions were in the audience, and Susan Minato, executive vice president of UNITE HERE Local 11, was one of the main speakers. She explained that shortly after the merger of the textile and laundry union UNITE with HERE in 2004, they began seeing then-President Bruce Raynor cutting backroom deals to sell out members.

Minato said Raynor, now an SEIU VP, and Stern have waged a merciless war on UNITE HERE, attempting but largely failing to raid UNITE HERE members all over the country.

NUHW Interim President Sal Rosselli showed a video about what he said were SEIU’s violations of the law in an election between the two unions in Fresno earlier this year.

Home health care workers explained that an SEIU representative came to their doors, took their ballots, and instructed them to mark the SEIU box or face loss of their job and benefits. (Former SEIU staffers are now saying that they systematically violated union election law, taking ballots out of some workers’ mailboxes and even threatening to have them deported if they did not vote for SEIU.)

NUHW has filed charges with the Public Employment Relations Board on these violations, and Rosselli believes the election will be overturned and rerun.
Others in attendance at the forum were from AFSCME, UAW, IATSE, and SEIU Local 721.

It was only a matter of time before the Dearborn charge came out.

Let's see now how the Zombies try to spin this disaster into a Glorious Victory For Union Democracy.

"Wrong Number"

2009-11-18T14:48:00.000-08:00

A group of Providence Tarzana EVS workers went to the SEIU/SWU offices in Los Angeles in order to request that their duly cast votes be counted.

SEIU's response: "Uh, I think you have the wrong number."

Pitiful, ain't it? They're treating workers like bill collectors.

First Came The Chicken...

2009-11-18T11:23:00.000-08:00

...and then came the eggs. From a SoCal reader:

We now have the answer to the age old question: what came first? the chicken or the egg??

November 16 the chicken appeared at the NUHW fundraiser in SF.
BUT tonight, the EGG appeared at the LA NUHW fundraiser.

As guests were coming in, SEIU-UHW zombies threw EGGS at several guests. The chicken was no where to be seen, but the eggs were flying.

Another brillant move: one of the "guests" who was egged was the vice president of the United Teachers Los Angeles (UTLA), one of the largest unions in Southern California that hosted the event at their union hall.

The zombies were relegated to the side walk down the street from the main entrance to the building, and police tape blocked them from picketing in front of the actual entrance.
They did have blaring lights that they flashed from the distance as people where walking in. If anyone attending the event was "nuetral", seiu's behavior changed all that when several guests walked in shocked at seiu's behavior.

I'm almost depressed at the level to which Zombie UHW has sunk in the last two weeks.

UPDATE @ 5:27 p.m.: Randy Shaw has weighed in on SEIU's egg-o-grams...

The text reads as follows:

One night after withdrawing its support for the California Democratic Party and picketing progressive politicians and labor leaders in San Francisco, SEIU threw eggs at those attending an event honoring NUHW in Los Angeles. Among those hit were the Vice President of the United Teachers of Los Angeles, the union whose support for NUHW led SEIU to threaten to organize teachers in charter schools (not that SEIU has any staff available to implement such a threat). NUHW supporters from UNITE HERE Local 11 were also targets of eggs and water bottles, with reports that one organizer was “roughed up” as they tried to enter the event. Meanwhile, the LA County Federation of Labor rebuffed SEIU’s threats to withdraw its funding -- a threat it has also made in San Francisco and the North Bay -- as each member voted to raise its per capita contribution to make up for SEIU’s withdrawal. Through its tactics, SEIU is unifying the labor movement -- against it.

Just keep winning friends and influencing people, plaguesters.

The New Face of SEIU-UHW

2009-11-17T14:45:00.000-08:00

See the poll question to your right regarding whether Zombie UHW now deserves a better nickname.

Considering their reluctance to face an up-or-down vote, I'm thinking that "Chicken UHW" is a much better nickname for UHW.

SEIU's War On Everything...

2009-11-17T13:08:00.000-08:00

Well, that's pretty much how it seems of late, if one were to read the latest from BeyondChron's Randy Shaw...

When 2009 began, SEIU was generally recognized as the nation’s most powerful union, and Andy Stern was likely the best-known and most politically prominent U.S. labor leader. Barack Obama’s election appeared to usher in a new era of labor union growth, with SEIU and its Change to Win Labor Federation poised for tremendous gains.

But SEIU chose a different course. A week after Obama’s inauguration it put its third largest local, SEIU-UHW, in trusteeship, spawning a year long fight with its former leadership, who now operate under NUHW.

By April, SEIU had intensified raids against UNITE HERE, creating a bitter war with its once closest union ally. SEIU failed to force UNITE HERE to surrender and affiliate with SEIU, and its raids triggered angry denunciations from fellow labor leaders and the effective demise of Change to Win.

Now, rather than repairing its relations with labor, SEIU is escalating the fight. Its protest last night of longtime allies like John Burton, who has done more for labor and SEIU than any living politician, shows that SEIU is clearly feeling a siege mentality.

SEIU’s decision to withdraw funding from the California Democratic Party in response to Burton’s support for NUHW typifies the union’s self-destructive strategy. SEIU’s state employees depend on Democrats to protect them in Sacramento, so defunding State Party campaigns to elect Democrats is self-defeating. And when I suggested to Burton that he could probably make up the funds by calling the many international labor leaders who have criticized Stern, he replied that he had “already started calling them last week.”

And while SEIU withdraws funding from the Democratic Party and battles the labor movement, the campaign for the Employee Free Choice Act (EFCA) – once among SEIU’s top priorities – seems forgotten. The Center for Union Facts and other anti-EFCA forces have used SEIU’s blocking of worker elections in California as a prime argument, and even sympathetic politicians are reluctant to wage war on behalf of a divided labor movement.

I personally cannot believe that SEIU is going to try to pick a fight within the CA Democratic party with John Burton. This is a larger-than-life figure for the CA Donks, and he is notorious for holding a grudge against those who, in his perception, have slighted him. Either SEIU thinks they are so large and powerful that the CA Donks will come crawling back, or SEIU's leaders are just so Beltway-centric that they don't know who are the movers and the shakers out here in California.

Myself, I'm betting on the latter, with a pretty good garnish of the former to top it off.

But of course, SEIU pissing off the entire labor movement is old news. Evidently the Purple Plague has found themselves a new and enticing target: Boy Scouts.

In pursuit of an Eagle Scout badge, Kevin Anderson, 17, has toiled for more than 200 hours hours over several weeks to clear a walking path in an east Allentown park.

Little did the do-gooder know that his altruistic act would put him in the cross hairs of the city's largest municipal union.

Nick Balzano, president of the local Service Employees International Union, told Allentown City Council Tuesday that the union is considering filing a grievance against the city for allowing Anderson to clear a 1,000-foot walking and biking path at Kimmets Lock Park.

"We'll be looking into the Cub Scout or Boy Scout who did the trails," Balzano told the council.

Balzano said Saturday he isn't targeting Boy Scouts. But given the city's decision in July to lay off 39 SEIU members, Balzano said "there's to be no volunteers." No one except union members may pick up a hoe or shovel, plant a flower or clear a walking path.

"We would hope that the well-intentioned efforts of an Eagle Scout candidate would not be challenged by the union," said Mayor Ed Pawlowski in an e-mail Friday. "This young man is performing a great service to the community. His efforts should be recognized as such."

Balzano said Saturday the union is still looking into the matter and might cut the city a break.

"We are probably going to let this one go," Balzano said .

Oh, that's nice. SEIU "might cut the city a break." How magnanimous of them.

This is a 17-year-old kid who has put in 200 hours of his own time to try to clear a path which has fallen into disrepair, and SEIU can only say they are "probably going to let this one go."

But that's not to miss the full-on threat that the SEIU thug made farther up in the article:

"We'll be looking into the Cub Scout or Boy Scout who did the trails," Balzano told the council.

If one of my kids was doing this kind of volunteer work on a public parkway and someone from SEIU publicly proclaimed in a city council meeting that they would be "looking into the Cub Scout or Boy Scout who did the trails," that SEIU leader would then very quickly find himself and his thug compatriots looking into the barrel of my deer rifle.

SEIU seriously needs to check itself.

According to Facebook...

2009-11-16T20:17:00.000-08:00

Here's a quick report from Facebook by an attendee at the Fund for Union Democracy fundraiser tonight in San Francisco:

Seiu is picketing nuhw fundraiser and one of them is wearing a chicken suit. What's wrong with this pic

Seriously, it's come to this for Zombie UHW?

Well, some of the comments are just brutal...

Nothing at all. They are all a bunch of chicken shit M F's

Such losers the sfpd just made them leave

It is fitting that they are wearing the chicken suit. They are chicken to let the members vote. You know what they say, if the suit fits..

did they mange to get members to show up or was it the guys who stand out in front of home depot looking for work again?

What this says is that seiu is scared. they keep saying that nuhw is not a threat and irrellevant, but they organizing picketing and marching in a chicken suit. if nuhw is not having any success or effect, they wouldnt be out there. be encouraged...

Still, come on: A chicken suit?

What, was the Gorilla suit checked out? Couldn't decide which member of Zombie UHW was going to be the head and which was going to be the butt of the mule suit?

Another outstanding example of our dues money being put to good use, folks.

Oy.....

Anti-Union Group Asks for Investigation of Andy...

2009-11-16T19:44:00.000-08:00

The Alliance for Worker Freedom and Americans For Tax Reform have sent a letter to the acting United States Attorney for the District of Columbia, as well as the Clerk of the House of Representatives and the Secretary of the U.S. Senate, requesting an investigation into unregistered lobbying activity conducted by Our Glorious Maximum Leader during his multitudinous visits to Casa Obama after The One took office in January of 2009...

By this letter, we urge you to investigate the activities of Mr. Andy Stern, President of the Service Employees International Union (SEIU), regarding meetings and other lobbying contacts with administration, White House and Congress during 2009. Specifically, it is important to determine whether those and related activities could constitute unregistered “lobbying” by Mr. Stern in violation of the Lobbying Disclosure Act (LDA), 2 U.S.C. 1601, et seq. In fact, Mr. Stern was a registered lobbyist for SEIU until January of 2007 when he terminated his registration. For the reasons discussed below it appears that Mr. Stern continued to lobby extensively after he terminated his registered status, and in 2009 devoted so much time on lobbying and related activities that he should have re-registered as a lobbyist under LDA.

Failure to file accurate reports or to register under LDA is a violation of the Act, which provides for civil penalties of up to $200,000 and criminal penalties of up to 5 years in prison. Reports must be filed electronically with the Clerk of the House and Secretary of the Senate. Responsibility for enforcement of the Act rests with the U.S. Attorney for the District of Columbia, under 2 U.S.C. 1605. In addition, the Government Accountability Office is required under the LDA to conduct random audits of filers. It does not appear that there has been an audit of the SEIU reports.

Therefore, we urge you to immediately investigate Mr. Stern’s activities, detailed below, to assess whether a violation of the LDA has occurred and if so, what appropriate enforcement actions should be taken.

Now, it's no surprise that Andy was going to be a frequent visitor to 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue, considering the amount of our union dues that were (IMHO unnecessarily) contributed toward getting The One elected.

However, the law is (at least theoretically) the law, and should apply equally to all citizens no matter their rank or station in life.

With that said, I'm sure that each and every one of Stern's visits to Casa Obama and Capitol Hill were perfectly social in nature, and had no illegal lobbying activity conducted whatsoever. And I'm also sure that Andy will be able to produce oodles of witnesses who would claim just that.

Whether the average reader of this blog agrees with the goals of AWF or ATR or not, I think it appropriate to let everyone know that our dues money is now going to start getting used for a legal defense for Andy Stern because he was either too G-D lazy, or too G-D arrogant, to properly register himself as a lobbyist prior to pestering everyone who would listen about Health Care Reform.

The Enemy Of My Enemy...

2009-11-16T15:55:00.000-08:00

Okay, I suppose it's time to let folks know where I stand on this issue.

There have been some concerns raised in the comments and via E-mail, particularly in the SEIU's Game of Risk posting, that some of the links will lead readers to sites that are, to the thought processes of some people, of less than acceptable pedigree when it comes to progressive thinking.

To me, information is information, and as such it should carry no political litmus test.

Whether or not you disagree with the stance that the author of Fresh Juice takes with unions, the plain fact of the matter is that the post to which I linked was immaculately sourced, contained a link to an internal SEIU document that SEIU obviously did not want publicized (supplied by another less-than-progressive website), and quite clearly explained the point better than I could have given the resources and time at my current disposal.

I make no bones about my opposition to SEIU, in all forms that it takes. In my opinion, SEIU has long outlived its usefulness in this society, and needs to be blown up and started over.

But right now, most of the people who carry that frame of mind can be put into two camps - those (like Labor Pains and others) who oppose unions in general, and those (like the NUHW partisans) who oppose SEIU in particular. The bulk of the anti-SEIU newsgathering is being conducted by those in the former camp, primarily because the Lamestream Media is too busy trying to error-check whether or not Sarah Palin really thinks Todd Palin is hawt.

I personally have no problem at all collecting information from ANY source, liberal or conservative or somewhere in between, if that source would serve to document and display the utter and rank hyporcisy, not to mention the borderline criminal activity, coming out of Dupont Circle. I do not apply any kind of progressive (or conservative) litmus test to any links. Rather, I read and judge each link to determine whether or not it is a) cogent; and b) properly sourced, prior to commenting and/or linking to it.

Furthermore, I trust the readers of ¡AA! to be able to make such distinctions, and to keep them in mind, should they choose to follow the links as well.

This fight that we are in cannot be won by using Marquess of Queensbury rules.

To those of you who would wish that I avoid linking to sites that aren't Perfectly Progressive, I regret to inform you that your wish in that regard will go unfulfilled. Because until such time as MSNBC or CNN or The Nation or other similarly "palatable" nationwide sources take off their purple blinders, I have to fight with the weapons to which I have access.

Thatisall.

SEIU's Game Of Risk

2009-11-14T08:58:00.000-08:00

With this new front being opened in the SEIU War of the Worlds, I thought it would be helpful to have a handy diagram of just where SEIU is fighting its battles and against whom they fight. Fortunately, the folks at Labor Pains have been able to provide a handy map that quite accurately portrays Andy's order of battle:

(click on the map to enlarge)

Another layout of the current troubles that we all face with Andy's Army can be found at the Fresh Juice blog, which has the following to say:

The National Union of Healthcare Workers (NUHW) has charged the SEIU with intimidating immigrants in a recent Fresno union election. NUHW has been seeking to break away from the undemocratic SEIU. According to the NUHW, SEIU has engaged in violence and worker intimidation. They are not the only victim of SEIU’s plundering. It is no wonder that the SEIU is pushing to eliminate secret ballot elections (designed to prevent this very kind of coercion) by backing Card Check Forced Unionization (the perversely named “Employee Free Choice Act”).

NUHW has been seeking to break away from the undemocratic SEIU’s top-down-control structure. NUHW accuses the SEIU of using scare tactics and violence to keep workers from voting to leave SEIU, and of illegally coercing Bank of America into giving the SEIU an $88 million credit line (despite federal law prohibiting financial ties between employers and unions attempting to organize their employees). Their latest complaint alleges that the SEIU intimidated immigrant workers – coming to their homes several times a day, questioning their legal status, and threatening deportation or loss of wages and benefits if they voted to leave SEIU. “It’s disturbing to watch SEIU eat its own like this,” says NUHW’s attorney.

NUHW is not SEIU’s only victim. Elsewhere, SEIU is besieging breakaway rival UNITE HERE. SEIU has spent millions attacking rivals who accuse it of strong-arm tactics, including coercion, threats, and harassment. Why is SEIU doing this? They are after plunder – “prime Manhattan real estate, considerable cash reserves and a majority stake in Amalgamated Bank in New York, which has more than $4 billion in assets.”

SEIU’s intimidation tactics make clear that they are pushing to eliminate secret ballot elections because it facilitates their piracy. SEIU’s tactics give lie to their recently leaked talking points that claim we need “employee free choice” (election-free union intimidation) because “working families” (code name for unions) are being victimized by “a company-dominated system” that “denies workers a free choice” (secret ballot elections designed to prevent intimidation). Even their fellow unions make it clear that SEIU is an anti-democratic organization that threatens and intimidates working families – the neighborhood bully.

Those "talking points" referred to above are an indication of what pro-EFCA people should say when confronted by opposition to EFCA. Needless to say, what they say on the "yes" side of the ledger, they would typically say "no" to when dealing with NUHW...

I particularly like, in the "yes" column, the entry that says that we need to make sure that "workers can have a free choice to join together in a union without management interference or intimidation." Another good one is their claim that the "company dominated system we have today" is one that "denies the workers a free choice." I'm sure, of course, that SEIU and the Zombies will fully and completely implement those precepts in the upcoming vote at SRMH, right? (/sarc)

One other note to the Plague - if you ever put on a document...

FOR INTERNAL USE ONLY - NOT FOR DISTRIBUTION

...all you are doing is guaranteeing that it gets external use, and will be distributed as widely as possible - and not in any way that you would like. The 'tubes are like that, ya know?

Bombs Away!

2009-11-12T17:51:00.000-08:00

Get ready to get your read on, as NUHW has put out the filing that they placed with the CalPERB on Monday, and it brings the goods against Zombie UHW in a BIG way...

The summary goes like this:

SUMMARY: SEIU’s ALLEGED MISCONDUCT DURING FRESNO COUNTY HOMECARE WORKERS’ ELECTION IN JUNE OF 2009
Homecare workers and SEIU staff members report that SEIU committed serious violations of election laws during the recent union-representation election by 10,000 homecare workers in Fresno County. The following is a summary of SEIU‟s alleged misconduct during the mail-in, secret-ballot election conducted by a government agency from June 1-15, 2009. This summary recaps evidence recently submitted by NUHW to California‟s Public Employees Relations Board.

1. Ballot Tampering: SEIU staffers violated the integrity of the election process and the principle of “ballot secrecy” by committing the following actions:
a. SEIU staffers handled and filled out voters‟ secret ballots;
b. SEIU staffers “rifled” voters‟ mailboxes and opened envelopes containing voters‟ unmarked secret ballots and election instructions;
c. Rather than allowing voters to mark their secret ballots in privacy, SEIU staffers pressured voters to mark their ballots while SEIU staffers directly observed them;
d. SEIU “established and communicated to campaign staff a policy encouraging the campaign staff not only to obtain possession of ballots from voters, but to actually mark or alter such ballots where the voters had previously voted for NUHW.”
e. In at least one case, SEIU staffers intentionally marked the ballot of an illiterate voter against her direct instructions. SEIU staffers marked the worker‟s ballot to indicate a vote for SEIU even though she asked to vote for NUHW;
f. One homecare worker “reported that a [SEIU] campaign worker not only removed [her] ballot from her mailbox, but then pressured her to mark the „secret‟ ballot in their presence and then left with the ballot, seemingly to ensure that [she] did not have an opportunity to change her mind.”
g. SEIU staffers took completed ballots from voters and said they would mail the ballots. It is unknown what the SEIU staffers did with the ballots during their unsupervised control of the ballots.

2. Threats of Deportation: SEIU staffers threatened immigrant Latino workers with deportation if they did not vote for SEIU.
a. During visits to immigrant workers‟ homes, SEIU staffers threatened to call “Immigration” on these voters unless they voted for SEIU. SEIU officials reportedly instructed SEIU staffers to target immigrant Latino voters for such threats. Additional information, not contained in NUHW‟s recent filing, alleges that SEIU staffers told immigrant Latino workers that SEIU collected information about their identity and immigration status (including their social security numbers), and that SEIU could use such information to trigger an investigation of workers‟ immigration status if they did not vote for SEIU.

3. Threats, Misrepresentations and Intimidation: SEIU staffers used a combination of intentional misrepresentations, threats of reprisal, and voter intimidation to deprive workers of a free choice in the election.
a. SEIU staffers threatened workers that they would suffer the following sorts of reprisals and personal hardship if they voted for NUHW:
i. Their wages would be cut;
ii. They would lose their job;
iii. They would lose their health insurance;
iv. Their client‟s hours of care would be cut, resulting in reduced hours of work for homecare workers.
b. SEIU officials instructed staffers to mislead voters about key facts related to the election (such as voters‟ health insurance) in order to secure votes for SEIU;
c. SEIU staffers used aggressive and intimidating behavior to pressure workers into voting for SEIU:
i. SEIU staffers visited some voters‟ homes five times a day, sometimes banging repeatedly on the homes‟ doors and walls if voters did not answer the door;
ii. SEIU staffers threatened to harass voters by returning to their homes day after day until they voted for SEIU;
iii. SEIU staffers refused to leave voters‟ homes unless voters gave them their marked ballots or allowed SEIU staffers to follow voters to the post office;
iv. In at least two incidents recorded in police reports, SEIU staffers vandalized the homes of voters who supported NUHW.

4. Planning and Coordination of Election Misconduct: The violations described above were not isolated incidents. Instead, SEIU staffers testify that top SEIU officials planned, coordinated and directed the misconduct.
a. In staff meetings, SEIU officials instructed SEIU staffers to carry out illegal actions and advised them how to conceal the violations;
b. In staff meetings, SEIU officials provided verbal and written instructions to carry out threats and misrepresentations regarding voters‟ wages, health insurance and other matters;
c. SEIU officials deliberately cultivated an aggressive atmosphere among SEIU staffers that encouraged staffers to commit violations against voters. On the eve of the election, SEIU Executive Vice President Dave Regan delivered a speech to 1,000 SEIU staffers assembled in the Fresno County fairgrounds. Instead of advising SEIU staffers to honor election rules and to create a civil and respectful tone for the election, Regan urged staffers to “whip their asses,” “drive a stake through their heart,” and “bury them in the ground,” according to a videotape of the speech.

Conclusion: NUHW believes that SEIU‟s actions interfered with employees‟ free choice and violated multiple dimensions of state law:
SEIU violated the principle of “ballot secrecy” by opening, handling, marking and altering voters' ballots, among other actions;
SEIU used misrepresentations, as well as threats of reprisal and force (such as threatened deportations), to intimidate and coerce voters;
SEIU “established and implemented a policy of intimidation and fear designed to deprive the voters of the ability to make a free choice in the election.”
SEIU obtained unsupervised access to voters‟ marked ballots.

NUHW has formally requested that PERB find “that the fairness and integrity of the election in question was compromised, and the Board take appropriate action in response thereto, including but not limited to, setting aside the election and ordering a new election.”

While this is a pretty plain recitation of facts that most other folks who have been following the SEIU-NUHW fight already know, the best part of the above executive summary can be found in the exhibits, including sworn statements of Fresno IHSS homecare workers who were intimidated into voting for The Plague, and the statement of the gentleman from the prior post, Carlos Martinez, who provides gruesome detail of what he was asked (one could equitably state 'required') to do during the Fresno IHSS campaign.

The Executive Summary goes for 3 pages, the documentation against Zombie UHW goes for an additional 59 pages.

I feel personally nauseous that my past dues money was utilized to (in some small part) pay for this SEIU Fresno Farce.

Go forth, read, be educated - cuz this one ain't going away.

Echos of Fresno

2009-11-11T19:49:00.000-08:00

In an article published today in the Wall Street Journal, we get a taste of what a whistleblower is alleging in filings placed before the California Public Employee Relations Board (CalPERB), and our Purple Pals do not come out of this looking or smelling good...

The NUHW immediately called for a re-run of the election, challenging voting irregularities. The two unions have traded accusations since. But now, Carlos Martinez, an immigrant from El Salvador who was on the SEIU's staff during the campaign, has come forward—so he says—to blow the whistle on his employer. Mr. Martinez went door-to-door canvassing the home-care workers during the 15-day election. Like him, many of them are native Spanish speakers; some are illiterate.

Speaking in an interview over a sandwich at a hotel in the Bay Area late last month, Mr. Martinez says he was instructed by superiors to tell the workers that if they voted against the SEIU, they could lose their medical benefits, see their green cards or citizenship revoked and possibly be deported. He says he and other staffers were also told to pressure voters to spoil ballots that had been filled out for the NUHW. In other instances he filled ballots out for them. He says he even took some to the post office, as did other SEIU campaign workers.

All of these actions, if true, are a violation of state or federal laws governing union elections. In all, he adds, he visited 550 homes. "We scared people. We took the secret ballot away from these people," he says. "It was wrong."

Mr. Martinez says he raised his concerns directly with Mr. Regan and other superiors. He also says he tried to submit a complaint with two state agencies but was ignored. He then repeated these charges under oath before an NUHW lawyer. Six other Fresno workers confirmed parts of his account in affidavits. For example, Adriana Gomez, a home-care worker, said that Mr. Martinez "took my ballot and made a mark for the SEIU team."

The NUHW last week filed a complaint with the Public Employment Relations Board, which has oversight over the workers in Fresno. The filing has been shared with the SEIU, but not released publicly. Describing himself as a medical case manager who is now in graduate school, Mr. Martinez, who says he fears for his safety, says he has gotten no money or other benefits from the NUHW.

I had been wondering why Brave Sir Regan has been so quiet of late. It's his mug that has been pasted all over the Fresno IHSS election fight, and if this turns out as stated in this article, then it is going to be Brave Sir Regan who will have to answer for this.

In any event, one has to wonder why SEIU always feels it necessary to lie, to cheat, to steal, to threaten, and to be otherwise generally unpleasant. They keep showing themselves as an organization that no one in their right mind would want to be part of.

And So It Begins...

2009-11-11T16:16:00.000-08:00

Courtesy of Red Revolt, here's the latest "offering" that all of us in Hotel California are being required to pay for.

I am quite amused by the claims of a "proven track record." The only track record that Zombie UHW has proven is one of failure, as can be seen at Alameda Hospital, as well as multiple examples being seen from KaiPerm.

There are also multiple examples which can be seen from the NUHW website, such as this flyer detailing Zombie UHW's acceptance of LESS than what management was on record as offering one short year ago, or this example of two hospitals under the same ownership down in the LA area, and what the (now) NUHW leadership was able to achieve, versus what the Zombie UHW and SEIU team were able to "achieve."

The difference is clear. The only choice Zombie UHW has now is to claim the "track record" - but in doing so, they are trying to claim for themselves the successes won by the NUHW leadership.

Let's Go And Have Us An Election

2009-11-09T18:37:00.001-08:00

Or at least so says the NLRB, courtesy of Ashley Furness of the NorthBay Business Journal...

The last-minute scheduling of a union election for about 600 Memorial hospital workers came as a bitter-sweet surprise last Monday morning, even within the context of a high-pitched battle between two Northern California unions.
Three days after a labor official said he did not expect the parties to agree on election terms any time soon, Santa Rosa Memorial Hospital, Service Employees International Union and the National Union of Healthcare Workers all signed a ballot agreement.

The document was finalized minutes before a hearing on the matter was scheduled. The groups had convened in private for about 45 minutes before the meeting, agreeing to schedule the vote Dec. 17 and 18. It is possible that either union could file an unfair labor practices complaint and further delay the vote.

Three Memorial organizing committee workers who attended the canceled hearing were overjoyed to finally have a vote scheduled but said the weeks until the December election will mean an onslaught of campaigning.

“We were all surprised. I fully expected one of the unions to seek a delay. [SEIU] had delivered all sorts of information suggesting a strategy to litigate unless changes were made to the bargaining unit, which would have posed an enormous time sink to the process,” said Tim Peck, assistant to the regional director of the National Labor Relations Board in San Francisco, where the hearing was meant to take place.

SEIU officials had also said during a North Bay Labor Council meeting Oct. 28 that the election wouldn’t happen until January, but a spokesperson for a group said the statement was based on speculation.

The six-year unionization saga of hundreds of Memorial nursing assistants, respiratory therapists and other health care-related technicians’ has been one fraught with tactics to obstruct the process, but oddly the most recent six months of delays were not the work of an employer but one of the unions.

“If it wasn’t for SEIU, we would have had our election scheduled back in April, and I hope the [election] agreement this morning means they finally got the picture from the community that we are clearly tired of their attempts to delay our vote,” said organizing committee member and eight-year Memorial imaging technician Christine Hoex.

Supporters of the SEIU effort were not available to comment.

In April, it appeared Memorial workers would finally have an election after the labor board approved a petition filed with NUHW. But on the eve of the election, SEIU charged unfair practices by the competing labor group, effectively stalling the vote in time to also get on the ballot.

In September, NLRB officials made an unprecedented decision to move forward with the election without resolving the unfair labor practices charge, but the process was further stalled when SEIU asked that NUHW’s attorney be disqualified. The labor board and a state superior court judge rejected the request.

“We can deal with [SEIU] on the ballot, and we can deal with them knocking on our doors and calling our homes, we just want them to stop delaying the election,” said Memorial oncology care partner Melissa Bosanco, who also attended the Nov. 2 hearing.

On Sept. 29, the North Bay Labor Council, which is not affiliated with either group, sent a letter saying, “Memorial workers have chosen NUHW as their union,” and asked that SEIU stand down from the election. A few days later, 75 Memorial workers delivered a letter to the local SEIU office with a similar request.

The NLRB could not release the exact number of workers that signed either union’s petition, but NUHW was required to garner at least 30 percent of workers to be approved for an election, and SEIU needed “a showing of interest,” or at least one signature.

“This whole case has been highly unusual since the get go,” Mr. Peck said.

“Prior to this, cases like this deal with actions brought on by the employer, but again we’ve never seen this kind of situation where you have one union essentially competing with a break-away union composed entirely of its former officials.”

NUHW was formed by about 150 former leaders of the Northern California branch of SEIU. The stewards, who were elected by workers, resigned from the mega union after they were removed from leadership following a trusteeship of Northern California offices. The takeover was implemented in January following ongoing resistance to structural changes implemented by SEIU national, according to trusteeship hearing documents.

Since the division, NUHW has won three elections in Northern California covering about 400 employees and filed about 360 petitions potentially covering 100,000 workers, according to union officials.

It remains to be seen how SEIU will conduct themselves in this runup. Keyser Söze at Red Revolt speculates that this will be "our own little Fresno." However, in my mind the facts and history point more toward the Doctors Hospital example, where SEIU filed to intervene late in the election and ended up getting crushed for their efforts - and then turn around and intervene legally after the votes are submitted (and possibly even preventing the count, as they have already done at Providence Tarzana).

That's not to say we NUHW partisans should not be prepared for some Olde Tyme SEIU Hijincks up Santa Rosa way in the next month or so.

For when dealing with SEIU, it never hurts to think of the worst thing that can happen - and then plan for something even lower than that.

Report on the November 7th Panel Discussion...

2009-11-09T16:48:00.000-08:00

Videos and stills along with an excellent synopsis provided by Michael Apiricio of Empire Report.

Go forth and check it out...

SEIU 1000 Keeps The Pimp Hand Strong...

2009-11-08T17:31:00.000-08:00

Those lovable scamps at SEIU 1000 decided to have themselves a meeting the other night. This gentleman, by the name of Ken Hamidi, decided to go, as was his right as a CA state employee.

And here's what he got for his trouble...

This particular incident had news reports done on it from the CBS affiliate for MetroSac, KOVR, as well as from the NBC affiliate, KCRA. Video reports can be seen at both links.

Now, it's not like this guy just walked in off the street and got pounded for his trouble. This individual has a long history of not seeing eye-to-eye with SEIU activities, as can be seen below...

Now I'm sure there's a perfectly innocent reason as to why this individual went to this open meeting - as is his right - and ended up going to the ED after getting tuned up by members of the Purple Plague.

Right?

Bueller???

Do Not Taunt Happy Fun Priest

2009-11-06T14:28:00.000-08:00

Last week, Msgr. John Brenkle of the Saint Helena Catholic Church penned an op-ed which ran in the Santa Rosa Press-Democrat, explaining how he was disappointed in Zombie UHW in general - and Brave Sir Regan and Esquirol Medina in particular, over their continued obstruction and interference in the SRMH unionization fight...

On April 13, a majority of Memorial workers filed a petition with the board seeking union representation with the National Union of Healthcare Workers. Both the union and St. Joseph management have expressed willingness to sit down and negotiate ground rules leading to a fair election agreement.
Yet what should be a time of reconciliation is instead a time of disheartenment, as workers must continue to wait for their day to vote. Sadly, the delay now comes not from management, but by another labor union – the Service Employees International Union – bent on stalling and suppressing workers’ voice. SEIU has been misusing labor law as a means for delaying an election as long as possible and refusing to come to the negotiating table with the other parties.
I am not prepared to take sides in the broader conflict between the unions. I am sure that both parties have made mistakes in their dealings with one another. But as I have written before, the decision about unionization should be in the hands of workers alone. At Santa Rosa Memorial Hospital, workers have clearly chosen to cast their lot with the NUHW. SEIU’s continued delay of the workers’ election, and its refusal to agree to ground rules for the election at Memorial, flies in the face of Catholic social teaching and contradicts SEIU’s own national advocacy for exactly the types of agreement it is now trying to thwart.
For the past several years, SEIU has been involved in a national discussion with Catholic hospital systems, the AFL-CIO and the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops on organizing in Catholic hospitals. The result, “Respecting the Just Rights of Workers: Guidance and Options for Catholic Healthcare and Unions,” was released earlier this year and lays out a “fair and just organizing model” much like the model the Santa Rosa Diocese endorsed in March 2007. But SEIU refuses to adhere to this model here in Santa Rosa.
For those of us in the faith community who have dedicated our efforts to establishing a new model of union elections that truly protect and respect workers’ rights, this is most discouraging. SEIU’s actions undermine the work of labor, Catholic health care employers, clergy and workers who have endeavored for years to achieve ground rules at St. Joseph and other faith-based health systems. This why I have been joined by many members of the faith community in signing a letter to SEIU Vice President Eliseo Medina calling on him to reconsider the union’s position against fair election ground rules.
Labor unions, like all human enterprises, are imperfect institutions. But this should not distract from the principles of dignity, justice and voice for which they stand. I remain firmly committed to seeing workers at Memorial Hospital have the opportunity to vote on whether they wish to unionize. After five years of organizing, it is high time workers get that chance. SEIU should end its puzzling anti-union campaign of delays and enter into discussions with NUHW and St. Joseph to set ground rules for the union election at Memorial based on the principles we have all worked so hard to achieve.

True to form, Esquirol Medina wrote a letter back to Msgr. Brenkle, with copies to all the other members of the community of faith which had sent a letter to SEIU asking them to withdraw themselves from the SRMH election. And also true to form, Esquirol Medina continued the Zombie UHW position that only Their Way was The One True Path...

We'll transcribe, and then provide commentary, but this one's a beaut...

I want to thank you for your letter of October 23, 2009, and for your longstanding support for the Santa Rosa Memorial Hospital workers in their efforts to achieve a fair union election.

All of us at SEIU are as disappointed as you are by the tragic turn of events that now threatens the hospital workers' opportunity to form a union with SEIU-UHW and joint with 150,000 other healthcare workers in California and more than a million nationwide.

The only tragedy for you, Esquirol Medina, is that a clear majority of the workers at SRMH told you and your cloven-hooved minions to go pound sand.

We cannot in good conscience take any action that would suggest that "NUHW" is a legitimate alternative to the union that for nearly a century has been representing and raising standards for healthcare workers. As you know, the effectiveness of a union comes from the strength and unity of its members - not the words or actions of any individual union officials or staff. We are deeply troubled by the prospect of Santa Rosa hospital workers making a choice based on the promises of individuals with whom they are familiar - without considering that NUHW has no real membership base and its future viability as an organization is questionable at best.

I know not where to start with the above paragraph, except to state that it is absolutely stunning in both its arrogance and in its absolute rejection of reality. First off, it is the PEOPLE of NUHW who have been representing and raising standards, not the people of SEIU. The effectiveness of the union comes from the PEOPLE, and not from the Stern-appointed lackeys who get parachuted in from Dupont Circle every time Our Glorious Maximum Leader needs additional dues money to replenish his scarf collection. The workers at Santa Rosa are making a clear-headed and foresighted decision - and according to Esquirol Medina, this must not stand.

We believe the hospital workers' best interests would have been served had they been able to choose whether to unite with SEIU-UHW through a bilateral agreement with the employer based on the principles issued by the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops in June. Those principles, which are the result of a decade-long dialogue between labor, Catholic health systems, and Bishops, were intended to ensure that workers can make a decision without undue influence from either management or union officials. They explicitly were not designed to covern a contest between unions. An attempt to apply the principles to the current situation at Santa Rosa Memorial Hospital would jeapordize their integrity and credibility and make it far less likely that they will be honored by other faith-based health systems.

Translation: Come back to Our Way of Thinking, or you'll see trouble elsewhere.

Once again we see the breathtaking arrogance of SEIU on display (speaking in such a lordly manner of the "best interests" of the hospital workers after having abandoned them), but Medina also, in this paragraph, admits that NUHW is, indeed, a rival union, even though he claimed that was not the case in the prior paragraph. Pick one and go with it, Esquirol...

In our view, the only solution would be for "NUHW" to step aside and allow the Santa Rosa Memorial Hospital workers to make a free choice about forming a union with SEIU-UHW.

Oh. My. Freekin'. Gawd. I realize this guy knows he's going to get beat, but does he really think that NUHW is going to step aside after having achieved absolute majority on the signup petition? I know the Purple Kool-Aid is strong, but somebody needs to cut this guy off before he goes and writes another letter.

Although we may not see eye to eye, we hope you recognize that we are trying to do what's right - not only for the Santa Rosa workers but for all of the healthcare workers in California and throughout the nation who have built a strong union and who need to stay united and strong so they can keep making forward progress instead of going backwards.

If you would like to discuss these concerns further, please don't hesitate to let me know.

The last line of togetherness and commonality of purpose before...

cc: Cardinal Theodore McCarrick
Bishop William F. Murphy
Bishop Daniel Walsh

For those who are wondering, Cardinal Thodore McCarrick is the bishop of the Archdiocese of Washington, D.C., and arguably the second most powerful man in the Roman Catholic Church in the United States. Bishop William F. Murphy is the Bishop of the Diocese of Rockville Centre, Maryland, and works for Cardinal McCarrick. Bishop Daniel Walsh is the current Bishop of the Diocese of Santa Rosa, California, and his prelate oversees the Saint Helena Catholic Church parish.

So it seems that Esquirol Medina has decided to report the Good Monsignor to his bosses for the mere fact of publishing an op-ed in a newspaper that runs counter to Esquirol Medina's dream of power.

Can't you just feel the union togetherness coming from Zombie UHW?

SRMH: Three Letters, No Doubt...

2009-11-04T16:20:00.000-08:00

Last month, Randy Shaw wrote a column describing SEIU's attitude toward ground rules for the upcoming representation election at Santa Rosa Memorial. In that article was this paragraph:

As I have previously described, SEIU believes it has a moral right to defeat NUHW at any cost, even if, as in Santa Rosa, it means denying workers the right to union representation. SEIU-UHW trustee Eliseo Medina stated in a September 25 letter to St. Joseph’s and NUHW obtained by Beyond Chron that NUHW’s claim to be a labor organization was “wishful thinking,” and that “it does not serve the interests of the workers” to have any involvement with NUHW.

I had been hunting high and low for that particular letter on the 'tubes, and true to form that North Bay Badass, Red Revolt's Keyser Soze, has come up with the goods.

First, let's look at the initial offering from NUHW:

Very measured and neutral, yes?

Now, let's take a peek at SRMH's offering:

SRMH is "open and willing to meet with both unions and discuss mutually agreeable ground rules..."

Of course, that requires mutual agreement - and that takes us to what Esquirol Medina has to say about things:

Nice work there, Esquirol Medina. I especially enjoyed this paragraph:

We'll see how you feel about that "third party" after it kicks your sorry ass to the curb in December.

Hurry Up And Wait

2009-11-02T16:20:00.000-08:00

Much is being said about the NLRB's decision rendered today to schedule an election for the representation petition at Santa Rosa Memorial Hospital, to be conducted on December 17th.

While I am happy for the workers that they are going to (finally) be able to render their choice as to who will collectively represent them before management, one question needs to be asked:

Six weeks?

No, let me rephrase...

SIX M-F'ING WEEKS?!?!?!?

Make no mistake - six weeks could seem like an eternity for the SRMH workers who have fought so valiantly since March to get themselves to the point that they can actually choose to engage themselves with a union of their choosing. These next six weeks are going to suck for some people, because Zombie UHW is going to try to (quite possibly literally) beat people senseless with its noise machine. Some examples of the SEIU noise machine can be seen over at Keyser's place.

This is an election that could, and should, take place within the next two weeks. That the NLRB decided to give Zombie UHW another extra month beyond that to try to coerce, intimidate, misinform, and otherwise BS people into voting their way just shows how far into SEIU's corner the NLRB is.

I take pleasure in the fact that an election is now finally going to occur. I just regret that it is being delayed for no good reason other than to give the Zombies additional time to muddy the waters.

To my brothers and sisters at SRMH: Stay strong, stay united, stay focused. This is the big one. This is going to be the first major hospital-wide contest between NUHW and Zombie UHW, so make this one count.

And let me know if y'all need any earplugs or sunglasses to divert from the Zombie noise machine.

Happy Halloween From Zombie UHW...

2009-10-23T08:01:00.000-07:00

See you in November...

Sonoma IHSS Retrospective

2009-10-22T16:09:00.000-07:00

Seven minutes of must-see TV...

Pharmacy Agreement Going Down To Defeat?

2009-10-16T11:23:00.000-07:00

That seems to be the word from NUHW headquarters, as enumerated in the following flyer that's going around to the KaiPerm offices throughout KPNC (click to enlarge)...

The fact that SEIU refused to openly count the ballots (in contravention to long-standing UHW tradition) is an indication that either a) the result was pre-ordained, or b) they don't trust their best-and-brightest stewards to get the "correct" result.

Either way, this was Zombie UHW's first real test within KaiPerm, and it appears that they are flunking that test. This one should have been a slam-dunk. The Zombies have been putting out press releases far and wide about how they have "saved 150 pharmacy jobs," but they forgot that one little part about how their agreement had to be actually ratified by the a bunch of workers whom were getting their hours cut conceivably by 40% in order to "save" those jobs.

Just another day at Zombie UHW HQ...

If At First You Don't Succeed...

2009-10-14T16:03:00.000-07:00

...prevent the other guy from success by any means fair or foul.

EVS workers at Providence Tarzana are voting right now to join NUHW—but SEIU is having the ballots locked in a safe immediately after the election, to hide the result from workers and the public until the labor board sifts through a new string of frivolous charges. This will delay workers from negotiating with their employer for affordable health insurance and wages that can support their families.

Ya want more detail? Here it is...

EIU has been denying EVS workers at Providence Tarzana the right to form a union for years.
First, SEIU signed a secret deal with their employer and agreed not to let the workers join any SEIU local.
When a majority of the workers filed petitions in February to join NUHW, SEIU delayed their election with a frivolous charge at the NLRB. That blocking charge was rejected.
On Oct. 13, just one day before the election, SEIU filed more baseless charges and asked the NLRB to cancel the election. That request was also rejected.

Now, SEIU has gotten the NLRB to agree to lock the ballots in a safe immediately after the election, so no one will know the results until after the labor board considers SEIU’s charges. This will further delay these 54 workers from negotiating for more affordable healthcare and wages that support their families.

This is probably the same tactic that SEIU is going to use at SRMH - to delay and obfuscate until such time as people are so frustrated that things will return to the status quo.

According to the Zombie mouthpieces, this is called "representation."

Let's see what some of those who are actually involved in this fight have to say:

Environmental services workers at Providence Tarzana Medical Center are voting today in a government-supervised election to form their first union, despite a last-minute effort by SEIU to stop them. SEIU's latest request to block the election was rejected by the National Labor Relations Board (NLRB) yesterday, but ballots will be held and not be counted until the board resolves a string of frivolous "blocking charges" that SEIU filed to delay the vote.

The 54 workers are employees of Crothall, a subcontractor at the hospital. A majority intend to join the National Union of Healthcare Workers (NUHW), an independent union founded by SEIU reformers that sparked a mass exodus from the troubled union.

"All we want is a voice to stand up for wages and healthcare to support our families," said Sandra Quintanilla, one of the workers. "But SEIU would rather leave us with no union at all than let us join NUHW. They want to destroy NUHW at all costs because they know as long as healthcare workers have a choice, we'll choose NUHW."

In the last three weeks, workers at Los Alamitos Medical Center and The Sequoias-Portola Valley assisted living facility also voted to join NUHW. SEIU was forced to withdraw from the election early at Los Alamitos, and at the Sequoias they failed to even qualify for the ballot.

SEIU has filed "blocking charges" with the NLRB to delay hundreds of elections by SEIU members who want to join NUHW. One of SEIU's charges has been blocking Crothall workers' election at Providence Tarzana since February, when a majority of the non-union workers filed petitions to join NUHW.

When the labor board rejected SEIU's charge last month and scheduled the election, SEIU put their "Service Workers United" (SWU) affiliate on the ballot and tried to compete. Despite sending a dozen SEIU staff to workers' homes and into the hospital to campaign for SWU, they were unable to win majority support and tried to have the election cancelled to avoid another defeat.

Last year, the Wall Street Journal exposed "Service Workers United" as a project to increase SEIU's membership by making secret deals with the nation's largest employers to enroll low-wage workers into the union. The employers help SEIU sign workers up for relatively high union dues, and in return SEIU agrees to secret concessions that are not disclosed to members. The very existence of the deals is kept secret from workers. (Wall Street Journal: http://bit.ly/wsj-swu)

SWU has just such a secret agreement with Crothall's parent company, the Compass Group. Ironically, one of the frivolous charges SEIU has used to obstruct the ballot count alleges that workers' chosen union was "assisted by the employer."

Gee whiz. Keeping ballot results secret. Secret backroom deals with management. Accusing other labor organizations of being assisted by the employer when you are already working hand-in-glove with the employers yourselves.

Sounds like just another day at the office for the Purple Plague.