Meet The New MAPE, Same As The Old MAPE

(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?

SEIU: Stolen Election, Illegitimate Union

Bombs Away!

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

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.

Spin Cycle - The Local Press

From the Fresno Bee:

Homecare union election challenged

Workers in Fresno Co. will have to wait 10 more days for final results.

Published online on Friday, Jun. 19, 2009

By Barbara Anderson / The Fresno Bee

Fresno County's 10,000 homecare workers have voted in a bitterly fought election to remain with their established union, according to a tally of votes Friday evening.

But the election results are being challenged.

A count of the votes Friday showed the Service Employees International Union United Healthcare Workers-West won by a 233-vote margin over the National Union of Healthcare Workers, said Steve Sanchez, interim program manager for the Fresno County Public Authority. The authority is the employer of record for the workers, who care for elderly and disabled people -- many of whom are family members.

The SEIU received 2,938 votes, and the NUHW had 2,705 votes, Sanchez said. Ninety ballots were being contested, he said.

The state mediator will not certify the election results for 10 calendar days, Sanchez said.

The NUHW said it had asked for a recount vote and will contest the election.

"SEIU engaged in an illegal campaign fraught with violations of state and federal law," said Kevin Hall, a Fresno volunteer organizer. "We will be filing charges against them immediately to have a re-run of this election."

In an e-mail, NUHW said Fresno County homecare providers reported scores of incidents of voter intimidation, illegal threats and ballot manipulation by SEIU staff.

"Based on SEIU's illegal conduct and flawed decisions by the county election officer, healthcare workers in NUHW will file a legal challenge to the election and not be party to certification of the results," the union said.

SEIU representative Renee Asher said the charges were baseless.

"This election was fair, and it was impartial, and we both went out there and did our best," Asher said.

The real battle is in Sacramento, where a state budget is being formulated "that effectively would end homecare in California," she said.

The Fresno County election is the first large-scale contest between the 2.1 million-member SEIU union and the upstart NUHW.

The unions have been locked in conflict since the NUHW was launched in January out of a rift over leadership of the 150,000- member United Health Care Workers West, the Oakland-based local of the SEIU. The NUHW formed a day after SEIU President Andy Stern took control of the local by removing its 100 officers and placing it under a trustee's care.

In their battle for Fresno County votes, both unions have taken credit for getting in-home care workers a $10.25-an-hour wage and 85 cents an hour in benefits.

Each union faulted the other for a Fresno County wage-and-benefit cut of $1 per hour that goes into effect July 1.

The bottom line: Very little got solved here, and the status quo will likely remain for the near- and medium-range future.

Only the tip of the iceberg has been reported thus far on SEIU's illegal activities down in Fresno. The SEIU lawyers are going to receive a graduate-level course in how to respond to MMBA and NLRA violations.

It's tough to come so close to knocking off the big dog, only to fall short by 200 votes, but this is no time for anyone from NUHW to play coulda-woulda-shoulda. SEIU had to burn considerable resources (which cannot be quickly renewed) in order to "win" this election. This is the good news.

The bad news is that SEIU will now have to start taking NUHW seriously. Prior to yesterday, thought that they could just parachute 500 people into Fresno, spend a bunch of money, and they would just chase NUHW off of the field with their sheer size. The results from yesterday showed that they were wrong - dead wrong. As such, if they have any sense of institutional survival, SEIUwill get better and they will learn from what happened down in Fresno - because if they don't, they are going to get slaughtered in the hospitals and in the IHSS votes up in the north state.

Spin Cycle - NUHW

From NUHW:

SEIU lies, bribes, and steals to claim razor-thin advantage in illegitimate Fresno County election

Homecare providers and supporters report vandalism, threats of violence, illegal scare tactics, ballot manipulation, theft, and other violations of labor law

Fresno, Calif.—Fresno County homecare providers reported scores of incidents of voter intimidation, illegal threats, and ballot manipulation by SEIU staff in an election for workers to quit the scandal-plagued union and join the National Union of Healthcare Workers (NUHW).

SEIU spent an estimated $10 million on attack mailings, robo-calls, TV and radio ads, and 1,000 paid staff flown in from across the country, but failed to win enough support from workers to win the election without breaking the law. Despite SEIU's illegal tactics, just 117 votes could swing the outcome of the election. Based on SEIU’s illegal conduct and flawed decisions by the County election officer, healthcare workers in NUHW will file a legal challenge to the election and not be party to certification of the results.
"SEIU has resorted to behavior worse than we’ve seen from the worst anti-union bosses," said Sal Rosselli, Interim President of NUHW. "They will say or do anything to deny workers a free choice. But healthcare workers have proven today that their movement to take back their union is thriving and has the strength to win.”

According to reports from homecare providers and volunteer supporters:

• Thousands of providers were directly threatened that they could lose their wages and health insurance if they vote for NUHW. It is illegal for an employer to change workers' pay or benefits when workers change their union, and illegal to threaten that pay or benefits will change as a result of workers' vote.
  
  
• SEIU organizers used threats of physical violence, profanity, and sexually threatening gestures to intimidate NUHW supporters as they walked door to door.
  
  
• SEIU organizers demanded that providers surrender their ballots to the organizers, and many providers who supported NUHW reported that their ballots were missing from their mailboxes.
  
  
• SEIU organizers told NUHW supporters to mark the top box to vote NUHW, when it was actually the box to vote for SEIU. At least one provider who needed help reading her ballot was visited by an SEIU organizer who pretended to be a NUHW volunteer, and drove her to the post office to mail a ballot she had mistakenly marked for SEIU.
  
  
• At least two workers' doors were vandalized or defaced, and many had signs stolen which they had placed on their homes to show their support for NUHW.
  
  
• Providers were offered bribes of valuable gifts and told they could have high-paying jobs with the union if they voted for SEIU.

Violence and dirty tricks were encouraged from the outset of the election by SEIU-UHW Trustee Dave Regan, who was appointed to his position by SEIU President Andy Stern. At a staff meeting the day before the election, Regan urged hundreds of SEIU staff to follow "old-fashioned rules" and "administer an old-school ass-whipping" to NUHW supporters:

"I think when I look around the room, the group that comes to Fresno with the workboots, this is the group who all understand old-fashioned rules, this is the group that you might call 'old-school.' And I know that I've talked to a lot of people in this room and people know what that means when we talk about 'old school.' …What we gotta do here, my old-school friends, is we have to administer an old-school ass-whipping over the next two weeks. I know everybody knows what that means." (YouTube: http://is.gd/15PAo)

Regan has a history of using violence in conflicts with other unions. Last April, Regan led 300 SEIU staff in storming a peaceful union conference in Michigan, injuring several workers and prompting AFL-CIO President John Sweeney to condemn the assault. "There is no justification—none—for the violent attack orchestrated by SEIU at the Labor Notes conference,” Sweeney said.

Regan was dispatched to Fresno to try to stop a movement of nearly 100,000 SEIU members in California who are dumping the scandal-plagued union to join NUHW instead.

Healthcare workers founded NUHW in January, after Washington, D.C. SEIU officials seized California's healthcare union, SEIU-UHW, in a hostile takeover. Before the takeover, the healthcare workers elected to lead SEIU-UHW had been reformers within SEIU, exposing corruption and undemocratic practices. In retaliation, SEIU President Andy Stern removed SEIU-UHW's elected rank-and-file leaders and replaced them with Regan and other union staff loyal to the Washington office.

Since SEIU's takeover, workers at more than 360 healthcare facilities including Kaiser Permanente have petitioned for elections to quit the SEIU-controlled union and join NUHW instead. This Fresno County election was scheduled after 2,500 Fresno homecare providers filed a petition with the county to allow them to join NUHW.

The narrow margin is an embarrassing blow to SEIU, which spent an estimated $3,000 for every vote they claimed, outspending NUHW 50-to-1. At the beginning of the election, Regan announced that “this is not an election that we want to win 52 to 48. This is not an election that we want to win by a few hundred votes… We want them to believe when we are done here that it is hopeless… so they don’t even think they can take this mess outside of Fresno and bring it anywhere else.”

Instead, 35,000 homecare providers in Sacramento and San Francisco counties are already looking forward to their own elections to join NUHW. Under state and county labor laws, they will be able to petition for elections in September. The counties are both NUHW strongholds, where NUHW has protected homecare wages and benefits against the governor's budget cuts in recent weeks while SEIU squandered workers' dues fighting caregivers in Fresno.

Again, the actual for-and-against numbers are not presented, but the margin is given in the release (it stands right now at 235 out of roughly 5400 total votes cast for both units.

Oh by the way - it has cost SEIU $10M to achieve a margin of 235 votes out of 5400 (that's 4.2%), and the cost to SEIU for each marginal vote was somewhere north of $42,500.

I'm hoping that Dave Regan will come out and explain just which body part SEIU managed to plunge a stake through.

Spin Cycle - Zombie UHW

From Zombie UHW:

Fresno Homecare Workers Vote to Stay with SEIU UHW

Fresno County home care workers have voted to stay in our union, SEIU UHW. Mail-in ballots were counted by election officials today in Fresno.

Members decided that staying united with SEIU's 2.1 million members makes them stronger and is the best way to fight the threat of state and county cuts to the home care program.

The tally comes after two weeks of mail-in balloting and vigorous informational efforts by SEIU UHW and a group led by ousted union leaders seeking to convince workers to change unions. Nearly a thousand SEIU activists from Fresno, other California communities, and across the nation came to support Fresno workers.

"As in most elections, the voters have a way of cutting through the noise and sorting things out," said Eliseo Medina, an SEIU Executive Vice President and SEIU UHW Trustee. "Their votes speak loudly that SEIU UHW members want a strong, united union so that together they can build a better future for themselves and the consumers they serve."

This is actually remarkably understated considering the level of importance that SEIU has put on this election. However, it is ironic that Esquirol Medina is talking about "cutting through the noise" when it is his organization that was making all of the noise in this election.

Note again that even though they are ahead in the polling, they were not willing to provide the actual numbers - probably because the actual numbers stand in stark contrast to what Thug Regan was promising SEIU would generate in his infamous speech.

All Quiet On The Western Front?

Not much is happening in regards to the NUHW-SEIU fight that cannot be indexed elsewhere, especially over at Perez's place. As always, Perez is far more up-to-date on the current goings-on than I am, so please go click over, set a spell, and give him some love.

One thing of note is that Perez's imitator has now decided to apply the "racist" label to anyone who is pro-NUHW or anti-SEIU. This is usually the type of verbiage that is left to someone who hasn't got anything else of substance to argue, but that individual hasn't had anything of real substance to report nor has he been able to back up his spew in almost his entire miserable existence in blogging. With that said, and in the interest of full disclosure, I offer the link to that individual's site here, in case you want to go over and enjoy his artful "contribution" to the issues at hand in the labor movement.

Other than that, it's pretty much down to the wire for the Fresno vote. NUHW is still on the ground in Fresno (with The Plague having pulled out last weekend), and we'll have a result from the Fresno IHSS vote within about a week or so. Posting may be slow in that time, but do bear with us.

The Zombie UHW Response to Defeat...

Oy, vey. They just can't take defeat gracefully, can they?

OAKLAND, Calif., May 21 /PRNewswire-USNewswire/ -- SEIU United Healthcare Workers-West (SEIU UHW) is protesting the recent decision by the California Public Employee Relations Board (PERB) to allow the decertification election at Doctors Medical Center (DMC) in San Pablo to continue. The PERB issued its ruling in the face of clear violations of labor law by DMC management and organizers of NUHW, which is seeking to decertify SEIU UHW at the hospital.

"Management gave NUHW a free hand to organize in our hospital and to confuse our members about who their union really was," says Martha Torrentes an EVS at Doctors. "The same people who failed to help us get a new contract last year are now abusing the law to win a tainted election."

Sure, Zombies. It's okay when Kaiser and CHW and Sutter and DoC staffers block any kind of access for NUHW partisans, but when the folks at Doctors did NOT do so, that's when you cry foul?

The PERB has issued three separate charges -- two against management and one against NUHW -- that make it clear that both the employer and NUHW acted illegally during the election. These complaints are very serious and may overturn the results of the election on appeal. The employer clearly wanted NUHW. According to PERB, management allowed NUHW organizers full access to the hospital floors while greatly restricting the access of SEIU UHW organizers.

The people "restricting the access of SEIU UHW organizers" were the people that SEIU UHW were trying to organize, as can be seen below:




Still and all, it's nice to see SEIU having to now be on the ass-end of an appeals process.

"Everyone knows why management supports NUHW," says Jose Quinto, who works in the hospital's surgical operation. "They know they will be the ones who benefit when their workers are the only members of their own union and have no resources or clout."

Yo, Jose - everyone also knows why management supports NUHW- that's because their employees support NUHW as well, and since they actually want to have an environment where patient care comes first and warfare between management and labor comes last, it behooves the management folks to actually listen to what the rank-and-file are saying - which is that they want out of SEIU.

Adding to the damage, the PERB also found that NUHW illegally instructed workers to hand ballots to NUHW supporters. This is a clear violation of the law and undermines the integrity of the voting process. NUHW has a history of ethical violations: They misused members' money when they were in office; they harmed the union's ability to represent the workers once they left office; and they have now illegally interfered with an election.

The only thing that NUHW interfered with was the SEIU plan to take over the union destiny of 300 workers at Doctors Hospital, who have made it clear that they DO NOT WANT The Purple Plague to be their representative.