One Final Note

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.

Another Day, Another ULP

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.

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

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.

John Burton: Enemy Of The State

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.

One Letter That Ties Together Many Strings

A few days back, Randy Shaw at BeyondChron wrote a piece on Zombie UHW's ridiculous attempt to chase NUHW supporters off the field by proclaiming that NUHW was "coming apart at the seams."

This claim is, on its face, absolutely ridiculous. After all, if NUHW is "coming apart at the seams," then why did Zombie UHW run away from the Los Alamitos election rather than confronting and defeating so wounded and weak a foe? More to the point, why did workers at Olympia, Providence Tarzana and USC just yesterday file a petition to join NUHW?

Well, not surprisingly, the BeyondChron piece got some letters to the editor, none of which were complimentary to Zombie UHW, but there is one letter that just appeared today which kind of ties several different threads together...

To the Editor:

The struggle for democracy moves forward...

While a staff representative/organizer for United Healthcare Workers-West in Southern California, I was fortunate to be able to spend an all to brief period of time around workers in the shops (Garden Grove Hospital, Providence Tarzana Medical Center, USC Medical Center Olympia) who are now filing for elections to leave SEIU.

In each facility, directly elected steward councils, bargaining committees, and local executive board members were unilaterally removed from office by Andy Stern following his bogus Trusteeship of the then 150,000 member run Local-United Healthcare Workers-West.

As a fourth generation trade unionist with deep roots in the democratic reform movement, I can say unequivocally, that Andy Stern is our generation's labor bastard.

Stern's top down corporate unionism, insatiable self serving corruption, and his ultimate betrayal of hundreds of thousands of workers in our Country is to our labor movement what Wal-Mart is to main street America.

I am proud to say that I was standing shoulder to shoulder with rank and file leaders of the newly born NUHW (for two years prior to the ashes of the old UHW-West). My Brothers Dan Martin and Charlie Ridgell, along with a hundred or so staffers ... principled trade unionists just like 'em, continue to struggle and sacrifice, tirelessly, self-lessly to advance the cause of rank and file unionism. If no longer with NUHW, we continue to do so in other parts of the labor movement.

Yes, as a result of Stern dismantling one of the most progressive and successful Local Unions in America, many of us have had to "drag up", and move on to other battlefronts. Of significance, when confronted with the choice of keeping one's position with UHW-West perpetuating Stern's betrayal, or moving in the direction which was collectively decided upon (creating a new democratic union-NUHW), most UHW-West staffers chose to do the right thing.

For each of us, there has been economic uncertainty and hardship. Such seems inevitable when confronting corruption within the house of labor. This is the path less traveled by all too many who make thier living in the labor movement.

With the help of many friends and family, I am blessed that my family has landed on our feet. Yet, Iam still longing to be there supporting, and bearing witness to, what democracy looks like on such a grande scale.

My friends at NUHW continue to make the correct choice. Fight Back!

Solidarity Forever!

Ed Sadlowski

Zombie UHW: "Keep Your Hands Off Our Dues Money!"

So an E-mail comes into ¡AA! from the Zombies, informing us that they would like us to sign the petition to tell Ralph, Sal and Joan to keep their hands off of Zombie UHW dues money...

First they tried to take $3 million of our dues money for their own use...then they spent $11.5 million of our dues for their own personal power...then they took another $3 million from our strike fund, and now these three former officials have grabbed another $265,000 from our union treasury.

SIGN THE PETITION TO TELL THEM TO LEAVE OUR DUES MONEY ALONE!

Former Vice President Ralph Cornejo claimed 352 days of unused vacation. That's 11.7 years' worth of vacation pay. Former President Sal Rosselli claimed 261 days, or 8.7 years' worth. This was on top of 140 days of vacation Cornejo cashed out while still part of SEIU-UHW, and 120 days Rosselli had already cashed out. They each claimed they were entitled to five weeks of paid vacation every year plus an extra week every year for "relief time."

The labor commissioner has ordered these payments:

Rosselli will get a total of $128,341.
Cornejo will get a total of $129,809.
Former Secretary-Treasurer Joan Emslie will get a total of $47,873.

Overall, former staff and officials have received $1.8 million of our dues money on their way out the door.

Earth to SEIU: This is what happens when you fire people without proper cause. If you had proper cause, then the labor commissioner would not have found SEIU liable for those payments.

And while you're at it, perhaps you folks in SEIU should start a petition to make sure that Annelle Grajeda, Alejandro Stephens, Rickman Jackson, and Tyrone Freeman should keep their hands off of our dues money as well.

Just saying is all...

SF Labor Council to Purple Plague: Get Bent!

Maybe it's just something in the water that comes out of Crystal Springs, but it seems that the labor bigwigs in San Francisco just aren't interested in tugging at their forelocks whenever any of the cloven-hooved minions of Our Glorious Maximum Leader open their traps...

In a further sign of SEIU’s growing estrangement from the labor movement, the San Francisco Labor Council has rejected SEIU’s threat to withdraw 40% of its Council funding unless UNITE HERE Local 2 drops its support for NUHW’s decertification campaign against SEIU’s home health care workers. At an August 21 Executive Board meeting, representatives of several unions took turns castigating SEIU-UHW Trustee Dave Regan for threatening the Council’s funding, while praising Local 2’s historic commitment to worker rights. Although Regan had threatened the “immediate withdrawal” of SEIU’s $17,000 monthly Council contribution during an August 15 meeting with Local 2 officials, he now denied that SEIU had decided to withdraw funding. Instead, he said that he had requested to meet with Local 2 to see how SEIU-UHW could help UNITE HERE in its contract fight against San Francisco’s hotels. Most striking about the meeting was the widespread criticism of SEIU’s bullying tactics, and the strong defense of Local 2’s efforts to help NUHW decertify SEIU’s local home health care workers.

As the epicenter of labor’s internal wars shifts to San Francisco, SEIU now finds itself in deep trouble with the powerful San Francisco Labor Council. Labor officials were angered by SEIU’s threat to withdraw its Council funding, and did not respond well to what Teachers Union President Dennis Kelly described as “the two faced-ness of (Dave) Regan’s presentation and by the threats and bullying.”

Thug Regan described as a "bully"? As "two-faced"? Somehow, I think we've seen that before...

The Council was brought into the SEIU-UNITE HERE fight after Dave Regan told Local 2 officials that SEIU was withdrawing its monthly per capita contributions “effective immediately” in retaliation for Council President Mike Casey’s support for NUHW’s campaign to decertify SEIU’s local home health care workers. Although Regan denied at the Council meeting that any decision to withdraw funds had been made, I confirmed with Local 2’s Northern California Organizing Director Tho Do that her notes of the Regan meeting confirmed that he said SEIU’s dues would be withdrawn “effective immediately.”

Translation: THUG REGAN IS A LYING SACK OF CRAP.

Not wanting to have his individual union’s decisions negatively impact the Council, Casey began the August 22 meeting by offering his resignation as President. It was unanimously refused, with much of the Council irate over SEIU’s tactics. John Ulrich, of United Food and Commercial Workers 101, told the Council, “for SEIU to continue to try and extort CLC’s (Central Labor Councils) over issues is terrible.” Ulrich stated that he “belongs to four Labor Councils, and SEIU has pulled this kind of threat in three of those councils many times over the years over different issues.”

Casey made it clear that he felt that NUHW “is the true voice of homecare workers in California,” and that “it was Sal Rosselli, former UHW staff and the union’s rank-and-file leadership, not SEIU, who did the work on behalf of homecare workers in San Francisco.” In an ominous sign for SEIU’s relationship to the broader labor movement, nobody criticized Local 2’s support of NUHW’s de-certification. Nor did any dispute Casey’s crediting Rosselli’s team for the gains of the home health care workers who will soon be choosing between SEIU and NUHW as their representative.

To the Purple Plaguers: The above passage is what is known as "Solidarity." It is the end result of actions taken in the past which are consistent with your values, and which help others while helping yourself. This is what you utterly lack, having cast your fate to the winds of corporate look-a-like "unionism."

And like I've said before, Mike Casey is a stand-up guy.

In order to protect its finances, the Labor Council has initiated a “Solidarity Pledge” whereby unions are being asked to agree to provide additional funding to that if SEIU leaves their will not be a shortfall. Plumbers chief Larry Mazzola, who announced at the end of the August 22 meeting that his union would “step up” to fill any funding gap, kicked off this strategy.

According to Labor Council Vice-President Conny Ford, since Mazzola got the ball rolling the solidarity pledges are “going great.” Ford told me that in response to her single e-mail message about the pledge, “people are either signing up or saying that they are awaiting ratification of the proposed dues increase from their executive boards.” Ford said she had not heard from a single union that they did not want to pledge higher dues to protect the Council from SEIU’s withdrawal.

In addition, Local 2’s support among other unions continues to grow. IBEW 1245 Business Manager Tom Dalzell is providing Local 2 with two fulltime organizers to help on its contract fight, and is also providing the services of longtime former SEIU organizing strategist Fred Ross, Jr., who now works for IBEW.

See above regarding the concept of "Solidarity"...

As the AFL-CIO convention opens on September 13, the union unity exhibited at the San Francisco Labor Council over the dispute between SEIU and UNITE HERE could well emerge at the national level. SEIU’s former Change to Win partners at UNITE HERE and the Laborers Union are negotiating to rejoin the AFL-CIO, and the UFCW – whose San Francisco representatives strongly backed Local 2 against SEIU — may not be far behind.

Incoming AFL-CIO President Richard Trumka recently gave an interview in the Las Vegas Sun in which he vowed to move labor in a different direction than that promoted by SEIU President Andy Stern. Trumka noted “the difference between me and (Stern) is that he believes you can look at that system and play within that box by accommodating employers. I believe that the system has to be changed because it’s designed for employers to win and workers, every time, to lose.”

Whereas Dave Regan told the Labor Council that this “tag line” about SEIU and “top down unionism and corporate unionism” hasn’t “been his experience,” most labor leaders are not happy over SEIU’s vaunted “partnerships” with Wal-Mart, Big Pharma and other corporate interests. Trumka and international union presidents are increasingly joining UNITE HERE and NUHW’s critique of SEIU’s approach, which could soon result in a labor movement with nearly all unions on one page and SEIU on another.

SEIU has been AFL-CIO's best recruiter of late, as well as NUHW's and UNITE/HERE's. However, the Purple Kool-Aid is strong, and it will not be until it is almost too late for SEIU for their "leadership" to realize that Andy Stern is almost single-handedly destroying years of goodwill so painstakingly put up.

Scenes From A Zombie FAIL Board

From time to time, when circumstances put me in a KP facility that is not my own, I will travel around and see if I can find a Zombie UHW bulletin board, if for no other reason than to see how information is traveling amongst the minions supporting the brain-sucking undead. This is typically called "Opposition Research."

However, in this case, it was more like a trip down Memory Lane...



Lots of info, but something doesn't quite look right, particularly that green one right in the middle...



Wow. The two-tier wage is history. Good thing to know. Perhaps someone should let the security guards know about that.

There's another point of focal interest, something to do with the responsibilities of a steward...



Hmm. You see a lot in there about providing service to the members, but nothing about swearing eternal loyalty to SEIU.

This next one, though, is the clincher: It has a message to the troops, stating that UHW is "your union." That message was sent out from none other than Sal Rosselli...



Does anyone suspect that maybe a SEIU strategery for winning the upcoming Kaiser election is to pretend that Sal is still in charge of UHW, and that NUHW is actually being run by Thug Regan and Esquirol Medina?

Or are the post-trusteeship "stewards" at this particular Kaiser facility just too damn lazy, and cannot be bothered with actually keeping their membership up-to-date on what Zombie UHW is doing to for them?

And if you are wondering what those horizontal white sheets in the bottom of the case are, they are notices from the local NUHW folks as to what SEIU has been up to. I suppose, in this KaiPerm facility, it is up to the NUHW supporters to keep the Zombie UHW supporters up to date.

"Mr. Blutarsky: Zero...Point...Zero..."

The six-month grades are in for Zombie UHW. Some of you may recall the three-month grade report for the Purple Plague. Regrettably, their study habits have not improved...



Some folks, ya just can't teach...

Andy Stern Cares Not For State Borders...

The vengeance of Andy Stern evidently is now to be vented upon the Washington State Labor Council. And what, praytell, was the malefaction that got them such notice from Our Glorious Maximum Leader?

The WSLC invited Sal Rosselli to speak at their annual convention - for roughly 15 minutes:

The Washington State Labor Council—the local labor lobby which represents AFL-CIO unions— has come under fire from the other big union lobby in town, the SEIU.

PubliCola got a copy of an angry letter that the Service Employees International Union sent to WSCL president Rick Bender yesterday saying the WSLC may be "undermin[ing] our ability to work together and maintain unity." (The letter is signed by four local SEIU presidents, including high profile SEIU 775 leader David Rolf.)

At issue: The WSLC invited an ousted SEIU leader, Sal Rosselli, to speak at the WSCL’s August 6-8 convention in Wenatchee.

The letter—also singed by SEIU Local 6 president Sergio Selinas, Local 925 president Kim Cook, and Local 1948/PSE president George Dockins—lists SEIU’s complaints about Roselli, including, they say, "improperly diverting $3 million in members’ dues money to a bogus non-profit organization."

WSLC spokeswoman Kathy Cummings defends the decision to bring Rosselli, telling PubliCola that "he’s a great trade unionist. And they’re [SEIU] making a bigger deal out of this than it really is. This is a 15-minute information session."

Cummings says Rosselli headed up SEIU when it was the fastest growing union in California, and that he’s simply speaking to the WSLC delegates for 15 minutes.

The letter in question is signed by four Purple Plague presidents (no telling at this time if they were elected or selected), and it is basically a page and a half of moldy-oldie SEIU anti-Rosselli exaggerated talking points, followed by this nice little passage:

SEIU members in Washington State – many of whom have talked directly with members who were negatively impacted by Sal Roselli’s poor leadership in California, are outraged by this invitation and will not allow Roselli to come speak to union members here without making sure that they know the full story.

Since Roselli has nothing to add to any conversation about organizing or politics in Washington State, there is no possible motivation for this invitation other than as a direct and hostile attack on SEIU.

We have a lot of work to do in the months and years ahead – to hold politicians accountable to working families, advance a progressive agenda in the legislature, and win economic and social justice for all Washingtonians. Let’s avoid unnecessary and divisive actions that get in the way of this work.

We strongly urge you to withdraw your invitation of Sal Roselli so we can continue to work together to solve the problems facing working families in Washington State.

Translation: Sure is a nice convention y'all are planning to have. Wouldn't want anything bad to happen to it...

Yes, folks, it's true. In AndyWorld, Sal Rosselli is now officially to be persona non grata anywhere outside of the Great State of California when it comes to speaking about labor issues, and woe betide any organization that would even dare to invite such an individual to speak at their convention. Such bannings evidently now will be rigorously enforced by the SEIU Thug KultureKorps.

Of course, this plays in nicely with how we all know SEIU reacts when any labor group has a speaker that they do not agree with, or whom they perceive as a threat to their organization. Right, Thug Regan?

I'm Baaaack...

Upon my return, I suppose it is incumbent upon me to note some items of past interest:

1. Hawkins - another close NUHW loss. It appears that NUHW was placing much of its effort on Fresno (the campaigns were occurring simultaneously) and as a result SEIU was able to eke out another close victory. Once again, SEIU put out a premature victory statement with a wildly exaggerated number of "voters" supporting their cause, and this statement (much like the premature Fresno victory celebration) also represented an overestimation of SEIU support to the tune of roughly 60%. Even with this "overestimation" of SEIU support, NUHW was not able to bridge the gap. Like Fresno, the CalPERB has not certified the Hawkins vote because of objections filed by NUHW regarding the conduct of Zombie UHW during that vote. The SEIU folks are taking Hawkins as kind of a "any victory is a victory", as well they should. Memo to NUHW and its supporters - there is a maxim in politics that holds just as true in union elections: If you're explaining, you're losing. It's now getting to the point for NUHW that "moral" victories are no longer going to be enough.

2. Natividad - it appears that NUHW has (temporarily) withdrawn its petition for representation at Salinas' Natividad Medical Center.

In a letter to Assistant County Administrative Officer Keith Honda, NUHW consultant Sergio Sanchez blamed the decision to withdraw the petition on the lack of an agreement with the county on how the election would be conducted. He cited a "delay" by the county in providing employee contact information and a relative lack of access to employees in their workplaces that "placed NUHW at a disadvantage" in its effort to replace SEIU.

I would interpret that to mean that the SEIU 521 team got caught seriously off-guard in the "crest" of the fervor for NUHW back in February and March, but quickly moved themselves to be able to counter NUHW's moves, and basically got their act together. Whether or not the Natividad petitioners will try again remains to be seen - they were making hopeful noises in the MPH article - but it appears that things on the Central Coast are going to remain status quo for the time being.

3. Did Andy Stern and SEIU get its ass kicked by the UNITE/HERE convention or what? About the only people who will publicly stand with SEIU right now are people who are fully bought-and-paid-for by SEIU. Unfortunately for those of us who believe in union democracy, a bunch of those individuals are currently employed by John Q. Public and have their offices located on Capitol Hill. The article by Cal Winslow on the UNITE/HERE convention did suggest that there have been some feelers between NUHW and UNITE/HERE - there seems to be a synergy there, and it was the NUHW leadership (then with the former SEIU Local 250) who got Kaiser to continue coverage of UNITE/HERE Local 2 strikers during a long-term hotel strike in San Francisco, and Mike Casey (the president of Local 2) is an old-school union guy who believes in standing firm with past allies.

4. On the day that NUHW held a protest in front of the NLRB office in Oakland, the Zombies decided to put out a presser - described by some of their partisans as a "SMOKING GUN!!!11!!!eleventy!!!" that proves the nefarious nature of anything and everything NUHW. Unfortunately for the Zombies, the material in that presser was composed of lawyer-client correspondence discovered in the lawsuit that SEIU filed against UHW prior to the trusteeship. This evidence was so compelling that the judge in that case decided to dismiss the case on a motion of the defendants (Rosselli et al.) because the SEIU suit had no law on which to base its claim. This of course did not stop the Zombies from piecing together a four-page bleat to Congress, claiming that material already dismissed by a judge as not being sufficient in fact to prevail in a defendant-filed MSJ (a situation in which evidence to the defending party - SEIU - is to be seen in the most favorable light) should now be sufficient to maintain the blocking actions at NLRB. Links to the Zombie letter to Congress can be found here...

Word to the Zombies - when you're fixing to let fly with a Smoking Gun memo, next time try to make sure your "smoking gun" isn't a pop-gun...

Another History of the NUHW-SEIU Battle Royal...

Dan Clawson at Z Magazine has penned a lengthy piece which really puts the whole NUHW-SEIU battle into perspective, and also contrasts nicely with the two approaches now being taken by the two sides when it comes to the Fresno IHSS battle...

SEIU, headed by Andy Stern, is the nation's fastest growing, most visible, most politically potent labor union. Almost every story about SEIU is about some new way that it is on the offensive, launching one or another surprising new initiative, demonstrating its power and creativity. But this is a story about how SEIU is on the receiving end, seemingly outflanked by a new breakaway union, the National Union of Healthcare Workers (NUHW), which appears to be winning unprecedented support from workers and leaving SEIU flat-footed—although SEIU's power and resources may yet enable it to win.

Talking to leaders of the two sides in this dispute is a window into two different visions of the labor movement. When NUHW leaders talk, it is all about the workers and what the workers want; when SEIU leaders talk, it is about the need for labor to be powerful. If a union is about power and raising wages "for" workers, SEIU can make a compelling case. If a union is about building a better world and developing people's ability to control their own lives, not once every four years, but day-to-day at the workplace—NUHW is far more appealing. The remarkable fact is that in California workers are choosing to try to build something more democratic and responsive, rather than stick with the security and power of the national SEIU.

Check the rest - it's a worthy read. Thug Regan once again gloriously shoves his foot down his throat, telling the author to "Don't get fixated on the (signature) cards; I can't understand why people are so fixated on the cards."

Ground Zero: Fresno

Cal Winslow in this week's Counterpunch lays out the NUHW versus SEIU fight from soup to nuts, and ties together several threads that have come forth, from the Trusteeship, to SEIU's double-dealing and collusion with KaiPerm and CHW in the NLRB petitions, to the out-of-town idiocy displayed by the Zombie SEIU scab staffers, and absolutely lays SEIU out for the count:

The fundamental issues in the Fresno contest are clear then – the NUHW, if it wins this election, will maintain and build on standards fought for and won by members of the now wrecked UHW, including restoring recent Fresno County proposed wage cuts, while fighting for healthcare benefits for all, and challenging state caps on wages and benefits and a system that perpetuates for these workers a cycle of permanent poverty. Andy Stern has predicted that Fresno will be the “death knell” for NUHW. On the contrary, an SEIU win could be the “death knell” for the home care workers. SEIU has already lost in arbitration and conceded the County’s wage cut demands. SEIU sent in staff from out of state, led by Rebecca Malberg, a DC staffer who didn’t know the contract, had never handled a grievance and never witnessed an arbitration. SEIU refused to allow the members’ local bargaining team to attend arbitration hearings. Since the arbitration ruling in favor of the County, the SEIU has refused to share the findings with members, but it still calls the secret contract a “victory.”

That's just a taste - read the whole damn thing!

Ten Thousand Quatloos to Mr. Cal Winslow, a gentleman who has been there and has seen that in the labor movement going back several decades, and who makes it clear that it is NUHW who is on the side of the workers, and it is SEIU who is on the side of the bosses.

Another SEIU Insider Gets Religion

There is making the rounds today a letter of resignation, dated today, from Dana Simon, who will be resigning in two weeks' time from SEIU 1199. Simon was the organizing campaign director for the Massachusetts Hospital Organizing campaign of 1199, and led the successful organizing campaign for the Purple Plague to get a foothold into the Caritas Christi Healthcare System in Metro Boston. Dana Simon also has a history out here with UHW, and was at the VP level of the Hospital Division back in the late 1990s during the UHW dustups down at the HCA facilities in San Jose (Regional and Samaritan), and he also participated in the organization effort at Enloe Hospital in Chico.

Mr. Simon has been looking at what he recently did in Boston, and has been comparing it to what his International Union has been doing of late out here in California, and has found SEIU to be not nearly as good a place to work as one might think. Of particular interest are the sections that are in bold (by me)...

From: Dana Simon Sent: Monday, May 11, 2009 11:38 AM Subject: Letter of Resignation

It is with sadness that I submit my two weeks notice of resignation.

The reason for my decision is irreconcilable differences with the direction of the broader Union, which I have tried to summarize from a personal perspective in the attached letter of May 5.

Words fail in describing my feelings when I think of the workers' recent victories here in Boston. I have been several times in the past few weeks moved to tears, knowing the punishment many of those workers have endured over the past years, who are now seeing victory.

But I have also found myself moved to tears by the contradiction of our Union's role, and therefore by extension my role, in damaging the lives of our sister and brother healthcare workers in California. I wake up each morning and go to sleep each night knowing that I can't help workers here in Boston organize fast enough to make up for the destruction of the organization, the rights, wages and benefits of other workers along side of whom I had struggled for years for better lives.

I have the utmost confidence in the abilities of the two of the finest lead organizers anywhere in the Labor Movement, together with the greatest possible admiration for the members of the Massachusetts Hospital Organizing Team, whom I know will help the workers bring the current election campaigns to victory. I cannot state strongly enough my respect for the team and for the commitment of the Massachusetts Division’s collective leadership to work with the new members to bring into the world a better future for many of people.

I am beyond sadness in saying that I cannot in clear conscience continue working for SEIU, the union that I have fought for and helped to build since 1996.

Sincerely,

Dana Simon Massachusetts Hospital Organizing Campaign Director

-----

From: Dana Simon Sent: Wed 5/6/2009 12:17 PM To: Maria Castaneda Cc: Amy Gladstein; Mike Fadel Subject: Dear Sister Castaneda

Dear Sister Castaneda,

Monday we began our campaign inside the Carney Hospital, which has been welcomed with amazement and happiness by workers there. Today we signed the organizing accord with the new non-Caritas hospital and next Monday our organizers begin the campaign inside that hospital. Next week, the St Elizabeth's newly elected bargaining committee meets for the first time.

Words fail in describing my feelings. I have been several times in the past few weeks moved to tears, knowing the punishment many of those workers have endured over the past years, who are now seeing victory.

But I have also found myself moved to tears by the contradiction of our Union's role, and therefore by extension my role, in damaging the lives of our sister and brother healthcare workers in California. I wake up each morning and go to sleep each night knowing that I can't help workers here in Boston organize fast enough to make up for the destruction of the organization, the rights, wages and benefits of other workers along side of whom I had struggle for years for better lives.

3,500 miles away, much of what is being said in California must sound like so much rhetoric. But for me it is deeply personal:

I was the negotiator for UHW's last two contracts at Alameda Hospital. Years ago the workers struck to win fully employer paid health for workers and their families. We had won it as a pattern that, until just days ago, had very few exceptions in UHW hospitals. In recent weeks, in an apparently politically motivated rush to pre- empt the filing of a petition, SEIU gave that away to win a settlement. They tricked the members into a ratification vote without telling them that many or most now will have to pay $1000 a year for insurance. I have seen the leaflets that dishonestly hide the give back, which have been emailed to me by SEIU. I have seen the internal memo from the hospital's negotiators to their board, crowing over the concession, which is now on the web. The hospitals have always considered UHW bargaining to be pattern bargaining. The pattern is now set for employers all over the state to demand the same concession in one of the most important contract guarantees that workers have fought and struck for.

Fresno County's homecare workers:

I was the co-director of Local 250’s and later UHW’s homecare division during the 9,000+ worker campaign in 2002-2003 to win collective bargaining rights, and to win their first election. I was honored to lead the negotiations for a first contract and the countless demonstrations, arrests, etc. that later led to the first contract. Fresno is one of the most rural, lowest income and – within the power structure – most stridently right wing bigoted places in the United States.

But until recently, those workers had won one of the highest homecare wages in the country with one of the best health plans for homecare workers anywhere (Kaiser) – won through the sweat and tears of their years of struggle and the solidarity of their already Union sisters and brothers.

A few months ago, I was asked by SEIU to come to Fresno to be the sole witness in an arbitration over the employer’s plans to reduce all 9,500 workers' wages mid-contract. It was during that experience that I witnessed the most morally reprehensible conduct that I have ever seen from people who honor themselves with the name "union leader":

I saw the deputy trustee of UHW for homecare –one of our own from 1199– bar the workers, about 40 of them, from coming into their own arbitration to even silently witness it. I stood in shock as she told the workers, "I have decided it's not in the interest of the workers for you to be here." I walked away in disgust when she turned to me and said, "You know these people. You have to tell them to leave." It was their own arbitration over their wage.

I did know many of those people. They were my friends and comrades. Several were members of the bargaining committee – the people who should have been called by SEIU as witnesses, who would have helped us win. I felt sick.

At every turn, the trustees placed political considerations above principle and above the tactical decisions that would have helped the workers stave off the pay cut. They excluded the workers from every step in their own arbitration. They made public settlement proposals that accepted the premise of the employer’s incorrect case after the arbitration and before the (negative) judgment. They refused to allow me or, I assume, any of the workers to review the employer's post arbitration brief or SEIU's post trial brief. The results could have been predicted.

During the first contract campaign in 2003, the committee went out for lunch after being arrested at the county building. Delores Huerta was with us, and she stood up and said, “I want to ask everybody to answer a question: If this was the first time you got arrested, say how it felt. If it wasn’t, tell the story about your first time.” Homecare worker Flo Furlow stood up and said that her first time was around 1960 at a Woolworths lunch counter in Little Rock Arkansas. Driving home that night, it made me cry, thinking that Flo has let me, of all people, be her leader. Just as it makes me cry right now to think that in March 2009 I was with the people who barred the door when she tried to come to her own arbitration.

There are reports that SEIU has reserved 500 hotel rooms in Fresno for troops to be sent in from all over the country to battle what I believe to be the workers’ choice of a Union.

I hope and I need to know that our local will not be playing a role in this terrible mistake.

In solidarity and respectfully,

Dana Simon

CC: Amy Gladstein

Mike Fadel

Dana Simon Massachusetts Hospital Organizing Campaign Director

While I appreciate that such letters are getting out, quite frankly, it's a little late in the game to be getting religion where it comes to SEIU. Everyone who's anyone who has dealt with The Plague has known that Our Glorious Maximum Leader has been running SEIU like a personal fiefdom pretty much ever since he achieved his Exalted Status as Our Glorious Maximum Leader.

Apologies are great. Now what is Dana Simon going to do in order to undo the damage that he admitted that he did to our co-workers down in Fresno?

Benson Unloads on Andy

Herman Benson cannot be counted as one of Andy Stern's admirers, and even less so ever since the Tinpot Trusteeship was foisted upon UHW by Our Glorious Maximum Leader. And while Mr. Benson does not write on his blog very often, when he does so, he does so with great eloquence. And so yesterday, Andy Stern got it from Benson with both barrels:

On his trips to China, Andy Stern may have learned how to hone his union managerial skills. The authoritarian rulers of China go beyond simply punishing critics; they go after the victims' lawyers to teach other lawyers the painful consequences of helping dissidents. Stern can pay well to hire an army of his own lawyers to harass lawyers who represent his opponents.

When the 150,000-member SEIU Local United Healthcare Workers-West, under its president, Sal Rosselli, was a normally self governing local and it dared to criticize Andy Stern's policies, it was compelled to retain lawyers to try to ward off Stern's moves to destroy its autonomy. Now that Stern has taken over the local, ousted all its officers, and seized its treasury, his appointed trustees are not content with mere total authoritarian control. They are moving against the lawyers who represented UHW in its days of independence.

Rosselli and the former officers of UHW have resigned from the SEIU and set up a new union, the National United Healthcare Workers; they are challenging the SEIU for representation of those 150,000 healthcare workers in California. The dispute could be resolved by collective bargaining elections sponsored by the NLRB for private employees and public employee relations boards for local government workers. No such elections will be fair and square democratic contests. The SEIU begins the campaign with an enormous treasury, swollen by the seized assets of UHW, and with a big staff. Rosselli's NUHW enters with an empty coffer and must painfully piece together campaign money and staff salaries. But at least elections will give workers a chance to decide.

Now comes SEIU's double legal assault: one set of lawyers is retained to confront Rosselli and a host of former UHW representatives on charges like "stealing" SEIU "property" e.g., mailing lists. Another set of lawyers is hired to confront the lawyers who represented the old autonomous UHW. The effect of these suits, and apparently the intention, is to make it extraordinarily difficult for the dissident NUHW to campaign for support among healthcare workers. They can be so tied up in defending themselves in court that they will have few of their meager resources left for election contests. In contrast, with guaranteed dues and agency shop fees from a million and a half workers, the SEIU remains loaded with cash.

Harassing legal action, like that against Rosselli and his union supporters, is nothing new and does not seem to require special comment. As part of the "normal" repression of union dissidents, it brings no credit to Stern for imaginative inventiveness. But the action against Rosselli's lawyers does seem to introduce a kind of China refinement.

In their guise as the new representatives of UHW, and their reputed replacement as the former legal clients of one of UHW's former law firms, Stern's trustee- attorneys are bombarding the firm with an extensive list of burdensome demands. Their suit in California state court, against the firm of Siegel and Lewitter and 100 unnamed "Does," demands they produce every scrap of paper and electronic blip ("correspondence, files, memoranda, billing records, and other documents and materials") that are in any way related to its services for the autonomous UHW and its former officers, now removed.

The suit of the Stern-appointed trustee goes far beyond a mere fishing expedition for data. Its effect, if successful, would make it difficult for the Rosselli team and its National Union of Healthcare Workers to mount an effective legal defense. By taking over UHW-W and its treasury, the trustee has already deprived Stern's critics of money, forcing them to seek voluntary donations from supporters. The suit would compound that disability by depriving them of experienced legal representation. The trustee-attorneys ask the court for "injunctive relief enjoining and restraining Defendants, and all of their principals, associates, agents, servants, employees and all persons acting in concert with them, and each of them, from providing any form of legal services or representation to the Former Officers with respect to any matters relating directly or indirectly to Defendants' former representation of UHW-W, and from disclosing to any subsequent counsel for Former Officers any of the confidential information of UHW-W which Defendants obtained in the course of their representation." They want more than data and disqualification. They want money: "damages," costs, legal fees.

The Siegel firm insists that it must resist these sweeping demands because it must respect the confidential limits of its attorney-client relationship. In rejecting any attorney-client assertion, the trustee-attorneys claim that they, as UHW's current legal representative, have the right to any material produced for it. But equating the status of a democratically elected leadership with an officialdom imposed arbitrarily is a misleading stretch. The Siegel firm, in representing UHW-W through its democratically elected officers, was obligated to protect the rights of the members by defending their democratically elected officers. The trustee-attorney represents the Stern administration which appointed it. A more apt comparison would be between the democratically elected leaders of a small nation and a replacement Quisling officialdom imposed by a tyrannical oppressive invader.

The trustee-attorney may have certain extensive technical legal rights over the trusteed UHW. In contrast, the Siegel firm asserts a legal responsibility to protect the interests of its clients. In the context of current events, that claim is buttressed by the moral standards of fair play, decency, and democracy.

Andy Stern began with the proclaimed goal of helping to liberate workers of the world from oppression. Along the way, he has taken a devious detour. He is busy liberating an army of high-paid lawyers to torment union dissidents and their attorneys.

One of NUHW's lawyers spoke at the Kaiser breakout during the convention, and he spoke of some of the SEIU "tactics" inside and outside the courtroom, chief amongst them being an explicit attempt to prohibit anyone and everyone with the least bit of labor experience (particularly as it deals with UHW) from entering the courtroom on the NUHW side, on the basis that the very thought about UHW would constitute protected attorney-client privileged material that is the intellectual property of SEIU. The Plague does this probably because SEIU knows that their case doesn't hold water, and their only chance before a fair tribunal would be to have opposing counsel who are complete n00bs, and who would not know the right questions to ask, or the right places to dig for bodies.

Same old SEIU - when you can't win, you try to game the system.

"New Prescription for a Healthy Union Movement"

One of the contributors of the Talking Union blog, Carl Finamore, was at the NUHW convention, and has penned an article for Talking Union outlining the history of the struggle behind the NUHW-SEIU battle, his thoughts on why NUHW has been so successful to date in organizing, and ending with his opinions as to what is at stake in the upcoming months for NUHW and the labor movement in general...

The boldness to break away from one of the most powerful unions in the country and the confidence to build a credible alternative is a staggering commitment and could only be attempted by a rank and file movement that has consistently been mobilized and empowered over recent years.

“The shop stewards were the closest to the day to day activities of the workers,” Howard Wallace, Field Representative/Community Organizer (ret), SEIU- Local 250 Healthcare Workers Union, told me. “Very often they were the first to understand the issues. These unpaid, volunteer leaders had a lot of respect from all of us.”

There is much to think about from the dispute between NUHW and SEIU. Lessons better learned if the rank and file revolt is actually successful. They act for all of us by standing for militant and democratic unionism. Let us wish them well.

As they say in the blog biz, RTWT...

The First Rule of Getting Knocked Down...

...is to get your ass back up off the ground.

Brother Sal gave me a call and basically told me to get back with the program, that there is reason to be optimistic, and that we need to work past this recent setback and toward the greater goal before us - and he's absolutely right.

Those of us who are more classically educated can take encouragement from the speech that then-Prime Minister Winston S. Churchill gave to the House of Commons on June 4, 1940, on the evening after the withdrawal of the British Expeditionary Force from Mainland Europe at Dunkirk, with a few alterations to fit the context:

"I have, myself, full confidence that if all do their duty, if nothing is neglected, and if the best arrangements are made, as they are being made, we shall prove ourselves once again able to defend our new union, to ride out the storm of war, and to outlive the menace of tyranny, if necessary for years, if necessary alone. At any rate, that is what we are going to try to do. That is the resolve of the National Union of Healthcare Workers-every man of them. That is the will of the E-board and the leadership.

We, who are linked together in cause and in need, will defend to the death our new unity, aiding each other like good comrades to the utmost of our strength. Even though large tracts of Kaiser and many old and famous facilities have fallen or may fall into the grip of the Trusteeship and all the odious apparatus of SEIU rule, we shall not flag or fail.

We shall go on to the end. We shall fight in California, we shall fight nationwide and locally, we shall fight with growing confidence and growing strength in the hospitals, we shall defend our Unity, whatever the cost may be; we shall fight on the streets, we shall fight on the union halls, we shall fight in the press and in the new media, we shall fight in the halls of government.

We shall never surrender, and even if, which I do not for a moment believe, this union or a large part of it were subjugated and starving, then our comrades beyond the reach of SEIU, armed and guarded by the God-given freedoms they have inherited as Citizens of this Great Nation, would carry on the struggle until, in God's good time, the New Union, with all its power and might, steps forth to the rescue and the liberation of all those trapped in the Old."

Then again, there are those who may well believe that "this situation absolutely requires a really futile and stupid gesture be done on somebody's part"...


In any event, this fight ain't over by a long shot, because there's one fact that overrides every other visceral reaction:

SEIU is doing anything it can to avoid a straight up-or-down vote on the Trusteeship. As long as SEIU is running scared, NUHW is by definition on the rise.

Time to get up, and get our asses off the ground. Whether it's Churchill or Bluto who helps you out, time to get up and get back in the game.

It was only right that he call me and tell me to get back in the game after my "Slammed" post yesterday, and for that fact alone, Sal Rosselli has my gratitude and respect.