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.

An Open Letter to Andy Stern...

Charlie Ridgell has once again put pen to paper, and has provided us with an Open Letter of support to Our Glorious Maximum Leader...

Dear Andy Stern,

No doubt, fearless leader, you have heard the loud voices of the hundreds of thousands of SEIU members, and even many SEIU leaders, who believe your activities as SEIU president and your leadership of SEIU are hypocritical, corrupt, anti-democratic, anti-worker, a threat to EFCA and, ultimately, a danger to the survival of the labor movement.

Many even say you should step aside and resign - for the sake of SEIU.

Fools they are! And all those mean websites! I know it’s free speech but it’s outrageous!

I am not sure if I am qualified to judge whether they are right about your activities and your leadership of the union. I believe that as long as you can look at yourself in the mirror in the morning, noon and night, and feel good about yourself, and your pink scarf shelters you from the cold and damp, the rest of that stuff is between you and your noble conscience. We must all see things as they really are: You are the man; it’s your thing.

But as sure as you love purple, I am sure of one thing:

Andy, please, please pay no attention to those who say you should resign!

What do they know that you haven’t taught them? Fools!

Don’t they realize that it’s your preordained destiny to unite the working class of the whole world into One Mighty Purple Union Partnering With Global Capital under your inspired and infallible leadership?

Why, if it weren’t for your all encompassing vision, your selfless dedication, your strategic genius, your diplomatic skills and your utmost integrity, the working class of our fragile planet would be crushed, ground into the soil by the hard boots of merciless global profiteers! You are humanity’s last, best hope. If not you, then who can save us?

Stand your ground Andy! You must remain SEIU Leader at all costs, by any means necessary, no matter what happens! Don’t let your many detractors drive you from your rightful place or prevent you from meeting your destiny!

Stand by the courage of your convictions – no pun intended.

Hang in there till the end, no matter how bitter!

I am depending on you to do the right thing here, Andy!

Don’t let me down, like Nixon!

Andy, look at me when I’m talking to you!

Andy, stay with me, bro!

In awe and admiration,

Your loyal pal,

Charlie Ridgell

Well stated, sir!

SEIU's Sandwich Offensive...

Go check out this post over on Daily Dirt. You'll get a comparison of SEIU reps to Moonies, their organizing approach compared to that of used car salesmen, and a hilarious take in the comments on what SEIU's name should really now be.

Ethics, Schmethics...

Unfortunately for SEIU, they are apparently finding it difficult to fill a position for which Our Glorious Maximum Leader shows little, if any, concern. Thus, they have resorted to the job posting to get someone in to SEIU who is willing to be an "Ethics Ombudsperson."

Position Description

JOB VACANCY ANNOUNCEMENT
ETHICS OMBUDSPERSON
ASSISTANT GENERAL COUNSEL


Service Employees International Union (SEIU) is seeking an attorney with a minimum of four years’ experience in labor law for its Legal Department at its Washington, DC headquarters to fill a position as Ethics Ombudsperson and Assistant General Counsel. SEIU is a progressive, dynamic, fast-growing union representing over 2 million workers in North America. The Ethics Ombudsperson will be in charge of SEIU’s overall ethics program. The areas of responsibility will include answering ethics-related questions from members and affiliates, directing ethics complaints to the proper official of the International Union or affiliate, training International Union and affiliate officers and staff on the SEIU ethics code and policies, interacting with public agencies and other entities, and drafting the annual ethics program report to the International Executive Board. The successful candidate must be able to interact with International and affiliate officers and staff on sensitive and confidential matters.

The position is part of SEIU’s 24-lawyer Legal Department, a collegial group of attorneys committed to furthering the rights of workers. SEIU provides generous health insurance and pension plans as well as other benefits.

All interested applicants should be prepared to check their integrity at the door.

Just Say "No"...

...As in, "Fresno."

There is a reason that there is a lot of back-and-forth going on between SEIU and NUHW regarding the Fresno County IHSS (In-Home Support Services) providers, the main reason being that there is an upcoming vote (ballots go out in the first week of June), and this will be the first major showdown between SEIU and NUHW over representation. At stake is the representation of some 10,000 individuals who provide in-home support to elderly and disabled persons in Fresno and its surrounding communities.

In the runup to those elections, both NUHW and SEIU have been paying great attention to some of the budgetary concerns that are surrounding things like in-home support services. These services are mandated by the federal CMS (which administers MediCare and Medicaid), and county bean-counters have been trying every which-way to save money on the portion that they are required to pay for those services.

Recently, Fresno County was called onto the carpet by an arbitrator for voting to cut IHSS caregiver wages by something on the order of $1.10 an hour. When SEIU reacted to that decision, their approach was something we all have seen and heard before - they blamed another union for the problem having presented itself in the first place, and then decided in that same presser to threaten the current IHSS workers that their contract would become "null and void" should they sign with NUHW. But of course, nowhere is there anything seen about anything concrete that SEIU would actually do for those workers, or what they have actually done for those workers. Nothing has been heard from SEIU in regards to Fresno IHSS workers since that last presser in late April blaming NUHW and its leadership for all the woes in the world.

We contrast that approach with the recent activity seen by NUHW and its supporters, as can be seen here...

Over a hundred Fresno homecare providers packed the Fresno County Board of Supervisors on Tuesday to oppose an agenda item that would reduce their wages and benefits to $9.50 an hour. But they weren’t just there to protest the wage cuts—they also pointed to the repeated failure of their union, SEIU, to support them in stopping the cuts.

“SEIU just failed to stop a different set of cuts last week,” said Flo Furlow, a homecare worker. “Now the county wants to cut our wages even more, and this time SEIU isn’t even going to take it to arbitration. How many times can we let this happen?”

Providers wages are paid by In-Home Supportive Services, a service that saves tax dollars by allowing people with long-term medical needs to receive care in their own homes rather than in more costly nursing homes. It is funded jointly by the County, the State, and the federal government.

Despite pleas from homecare providers and their consumers, Supervisors voted 3 to 2 to submit a “rate request” packet to the California Department of Social Services—an administrative step that would allow the cuts to take effect starting July 1.

When Fresno County first began seeking cuts in September, homecare workers and their elected union leaders successfully organized to stop the cuts from taking effect. That work ground to a halt in January, when national SEIU officials took over California’s healthcare union in order to force homecare workers into a separate union that would be run by SEIU staff from Washington, D.C. SEIU removed the rank-and-file leaders that Fresno homecare workers had elected to represent them.

Ordinarily that would be seen as bad news - NUHW would be seen as having failed in its effort to stop the cuts. Fortunately, unlike SEIU, NUHW actually decided to fight those cuts - and got a memo from the Center for Medicare/Medicaid Services (the folks who actually determine what gets paid in Medicare/Medicaid) indicating that the State of California's cuts (and through them, Fresno County's cuts) were not in line with the recent Recovery Act passed by Congress...

The Obama administration’s Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS) has outlined a position that California’s cuts to state funding for In-Home Supportive Services (IHSS) are out of compliance with the requirements of the federal Recovery Act (known formally as the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act or ARRA) for receiving enhanced Medicaid funding. The Recovery Act prohibits a state from receiving the Act’s additional Medicaid funds if the state increases local governments’ share of the cost of the Medicaid program.

The position, set forth in a memo provided to state lawmakers earlier this week, makes clear that the homecare cuts in next year’s state budget are vulnerable to legal challenge, and that California could lose billions of dollars in enhanced Medicaid funding for a wide variety of healthcare programs between July 1, 2009 and December 31, 2010 if homecare services are not restored to prior levels.

The memo states that, “CMS believes the limitation [on state contributions for personal care services] would violate the ARRA local contribution MOE [Maintenance of Effort requirement],” based on findings that California’s homecare cuts would improperly require county governments to pay a higher share of cost for the IHSS program. While the memo notes that the state could make IHSS cuts without violating the requirements of the Recovery Act by directly reducing homecare provider rates rather than reducing the state share of cost for them, such a policy would literally lock workers into poverty, preventing counties from funding wages and benefits at levels necessary to provide reliable, quality care, even if local governments wanted to increase their own funding of the program. Such a policy would also force consumers, caregivers, and communities to forgo huge amounts of available federal funding.

NUHW leaders and staff were the first to raise the possibility of a legal challenge to proposed IHSS cuts under the Recovery Act’s local contribution Maintenance of Effort requirement months ago, immediately after it was added to the bill by the U.S. Senate.

SEIU's reaction to the above?

...Well...

...Er...

...Uh...

We'll let you know when it comes out.

How NOT to Raid a Union...

Those loveable scamps at SEIU have poured millions of dollars, and thousands of man-hours into SEIU 721, in order to raid EAA down in the City of Los Angeles. Of course, they didn't have the wontons to put the actual vote tallies in their "victory" announcement. That's because they got their asses kicked, and they don't want people to know how badly they actually did.

EAA, on the other hand, had no problem publishing the actual vote totals.

Here's what the Plague got for their money and their time:

May 7, 2009 – Tentative results are in for the representation election. However, 3 of the units have sufficient numbers of challenged ballots to affect the outcome. Over 70% of the ballots mailed to EAA-represented employees were returned, an impressive number. The actual number of votes cast in each unit follows:

EAA IS HERE TO STAY

MOU 1: Voted to protect their union, stay in EAA.
EAA: 859
SEIU: 568
No Union: 17
Challenged: 123
Void: 7

MOU 8: ERB to resolve challenged ballots due to large number of challenges. Runoff election likely.
EAA: 453
SEIU: 489
No Union: 36
Challenged: 75
Void: 5

MOU 17: ERB to resolve challenged ballots & irregularities in the ballot counting. Runoff election likely.
EAA: 165
SEIU: 180
No Union: 9
Challenged: 19
Void: 0

MOU 19: Voted to protect their union, stay in EAA.
EAA: 108
SEIU: 88
No Union: 4
Challenged: 8
Void: 12

MOU 20: Voted to protect their union, stay in EAA (ERB must resolve challenges, but number of challenges is small compared to vote margin). No runoff expected.
EAA: 497
SEIU: 392
No Union: 34
Challenged: 77
Void: 0

MOU 21: Voted to protect their union, stay in EAA.
EAA: 659
SEIU: 269
No Union: 7
Challenged: 68
Void: 5

Remember that the procedures require a successful choice to obtain 50% + 1 of the votes counted after disposition of all challenged ballots. If no choice receives this amount, a runoff election is scheduled between the 2 choices receiving the highest numbers of votes.

EAA thanks everyone who voted to protect his or her union. Your effort in learning the facts and returning your ballot is appreciated.

Bringing all the numbers together, it breaks down like this: A total of 5233 votes were cast, of which only 1986 (37.95%) were cast for SEIU. On the other hand, 2741 votes (52.38%) were cast for EAA. A total of 370 ballots (7%) stand to challenge, but none of the challenge votes can flip a MOU from EAA to SEIU.

In fact, SEIU failed to win a clear majority of votes in ALL SIX of the MOU's - the best percentage that SEIU obtained was 48.26% in the second-smallest MOU by vote total.

All in all, this was an EPIC FAIL on the part of the Plague.

And for all you Plague supporters out there, you should keep in mind that, were this vote being conducted by standard SEIU rules (pooling all the votes together instead of individual units voting), then SEIU would be absolutely, positively out on its ass in this vote. As it stands now, they need to survive a runoff in order to achieve victory in two (maybe three) of the six units.

Couple that with the ill will they've engendered all over SEIU 721 with this useless campaign, and it's a lose-lose every way you slice it.

Well done, Andy. You've once again done us proud.

Letters, We Get Letters...

It looks like the nice folks at Zombie UHW have finally figured out that a bunch of us are no longer interested in having them represent us - and as a result, they have done what Zombie UHW does best - send out a form letter.



They also very helpfully provided a form for authorization of dues check-off, that could be mailed or faxed.



Somehow, I don't think Zombie UHW would like to receive this version.

Planned (Temporary) Reduction in Posting...

Life is intervening in a BIG way around here. Posting will be light for the next week or so unless something major breaks down.

Back soon...

Wilhelm's Response to Andy Stern...

...is a monumental F-you letter. Note that the letter was sent directly to Andy Stern, with copies to Bruce Raynor (UNITE/HERE) and Edgar Romney (Workers United), when as you recall the letter to Wilhelm was co-signed by all three "leaders"...

Andy Stern
President
SEIU
1800 Massachusetts Avenue, NW
Washington DC 20036

Dear Andy:

This is in response to SEIU's letter following the end of the mediation process.

Your offer to end some of SEIU's interference in UNITE HERE's internal affairs is disingenuous at best. You state that SEIU will continue to campaign in "disputed" areas, meaning that you will continue to try to hijack UNITE HERE members, even where members have clearly voted to stay in UNITE HERE, and even where SEIU has engaged in demonstrable fraud and voter suppression in so-called "votes."

You also state that SEIU will not interfere in "new" UNITE HERE organizing campaigns' does that mean SEIU will continue to seek revocation of UNITE HERE authorization cards in situations like the Phoenix Sheraton Hotel, and continue to try to "burn the ground" in other UNITE HERE organizing campaigns"

You state that SEIU's proposal at the last mediation session recognizes UNITE HERE's core jurisdictions. That is, of course, false. Your proposal continues to try to hijack UNITE HERE members in hotels and gaming, and demands that UNITE HERE agree that SEIU will organize competitively in the hotel industry.

Your statement that SEIU's financial offer would leave UNITE HERE as a viable Union is absurd. I can only conclude that SEIU's accelerating financial problems lead you to try to hijack UNITE HERE's financial resources, leaving UNITE HERE unable to re-establish its International Union and be viable, let alone be able to organize aggressively. You want to leave us financially crippled so that we will not be able to compete effectively with SEIU's demand to have competitive organizing rights in our core industries.

Your proposal for arbitration is likewise disingenuous. We already have written recommendations from a highly respected neutral, UFCW President Joe Hansen, who invested enormous time and effort in understanding these issues. UNITE HERE accepted President Hansen's recommendations as the basis for a settlement, even though we find several of them repugnant. SEIU rejected President Hansen's recommendations explicitly because those recommendations respect UNITE HERE's core jurisdictions in hotels and gaming.

Why start the process over? It is absurd to say that, having attempted to hijack UNITE HERE, you will now try to get another arbitrator to award you parts of UNITE HERE membership, jurisdiction and resources, after you rejected President Hansen's recommendations. UNITE HERE would have all the risk in such an arbitration, and SEIU would have no risk at all, because UNITE HERE has not tried to hijack SEIU membership, jurisdiction, and resources. Let's put on the table situations where parts of SEIU would clearly be strategically better off in UNITE HERE, such as SEIU public and hospital members in Nevada; SEIU building service workers in South Florida; laundry workers in every major hotel and gaming city; and many others, as well as SEIU financial resources.

No International Union has ever submitted its very future - its membership, its organizing jurisdiction, and its financial resources - to arbitration.

Why didn't SEIU propose arbitration in your dispute with United Health Care West and Sal Rosselli?

Why did SEIU reject the recommendations of impartial, respected mediators both in your raid on UNITE HERE and in your California dispute, if you so value neutral help?

There is no need to start over with an arbitrator, who will have to learn our dispute from scratch. SEIU should simply accept President Hansen's proposals as the basis for negotiations, as UNITE HERE has done. Let's get it done now.

Fraternally,

John W. Wilhelm
President/Hospitality Industry

I would add here that, at the outset of the blowup between UHW and SEIU, arbitration was sought, and was initially attended by both parties, but when it was clear that the arbitrator was actually going to act fairly (instead of rubber-stamping SEIU's desires), SEIU walked away from the arbitration and set in motion the chain of events that resulted in the Marshall Hearings and, ultimately, the Trusteeship.

The SEIU hive mind will, of course, have forgotten about some of the nasty facts that Wilhelm brings up in the latter part of his letter. Wilhelm also points out the SEIU hypocrisy in its positions in a manner pretty close to what was written here earlier on this subject.

Still, it's refreshing to see two pages of absolute 190-proof "F-you" directed at Andy Stern, especially when it comes from someone with the authority and the background to back it up.

Do We Really Need to Say It?

Remember Andy Stern's campaign against the CEO and Chairman of Bank of America, Ken Lewis? Well, evidently Our Glorious Maximum Leader wasn't just an ordinary customer or labor leader out to make a political point in his campaign against Bank of America - he was also a Very Important Customer...

For the past few months, Andy Stern, president of the powerful Service Employees International Union, has railed against the government's $45 billion Bank of America bailout.

He has condemned the bank for lavish bonuses, for exploiting millions of mortgage and credit card customers, and for mistreating its low-level workers.

SEIU's Change to Win labor coalition even led a "Just Vote No" shareholder revolt Wednesday at the bank's annual meeting in Charlotte, N.C., at which Ken Lewis was ousted as bank chairman but kept on as CEO.

But guess what? Despite all the public fanfare, Stern has been quietly doing big business with Bank of America.

Last year, his union borrowed $10 million from the bank, SEIU's financial report shows. That loan brought the union's total debt with Bank of America to $87.7 million.

Ken Lewis, in other words, is SEIU's main creditor.

One would think that is bad enough for Our Glorious Maximum Leader, but that is just one facet of his rank hypocrisy...

And that's not the only surprise in the report.

SEIU's other big lender last year - to the tune of $15 million - was Amalgamated Bank. That's the institution owned by UNITE HERE, a rival union that represents clothing, hotel, restaurant and laundry workers.

The Amalgamated loan was issued in September, an SEIU spokeswoman said. It arrived just before a power feud between UNITE HERE's two top leaders, Bruce Raynor and John Wilhelm, erupted into the nastiest labor split in years.

Once it became clear that Wilhelm had leadership support in that dispute, Raynor rushed to rewrite the bank's bylaws in December to assure himself control of Amalgamated's board of directors. He then ousted Wilhelm as a bank director.

Amalgamated is the only union-owned bank in America. It has $500 million in assets, and is often called the crown jewel of the labor movement.

By the time he ousted Wilhelm from the bank board, Raynor was openly working with Andy Stern to convince a third of UNITE HERE's nearly half-million members to secede and affiliate with SEIU.

The UNITE HERE breakaway group calls itself Workers United. Stern spoke at its founding meeting last month. SEIU bankrolled the secession effort and a suit aimed at getting control of Amalgamated.

"Raynor conspired to move money from Amalgamated Bank to SEIU for the purpose of attacking our union with money from our own bank," Wilhelm says.

Last week, UNITE HERE's leadership voted to start suspension proceedings against Raynor, who's still the union's president.

Raynor declined to talk about the Amalgamated Bank loan. SEIU spokeswoman Ramona Oliver dismissed Wilhelm's claim.

"We do a lot of business ... with Amalgamated," Oliver said. "There nothing unusual about that $15 million loan."

Nothing unusual. Rrrriiiggghhhtttt...

Still, one must ask, with easy access its millions of members paying monthly dues as well as COPE expenditures, why does SEIU find it necessary to take out paper to the tune of $105M, with $60M of that in the past calendar year...

So why would SEIU, which boasted nearly $250 million in dues income from members last year, even need to take out big loans from Bank of America and Amalgamated Bank? It turns out Stern's organization has been burning through cash.

Last year, the union spent $67 million on "political and lobbying" expenses - twice what it spent in 2007. It sold virtually all of its investments to generate additional cash.

Much of that money went to elect Barack Obama.

"We put all we had on the table to make sure that [Obama's victory] happened," Oliver said.

There is just something that must be interjected here: Barack Obama was never, EVER, in serious jeopardy of losing the 2008 Presidential Election, and certainly was never in any level of deficit to warrant any union, much less SEIU, having to "put all we had on the table." The GOP had the brief post-convention poll bounce, true, but that ended right at about the time that it was demonstrated that Sarah Palin could not stand up to the harsh, intimidating interview styles of Katie Couric and Charlie Gibson. Res ipsa loquitor.

However, the article goes on...

The union's latest financial report shows SEIU has only $33 million in net assets. That's an average of just $18 for each of its 1.8 million members. UNITE HERE, on the other hand, has more than $200 million - an average of about $568 per member.

SEIU's outstanding loans total $102 million. Its liabilities have skyrocketed to 82% of its assets.

Like the Wall Street banks Stern has rightly criticized, SEIU is spending beyond its means. His solution seems to be a hostile takeover of another union's membership, along with a plan to snatch up labor's only bank.

Ken Lewis should take survival lessons from Andy Stern.

It seems there's a lot to be learned from Andy Stern - with the one thing coming immediately to mind being how NOT to run a steady and stable union.

An Offer He Can't Refuse...

Our Glorious Maximum Leader, in a letter co-signed with Edgar Romney of Workers United and Bruce Raynor (soon to be formerly) of UNITE/HERE, has made an offer to John Wilhelm of UNITE/HERE, an offer which Stern and his buddies feel that Wilhelm will not be able to refuse...

April 30, 2009

John Wilhelm
President/Hospitality
UNITE HERE
1775 K Street NW
Washington, DC 20006

Dear John:

Our Challenge

We met today at the 100-day mark of the Obama Administration. Our country faces a wide range of new opportunities to transform the lives of working Americans. Our members expect and are counting on us to help the Administration succeed.

We are also at a time where after several years of efforts—including two formal processes with independent mediators as well as significant bi-lateral discussions—our unions have not been able to resolve either the internal differences between the leaders of UNITE and HERE or to find a shared understanding on how to move forward in the wake of the creation of Workers United and its affiliation with SEIU.

The dissolution of the merger of UNITE HERE was not the outcome anyone dreamed of, but legally, politically and practically it is a reality, we believe, we must all accept.

Moving Forward

There are now at least two ways to resolve the well-established outstanding issues of organizing jurisdiction, division of assets, and units where representation is still contested:

1. Negotiation. We have continued to take advantage of the advice of Joe Hansen in his role as mediator. We put forward to you today a comprehensive settlement offer that recognizes UNITE HERE’s core jurisdiction and the leading union of hotel and gaming employees, provides UNITE HERE with a substantial financial package that allows it to remain a viable international union, and seeks to definitively resolve which union (Workers United/SEIU or UNITE HERE) that members in disputed areas will be a part of going forward. To date these discussions have not been successful, and we believe we must consider continued negotiations as you have proposed as well as other alternatives.
2. Arbitration. We are prepared now or if the negotiation process is not successful, to submit all outstanding issues to an independent third party for a final-offer arbitration process. We appreciate that in any dispute there are two points of view and believe that the use of an independent third party is necessary to make a final determination if we cannot do it amongst ourselves.

We are also prepared to unilaterally take four very important steps to demonstrate the sincerity of our position. Obviously, we would expect UNITE HERE to do the same.

1. No raiding commitment. In the interim, and in all of the alternatives, we are willing to continue to comply with the provisions of the CTW Constitution regarding no-raiding and will ask the Change to Win Presidents to immediately appoint a permanent, mutually-acceptable arbitrator who would be empowered to expeditiously settle all questions of raiding. We will abide by all decisions.
2. Cease membership contact. In addition, we are unilaterally ceasing any contact with the approximately 200,000 uncontested members of UNITE HERE.
3. Respect organizing campaigns. We are unilaterally willing to not interfere with any new UNITE HERE organizing efforts.
4. Employer relations. We are agreeing not to disrupt any existing employer relationships as it relates to existing contracts, contract negotiations and dues deduction in all undisputed jurisdictions.

To reiterate, we believe there are two viable alternatives for resolution of our strongly held differences all of which can lead to a thoughtful conclusion of our dispute. We are willing to attempt to finalize negotiations, and if that is not successful, we are willing to submit to arbitration as soon as feasible.

We believe the time is now to focus on the opportunities in front of our members and our country and ask for you to join us in making America a place where the dreams of our members and all Americans still can come true.

Sincerely,


Edgar Romney
President
Workers United

Bruce Raynor
General President
UNITE HERE

Andy Stern
President
SEIU

Say what you want about the Purple Plague, but they sure do have some chutzpah. SEIU raids UNITE/HERE, breaks off a faction by means less than entirely legal, tries to move in on UNITE/HERE's main asset (the Amalgamated Bank) after having taken out a gargantuan loan from that bank prior to the raid, and then turn around and offer binding arbitration as a means of sealing the peace.

And as a "sweetener", they offer a "no raiding commitment" - with the definition of a "raid" to be determined by the Change to Stern coalition Presidents, of which Stern has a working majority - and to cease member contacts on any "uncontested" UNITE/HERE members, with evidently SEIU alone determining which of those members are "uncontested." Furthermore, they will respect existing organizing campaigns of UNITE/HERE.

The fact that SEIU had to put those sweeteners into the letter says (in my opinion explicitly) that SEIU has, in fact, been engaging in raiding, has been contacting members of other labor organizations, and has been interfering in existing organizing campaigns of UNITE/HERE.

Otherwise, why else would you promise to stop doing what you had already been doing, if what you had already been doing was entirely on the up-and-up?

I hope John Wilhelm doesn't have a horse.

Update 5/2/09: It seems that John Wilhelm is prepared to put the horse's head on the line...

The Service Employees International Union and a newly formed union offered to resolve a long-running and bitter dispute with Unite Here that threatens to distract the unions from engaging on political priorities, including health care and a bill to ease union organizing. But the offer was quickly rejected by the leadership of Unite Here, and the dispute, in which both sides have filed lawsuits, could continue for weeks or months.

(snip)

Under the proposal, Workers United would also give Unite Here $20 million within two months of the execution of the agreement, and up to $46 million within five years. Each side would retain its pre-merger assets, meaning that Mr. Raynor's faction would retain control of New York-based Amalgamated Bank, the only union-owned bank in the U.S. with $4.6 billion in assets.

On Friday, Mr. Wilhelm called SEIU's offer "disingenuous at best," in a letter to Mr. Stern. He said the proposal "continues to try to hijack Unite Here members," and he rejected the financial offer as "absurd." The latest back and forth between SEIU and Unite Here emerged when mediation by Joe Hansen, president of the United Food and Commercial Workers, ended this week. Mr. Wilhelm suggested that the two sides use recommendations made by Mr. Hansen , such as letting Unite Here under Mr. Wilhelm retain all of its gaming industry members, as a basis for negotiations.

Mr. Raynor said some members who had previously belonged in Mr. Wilhelm's side of the union now want to belong to the Workers United union affiliated with the SEIU. Since Mr. Hansen's mediation failed, he said, the groups should agree to arbitration rather than letting the matter work itself through the courts, which will take longer.

Ah, so now the finally truth comes out - Workers United (and through them Our Glorious Maximum Leader) wants to get his greasy mitts on the Amalgamated Bank and its $500M or so of assets which now rightfully belongs to UNITE/HERE.

Nice.