Taking Care Of Business

When it comes to union business, there are generally two approaches to getting things done. One is to actually work with the decision-makers and get results that way. The other is to file lawsuits all over the place, and then try to take credit for the work of other people when things apparently go your way.

The former UHW, now populating the higher echelons of NUHW, is using the former approach and is getting results by defending IHSS programs, first in San Francisco and now most recently in Sacramento...

After weeks of grassroots advocacy by National Union of Healthcare Workers, IHSS Public Authority staff will recommend budget proposal to preserve 100% of current wages and benefits for homecare providers despite deep cuts from the Governor.

Supervisor Roger Dickinson joined Sacramento homecare providers and advocates today in announcing a breakthrough victory to protect homecare services in Sacramento County. At Tuesday’s Board of Supervisors meeting, In-Home Supportive Services (IHSS) Public Authority staff will recommend a budget package to preserve homecare providers' wages at $10.40 per hour with all current health benefits.

The proposal is the result of weeks of grassroots advocacy by the National Union of Healthcare Workers (NUHW) to maintain and improve wages and benefits for homecare providers using federal stimulus funds, and the Board of Supervisors is expected to approve it in a vote on Tuesday. This comes on the heels of a victory last week by NUHW in San Francisco, where Mayor Gavin Newsom’s administration proposed a budget for 2009-10 that uses a costing model proposed by NUHW to maintain San Francisco County providers' wages at $11.54 per hour.

“I thank the National Union of Healthcare Workers for their work to achieve this solution to save IHSS wages and benefits,” said Supervisor Dickinson. “I believe that Sacramento County is ready to protect vital services for seniors and people with disabilities, as well as providers’ wages, with no added cost to the budget.”

IHSS is a homecare service funded jointly by state, county, and federal funds that allows frail seniors and people with disabilities to live with dignity in their own homes, rather than in more expensive institutions. The funding solution proposed by NUHW allows counties to maintain or raise homecare providers' wages and benefits despite Gov. Schwarzenegger’s devastating cuts to state homecare funding—largely by back-filling the loss of state funds with additional federal Medicaid funds available to counties through the Obama administration's economic stimulus package.

Frances Gracechild, Executive Director of Sacramento-based disability advocacy group Resources for Independent Living, said the wage protection would also protect the quality of care delivered to residents.

“The workers and leaders of NUHW have raised wages for providers in Sacramento and around the state, and shown that when providers earn livable wages and benefits they can provide consistent, higher-quality care,” Gracechild said. “NUHW’s victories to protect homecare services in Sacramento and San Francisco are great news for all of us who rely on the vital care homecare workers provide.”

Bill Camp, Executive Secretary of the Sacramento Central Labor Council, called NUHW’s advocacy proof of the strength of the 18,000 homecare workers in Sacramento County.

“The leaders of NUHW were so crucial in helping homecare providers win their union in the first place,” Camp said. “And today they are helping homecare workers win again, and protect their wages and their jobs even in a time of economic turmoil. NUHW and Sacramento County are delivering economic security for providers in Sacramento and hope for providers across the state.”

Ella Raiford, a Sacramento homecare provider and elected leader of NUHW, said uniting with other healthcare workers gave homecare providers the voice they needed to protect their wages.

“Our victory shows that we can protect our wages when we’re united with Kaiser workers and hospital workers in a strong, democratic union,” Raiford said. “That union is NUHW. At the same time SEIU-UHW is spending millions trying to divide us, we’ve been meeting with Supervisors and the Public Authority to advance a real plan to preserve funding.”

NUHW’s recommendations to protect and improve homecare services have detailed the specific changes in IHSS funding that would result from the combination of state cuts and federal enhancements, and explained how each county could maintain and improve workers' wages and benefits at no additional cost.

This isn't just a Q-and-A session - this was an actual news conference at which Supervisor Dickinson showed up and spoke at the NUHW lectern...



In order to foster this type of agreement, a framework has been proposed by the NUHW leadership - the people with actual experience in working with the elected powers-that-be - and such examples can be found here, here and here.

Not surprisingly, there are no Zombie UHW reps to be found in the above photos, nor are there any concrete IHSS funding plans to be found on the 'tubes that were generated by Zombie UHW or the Purple Plague. Of course, this set of inconvenient facts does not stop Zombie UHW from trying to take credit for someone else's actions, though...

The members of the SEIU UHW bargaining team representing homecare workers in Sacramento County are lauding an agreement with the County that will guarantee current wages and healthcare benefits in the face of economic distress. County officials have worked with the union to offset losses in local revenue with federal stimulus funds to assure no loss of pay for homecare workers.

"This is a perfect example of what we can accomplish when our union and local officials work together," said SEIU UHW bargaining committee member and homecare worker Martha Cobos. "This decision means that those who care for society's most vulnerable will be able to keep doing this important work."

The current wage for homecare workers in Sacramento County is $10.40 an hour, plus $.70 for benefits. All across the state, politicians - including the governor - have threatened to slash homecare pay and benefits to make up for losses in state and local tax revenue. SEIU UHW has maintained that the federal stimulus money is designed to offset exactly this kind of deficit, and Sacramento officials agree.

"This is the model for all county officials and the state government to follow," said SEIU UHW Trustee Eliseo Medina. "The wrong place to cut costs is on the backs of homecare workers, for both moral and financial reasons. Remember, homecare saves vital taxpayer money that would otherwise be spent on more costly institutional care and unemployment for displaced workers."

In another positive development for County homecare workers, County officials have agreed to work to settle a new contract for homecare workers well before the November 30 expiration date. Negotiations are scheduled to begin in late July and SEIU UHW bargainers are optimistic that a progressive contract is possible.

"We are a strong union and will work hard to defend and increase our pay and benefits," said John Campbell, who is also a member of the bargaining committee. "We look forward to working with the County to hammer out a contract and take care of our members so they can focus on their important work."

Note from the above that there are NO quotes from anyone who is not in the pay of SEIU-UHW on some level. There are NO links to any concrete proposals made by Zombie UHW. There is nothing in the above Zombie UHW presser except for a regurgitation of the same stale, tired talking points shielding a desperate attempt to yell out one thing: "Me, Too!"

UHW is truly a pathetic shell of what it once was.

Astroturfing The Opinion Pages...

The term "astroturfing" has come to another meaning besides the laying down of fake grass where real grass had grown before. It also means the attempt to show that there is being made an attempt at political, advertising or public relations campaigning, with the goal of creating the impression of spontaneous "grassroots" activity.

And so it goes with Zombie UHW, who rarely passes up any chance for their leaders to flex their Madd Intertubez Skillzz. As we all know by now, Flo Furlow had an op-ed piece in the Fresno Bee last Saturday. This, of course, could not be let to stand by itself, so out come the letters to the editor.

First, there is Tracy Robinson and Jackie Peppars on Tuesday...

In the United Healthcare Workers West of the Service Employees International Union, we have a saying: We're stronger together. That's why we have to respectfully disagree with Florine Furlow ("Home-care workers take their union back," Valley Voices May 30) when she writes that she trusts the National Union of Healthcare Workers.

NUHW has continually lied to us and delivered false promises about what they can do for workers. The truth is the former leaders who were booted out of UHW for misusing our dues money still just see dollar signs when they see us home-care workers. But we're not falling for the lies this time.

This week, we have a simple choice: Stick with UHW SEIU — the union with the strength to fight back against the terrible cuts proposed by Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger, or go with the organization that's tried to divide us and that's lied to us over and over.

Too much is at stake — with people losing jobs and the governor trying to balance the budget on the backs of regular folk — to let NUHW manipulate us again.

We have the protective umbrella of millions of UHW SEIU members standing with us. We owe it to ourselves to vote UHW in this election.

Then there was Lisa Brown on Friday...

Florine Furlow is a fellow homecare provider in Fresno with an interesting perspective [Valley Voices May 30] regarding the upcoming election over union representation for In-Home Supportive Service workers.

Yes, the civil rights movement correlates well with disabled and elderly people being supported to live in their own homes.

Tragic and devastating cuts are being proposed that could change home care for all time. Ms. Furlow seems to feel those former leaders of our local have “magic” to stop these cuts.

What stopped them from taking action? Why weren’t they using their magic before Feb. 2, while they were in power and before they voluntarily resigned to form a different union?

I’m choosing to fight to protect the aged and those with disabilities, like my son. He, like so many others, may well end up in a long-term institutional placement if services are cut and is a plaintiff in a class action lawsuit brought by our union, UHW-SEIU, against our governor and county to seek an injunction from July’s planned cuts.

We need to unite to fight back together against these cuts. Let’s join arms and redouble efforts to turn this around. It’s hard work, not magic. Tomorrow may be too late!

Finally, there was Charles Taylor today...

This week and next, 10,000 Fresno home-care providers are making a decision that will change our lives forever.

As we face devastating state budget cuts, will we choose to abandon fellow workers from across the state to join a fledgling group with no members? Or will we stick with UHW SEIU, the largest home-care union in the country, which is leading efforts to stop the budget cuts and build us a better, more secure future.

For me, someone who has dedicated my life to in-home care, the decision is clear. United we stand. Divided we fall.

To save our jobs and protect our wages so we can continue providing quality care to seniors and people with disabilities, Fresno home-care workers must unite with our brothers and sisters from across the state and stand with SEIU United Healthcare Workers-West.

I know firsthand the power and the promise of a united 300,000-strong union of home-care workers.

I first became a UHW SEIU member five years ago when I was providing in-home support for my sister who was a diabetic and had a severe heart condition. Before she passed away two years ago, my sister depended on me to feed her, wash her and ensure she kept up with her medications and doctor visits. Because of the in-home care I provided, my sister lived out her last days in peace and dignity.

None of this would have been possible without the strength of UHW SEIU. You see, when I began caring for my sister, I earned $7.15 an hour without health insurance. Back then, I struggled to make ends meet, taking on multiple clients and working 80-hour weeks, just so that I could support myself and my family.

Despite my love and dedication to caring for some of Fresno's neediest, I knew that I could not continue to live at poverty wages unless something changed

Then in 2006, UHW SEIU led a historic campaign to increase our wages. As a bargaining unit member, aided by home-care workers from across the state and resources from UHW's years of experience winning better wages for workers, we were able to increase wages for Fresno home-care workers from less than $8 an hour to $10.25 an hour.

Through the strength and resources that came from fellow UHW SEIU members fighting similar battles across the state and across the country, we achieved more than I could ever have imagined, including health care for many of our members.

It's this kind of dedication and unwavering support that Fresno home-care providers need today. The cuts to home care that Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger is proposing could push as many as nine out of 10 home-care providers out of work.

We need union leaders who will keep their eye on the ball and not get lost in their own personal power grab. NUHW is trying to convince us that the battle is between home-care providers -- that the battleground is in Fresno, not in Sacramento or in Washington. Don't be fooled.

We have everything to lose by isolating ourselves and diminishing our strength. But we have everything to gain by sticking with a 2 million-member-strong union that is fighting on the airwaves, in the courts, in the Capitol and in the White House to protect our future.

We have a once in a life-time opportunity through June 15 to join forces to defend our way of life and build a united movement of home-care workers across the state and across the country to ensure we save the jobs we love. The stakes are too high to choose a false prophet. Choose solidarity over disunity. Choose your future. Vote UHW SEIU.

First letter: NUHW Lies. Second letter: Former UHW (now NUHW) leaders did nothing. Third letter: Choose to stay with the big dog.

In other words, folks, the above three letters read like a ghost-written three-part harmony depicting EXACTLY what SEIU's "rap" has been down in the Fresno IHSS fight.

It is also quite surprising to see people's names attached to verbiage that is almost straight off of the SEIU Fresno BS-generation site. If this is an attempt to appear "grassroots", then it is a ham-handed one at best.

Free To A Good Home...

It looks like somebody is so proud of their affiliation with Zombie UHW that they are giving away 13 lined UHW Jackets for free...






I honestly do not know what to make of this one, but should you wish to partake of this "offer", then you can click directly over to the ad by pressing here.

1021 Finally Gets Its Agreement...

The folks at SEIU 1021 had to take a couple of whacks at it, but they finally actually sold the wage concession package to their membership...

It's official: The SEIU Local 1021 this morning announced that its workforce of roughly 11,000 San Francisco employees ratified a wage concessions deal with the city -- staving off more layoffs (for now) and giving the city around $25 million in savings to apply toward some of the myriad cuts in the stark proposed budget.

A full 86.4 percent of the union's workforce opted for the deal -- roughly double the percentage who voted for a doomed, near-identical pact in mid-May. The union's spurning of that deal -- which is excessively sweet as wage concessions go; workers still receive 3.75 percent raises which are made up by additional unpaid days off -- led to Mayor Gavin Newsom dismissing 288 SEIU employees last month. That -- and the ever-sharper focusing of the city and state's dire financial picture -- seems to have induced a change of heart for SEIU employees to take what they could get.

The process to avoid further layoffs, notwithstanding this pact, now depends on a "revenue" measure - read as tax hikes - that will go to the ballot this November in San Francisco. Such measures usually have to pass 67-33. It has been done before, but usually for a very narrow focus item, not a citywide budgetary fix.

It's Tough To Stand Up...

...when you are up to your neck in slime.

Paul Garver unloads on SEIU, and this is delicious in the extreme from first to last...

Eight hundred organizers from SEIU locals in California and other states have flooded into the small Central Valley city of Fresno. Rallying at the Fresno Fair Grounds (site of the first of the California internment camps for Japanese-Americans in 1942), the conscripts were provided with SEIU T-shirts and purple paraphenalia, water bottles, and speeches (view report on speech by SEIU-UHW trustee Dave Regan) exhorting them to kick the asses, whip the butts, and drive a stake through the heart of the rival National Union of Health Workers (NUHW). They will make daily house calls on the 10,000 homecare workers who are currently members of SEIU-UHW, which national SEIU put into trusteeship in January. The workers have petitioned for representation by the NUHW, founded by deposed UHW leaders and shop stewards. UHW first organized the Fresno homecare workers and won a good first contract in 2002-2003.

A much smaller number of volunteer organizers represent the NUHW. One of their elected leaders within the Fresno homecare unit is Florine Furlow, who was arrested at a sit-in at a Woolworth’s lunch counter in Little Rock in 1960, who in an op-ed article in the Fresno Bee views her union struggle as a continuation of her campaigns for civil rights and disability rights. Other volunteer organizers include Dana Simon, who had coordinated the original 2002-3 organizing and contract campaigns in Fresno and a month ago resigned his SEIU position as lead organizer for Massachusetts hospitals to protest SEIU’s actions in California. Another is Fred Ross, Jr., a long-time union organizer beginning with the UFW, who also wrote of his resignation from SEIU on Talking Union. As reported by Randy Shaw on this blog, former UFW leaders are divided. Delores Huerta supports the NUHW, while Eliseo Medina is SEIU-UHW’s co-trustee along with Dave Regan.

The 10,000 homecare workers are mailing back their ballots from June 1 to 15 to choose between SEIU-UHW and NUHW as their collective bargaining representative. In a sense they are choosing between Goliath and David. Goliath has the troop numbers and the deep pockets. David lacks these resources. In other respects as well, the battlefield is favorable for Goliath. The fiscal crisis in California is posing an imminent threat to the precarious gains of the Fresno homecare workers. SEIU-UHW already lost an arbitration to maintain the wage level, but claims that its political connections in Washington and Sacramento can help restore them. Inundating Fresno homecare workers with house calls, television messages and other propaganda may not persuade them to love or support SEIU, but as every union-busting management consultant knows, you do not have to persuade workers to get them to vote against change – you merely have to confuse them and paralyze their wills. In the tumult and stress of a chaotic campaign, many will choose “no union” -or in this case the “incumbent” union- in a desperate attempt to ease the tension. The unit of Fresno homecare workers is relatively new to the labor movement – its members work in isolated individual households and lack the work relationships that facilitate communication and can bolster group solidarity among co-workers in hospitals and nursing homes.

The stakes are high both for SEIU and for the NUHW. The NUHW might survive an electoral defeat in Fresno, and live to fight on at Kaiser and other large institutional settings where its support is more firmly based. And if SEIU fails to “drive a stake through the heart” of NUHW in Fresno, it will surely keep on trying. But even SEIU’s resources are not infinite. Some of its 800 conscripts in Fresno are already proving reluctant and might be hard to mobilize for a similar effort in the future. Local 99 SEIU staffers, for instance, signed a letter demanding neutrality in the SEIU/NUHW conflict and picketed the union office in protest against assignment to Fresno. Others are posting critical reports on the pro-NUHW PerezStern blog site.

Moreover SEIU is increasingly engaged on another costly national front, against UniteHere. SEIU has had to loan $1 million to its Workers United conference that split off from UniteHere to support its internal battle with the larger group that remained within that union. Workers United has only about 100,000 dues paying members, and will likely have to seek further relief from making per capita payments to SEIU. So long as a settlement is not reached over financial issues, control of the Amalgamated Bank and jurisdictional issues, SEIU may find its battle against UniteHere to be more draining than expected.

This is probably why SEIU has chosen to run such a massive effort amounting to overkill to crush the NUHW insurgency in Fresno. But even electoral victory in Fresno would not in itself restore SEIU’s moral legitimacy that is being eroded by its repeated involvement in fratricidal inter- and intra-union conflicts. SEIU had amassed considerable political, financial and moral capital over decades of organizing workers and fighting progressive campaigns over issues.

Would it be tragic for SEIU and for the entire progressive movement if the “real SEIU” is represented only by the face of Dave Regan talking trash on the Fresno fairgrounds? Is the “real SEIU” better represented by Flo Furlow, Dana Simon and Fred Ross, Jr? Read their articles and listen to their speeches on the links provided to answer these questions for yourself.

The question truly does beg to be asked after this article - why is SEIU fighting so hard, and pressing themselves in such a manner, to the end of keeping 10,000 people in their clutches?

Probably because even SEIU now knows that once one or two groups of people break free, the floodgates will open, and the weaknesses of the SEIU management-friendly union approach will be laid bare for all to see.

SEIU believes that the strength of the union is in the leadership, while NUHW believes that the strenght is found in the membership.

The contrast could not be more clear.

When In Doubt, Vandilize - Part Deux

The SEIU Thug approach to organizing has evidently caught on down Fresno way, as we have now a second report of NUHW signage being stolen and replaced with UHW trash...

In two separate incidents this week, workers for the Service Employees International Union have been accused of acts of vandalism toward opposing union supporters.

Home care workers in Clovis and Kerman who support the National Union of Healthcare Workers say people have come to their door, torn down signs in support of NUHW and replaced them with flyers in support of SEIU.

Today marked the day when 10,000 workers in the Fresno area would begin receiving ballots in the mail. The election is to determine if workers want to remain members of SEIU or join NUHW.

“I was extremely upset,” said Silbenia Conley of Kerman. She said she witnessed a heavyset African-American male come to her door, allegedly tear down a red NUHW support sign, replace it with a SEIU magnetized sign, then speed off in a newer silver-gray Chevy Malibu. “I was cussing. That (sign) was given to me,” Conley said.

Conley and her husband are both in-home care workers, and she said she doesn’t know how SEIU received their home address.

Conley made a police report following the incident, and said Kerman police told her that it was considered theft since the man took her sign.

In a separate incident, Lesalie Kyle of Clovis said she witnessed a man wearing a purple SEIU t-shirt allegedly kick in the screen on her front door, then place several SEIU flyers in front of her NUHW support poster.

“I couldn’t believe what I was seeing,” Kyle said.

Pete Janhunen, a spokesperson for SEIU, said that workers that help with the campaign are told clearly to conduct themselves in a professional manner.

“We are very confident that our people are conducting themselves in the most professional manner possible,” Janhunen said. He went on to say that any allegations of inappropriate or criminal behavior would be looked into by SEIU and the organization would take the proper actions against the offender.

However, Janhunen also said that any chance NUHW has had to launch a claim against SEIU, it has done so.

“To claim that we have people that would have come here to intimidate is nothing short of outrageous,” Janhunen said.

Oh, I dunno, Pete, maybe we should listen again to the words of the man whom Our Glorious Maximum Leader has put in charge of the Zombie UHW Fresno campaign...



In any event, it beggars belief that this organizer (with physical description and vehicle description provided in the story above, and assuredly many more details in the possession of the police in Kerman) thinks that by stealing someone's property that they can get them to change their mind to his way of thinking.

That type of "thought" process comes from the top - from Dave Regan - and as such, considering Regan's proven track record, as well as with now proof of multiple incidents, Pete Janhunen's claims of UHW innocence ring quite hollow indeed.

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."

Gaming The System, Chowd Nation Edition

Much was made about a month ago of the election held in SEIU 888, in which the Stern- supported incumbent slate was tossed out on their butts by a 58-41 voting margin at the hands of a reform slate. Alas, as we all know, this is not allowed in AndyWorld, and the defeated slate of candidates decided to appeal.

The appeal was heard, and granted, by a "board" who were all appointed to their position by the defeated incumbent president, Susana Segat. Not surprisingly, this scrupulously independent board of election judges (/sarc) have granted all of Ms. Segat's wishes, and have overturned the election and have reinstated her and her compatriots on the 888 E-Board.

If you feel like inducing some serious vomiting, then click here to the SEIU 888 site and read just how low Andy and his Acolytes will go in order to hold onto power.

And oh by the way - the reform slate does have the opportunity to appeal this decision. That appeal would go directly to Our Glorioius Maximum Leader himself, who has in his power the right under the SEIU C&B document to render the final decision, without vote or input from anyone else.

Legitimacy evidently is no longer even a consideration at SEIU.

When In Doubt, Vandalize...

It has to be tough for the SEIU scab patrol to go out into the field and run into people who just don't think the way that they do. Heck, when you run into something like that less than 48 hours after having been told by Thug Regan how to play by "old school" rules, and you are confronted with someone showing NUHW support on their door, what's a scab to do?

Lesalie Kyle, a homecare provider in North Clovis, was shocked yesterday to see a man wearing a purple SEIU t-shirt kick in her door's screen and shove a handful of SEIU literature in front of the sign she had posted showing her support for the National Union of Healthcare Workers (NUHW).

“I was driving away when I saw a man in purple walking up to my door, so I stopped to see what he was doing,” said Ms. Kyle. “I had an NUHW sign behind my locked screen door because I didn’t want SEIU harassing me at home. He rang the bell, and when no one answered he kicked my screen in and put a bunch of SEIU flyers in front of the sign. I couldn’t believe what I was seeing. SEIU kicked in my screen and vandalized my door.”

On Monday, SEIU-UHW Trustee Dave Regan encouraged hundreds of SEIU staff to "administer an old-school ass-whipping" to NUHW supporters. (YouTube: http://is.gd/LVV6) "We gotta put them in the ground and bury them,” he said. (http://is.gd/LVWu)

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

Regan has brought more than 900 SEIU staff to Fresno to fight his latest war against homecare providers who earn $10.25 caring for seniors and people with disabilities. SEIU is in Fresno this week to try to stop a movement of nearly 100,000 SEIU members in California who are dumping the scandal-plagued union to join the National Union of Healthcare Workers (NUHW). Monday was the first day of an election for Fresno’s 10,000 homecare providers to join NUHW.

“We knew SEIU-UHW was desperate to hang onto our dues money, but I can’t believe they would resort to this,” said Flo Furlow, an elected leader of NUHW and Fresno homecare worker. “This disrespect is exactly why we’re joining NUHW instead. We demand that SEIU release the name of the staff member who was assigned to visit Ms. Kyle’s home yesterday.”

I would not hope that anyone would hold their breath waiting for The Plague to supply us with the name/number of the vandal who broke down Ms. Kyle's door. Besides, all they will do is turn around and claim that it was actually a NUHW supporter posing as a SEIU supporter doing this in order to discredit SEIU and make people mad at them. After all, when it comes to "posing", nobody does it better than The Plague...

Local homecare providers have also reported seeing SEIU staff swapping their purple SEIU t-shirts for red t-shirts—NUHW’s trademark color—in an attempt to gain access to the homes of NUHW supporters. (Photo: http://is.gd/LVXw)

Thug Regan In His Own Words

Courtesy of Paul Delahanty on his dKos diary...







Again, a link to the entire speech is provided below.

Let's see, now:

Vulgar? Check.
Arrogant? Check.
Dismissive of his opponents? Check.
Unhappy to be where he is right now? Check.
No earthly clue of what this fight is truly all about? You damn well betcha.

Shaw: UFW Alums Battle Over Labor's Future

Randy Shaw of BeyondChron.org is one of the most informed people in journalism when it comes to what is going on in the labor movement on the West Coast, and he once again hits it out of the park in his most recent piece, regarding the battle of late between SEIU and NUHW for the "right" to carry the imprimatur of the late Cesar Chavez...

After electing the most pro-union President in decades, organized labor is being torn by internal fights. And at the heart of these conflicts are veterans of the United Farmworkers of America (UFW), whose strategic innovations have shaped today’s labor movement and whose “Si Se Puede” (“Yes We Can”) rallying cry became the hallmark of Barack Obama’s campaign. One dispute, now occurring the California Central Valley city of Fresno, pits Eliseo Medina, a former UFW Executive Board member and now Executive Vice-President of SEIU, against his former UFW Executive Board colleague, Dolores Huerta. The backdrop: an election among Fresno’s 10,000 home health care workers who are currently represented by SEIU, but who are now being urged by Huerta and others to join the National Union of Health Workers (NUHW). The other ongoing conflict finds SEIU and UNITE HERE -- the two unions most shaped by the UFW’s legacy--battling over SEIU’s raids on UNITE HERE’s jurisdiction and membership. This fight has put longtime UFW allies on opposite sides, and has even led UFW veteran Fred Ross, Jr. to leave SEIU after ten years so that he could help UNITE HERE resist SEIU’s attacks.

How did this conflict emerge? As recently as April 2006, UFW alums Stephen Lerner and Eliseo Medina asked Huerta and the prominent UFW veteran Reverend Wayne “Chris” Hartmire to come to the University of Miami to help SEIU win a “Justice for Janitors” organizing campaign. While Huerta pressed the janitors' cause with University of Miami President Donna Shalala, Hartmire provided strategic advice to religious supporters. Similarly, SEIU worked closely with UNITE HERE on the massive immigration marches of spring 2006, and on the national campaign to pass comprehensive immigration reform.

But since 2006, two developments have raised questions whether SEIU President Andy Stern is leading his union down the same path that resulted in Medina and other key leaders leaving the UFW, and that caused the farmworker movement’s decline.

First, SEIU moved to consolidate its local chapters throughout the nation. In addition to reducing administrative overhead and freeing up organizing dollars, the plan also gave Stern the right to select the leadership of the newly consolidated locals. This prevented workers from electing their own leadership for three years.

As a result, Stern appointees, not representatives elected by the membership, soon dominated SEIU’s governing Executive Board. When the Board then made controversial decisions -- such as breaking up its third largest local, whose former leadership then started NUHW -- opponents argued that this was Stern’s decision, not that of a truly democratic process.

Nearly thirty years ago, it was Cesar Chavez’s decision to deny farmworker representation on the UFW’s Executive Board at its 1981 convention that represented the final blow to his union’s growth. In the years leading up to that event, Chavez’s critics were often fired or forced out, raising the same questions about union democracy that have now emerged under Stern.

The second development dividing UFW alumni was Stern’s decision to encourage Bruce Raynor and the former UNITE to secede from UNITE HERE and join SEIU. On March 23, Raynor’s faction affiliated with SEIU as “Workers United,” and SEIU has been raiding UNITE HERE’s hotel, gaming and food service workers on the grounds that they are now part of its jurisdiction. Stern engineered this major policy shift with little or no public debate within SEIU. Workers were shifted from UNITE HERE to SEIU through little-noticed, small turnout elections -- such as fewer than 100 voting in a bargaining unit of over 2000 -- that make a mockery of union democracy.

The UFW precedent is clearly on many minds. Medina responded to Huerta’s urging Fresno’s home care workers to vote for NUHW by noting that in the UFW she “led the campaign to fire and expel” rank and file workers “because they were independent of the UFW leadership and accountable directly to the members.” Huerta responded that Medina had left the UFW in 1977 “when Cesar most needed him.” While the two have privately debated over the UFW’s legacy, the SEIU-NUHW battle has brought this dispute between two giants of the UFW and labor movement out in the open.

NUHW’s appeal to Fresno home-care workers directly challenges SEIU’s commitment to union democracy, and could prove the defining issue as balloting begins this week. But the election's end will leave wounds between the many UFW veterans on both sides of this conflict that will not be soon healed, weakening if not ending the bonds between those working side by side for social justice for over three decades.

Isn't it interesting that in the two major blowouts that SEIU has had of late, first with NUHW and then with UNITE/HERE, it has been Scab Medina who has tried to use his name and former position in UFW to claim the legacy of Cesar Chavez, while closer confidants of Chavez from back in the day have come out publicly against Scab Medina, basically calling him a sellout to all that he used to stand for.

Eventually the folks at SEIU are going to have to realize that not everyone who opposes them are liars, cheats and thieves. Perhaps it is then that they will remember who it is that they are really supposed to work for - and it ain't Andy Stern.

Fresno Updates

Click over to Perez' place for Fresno updates from the ground.

One interesting piece came to me from Sadie at NUHW, tho...

Workers fear SEIU’s violent “shock and awe” tactics on Day One of union election

SEIU has been condemned by the AFL-CIO for using violence against other unions—SEIU Trustee with record of violence tells staff, "We gotta put them in the ground and bury them"

Fresno, Calif.—Today is the first day of a highly contested union election for 10,000 homecare workers in Fresno County who are trying to leave the Washington, D.C.-based SEIU, a union that has been condemned by the AFL-CIO for using violence in inter-union conflicts. The stakes have never been higher for SEIU officials, who are desperately trying to stop a movement of nearly 100,000 healthcare workers in California who are organizing to quit SEIU and join the National Union of Healthcare Workers (NUHW).

Current and former SEIU organizers have reported SEIU’s use of so-called “shock and awe” teams to incite violence, including stalking, threatening and intimidating supporters of opposing unions. With 900 paid SEIU staff from across the country in Fresno County today, workers are worried about a repeat of recent violent attacks.

At an SEIU meeting yesterday, SEIU-UHW Trustee Dave Regan encouraged hundreds of SEIU staff to "administer an old-school ass-whipping" to NUHW supporters. "In other words, what we gotta do here, my old-school friends, is we have to administer an old-school ass-whipping over the next two weeks," he said. "I know everybody knows what means. We gotta give a butt-whipping they will never forget," he added. "We gotta put them in the ground and bury them."

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

During the same conflict, an SEIU organizer reported being assigned with a team to mob CNA supporters at California hospitals and scream insults at them to provoke a physical response. SEIU organizers then called police and the media, accusing the victim of assaulting them.

Several Fresno homecare providers have recently reported being harassed with calls to their homes in the middle of the night by callers fraudulently claiming to be with NUHW in an apparent effort to incite false anger at NUHW in the days before the election. Homecare workers are concerned that SEIU staff may also impersonate NUHW supporters to harass workers in person at their homes.

Homecare providers have also reported being threatened by SEIU staff that they will lose their jobs or have their pay or hours cut if they vote to join NUHW, a threat that is illegal under federal labor law.

Of course, it can't be said often enough that Thug Regan, the individual quoted above as wanting to give NUHW a "butt whipping they will never forget", and who wishes to "put (NUHW) in the ground and bury them" is one of the individuals who was responsible for the infamous disruption of the Labor Notes conference in Dearborn, MI, in April of 2008. Regan even bragged on it about a month later. One passage of Regan's "explanation" caught my eye, though:

Union-busting is union-busting and, yes, it is disgusting. If Labor Notes and their apologists want to convince themselves otherwise, through tortured rationalizations about "democracy" or fabricated claims of "violence," so be it. We are having none of it. The votes, which were set to take place in March, would have been the largest set of private sector healthcare elections in the history of the state of Ohio. If the labor movement is to survive we need more, not less, of these sorts of breakthroughs.

Considering the scale at which Kaiser and CHW were going to have elections for their workers to determine their own futures, he really needs to take a look at the NUHW/SEIU dustup and figure out which side is interested in democracy and more democratic breakthroughs, and which side is currently "union-busting."

But it is the height of arrogance for someone of Regan's background, with his proven propensity for instigating violence, to come into a community from outside and start talking to other outsiders about butt-whippings and burying people, when the purpose of what this election is determining who can provide the best representation for a group of people who provide care to one of the most vulnerable segments of our society.

The upcoming two weeks in Fresno is about those workers, and their best interests, and not about SEIU pride.

Dave Regan should be ashamed of himself. But that, of course, would require that he had any kind of sense of shame to begin with.

A link to the unedited Regan speech can be found here.

It probably sounded better in the original German, but you can get the idea.