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.

He Said, He Said...

John Wilhelm of UNITE/HERE says that Bruce Raynor is suspended from all union duties and is no longer allowed to set foot on union premises except for the purpose of returning union property...



...while Bruce Raynor says that the UNITE/HERE E-board is not his boss, and that he will only agree to any kind of suspension that he personally, along with Mr. Wilhelm, would both agree to...



...or perhaps only a suspension that Raynor's new boss, Andy Stern, would agree to.

Raynor's letter above beggars belief that there is not any kind of discipline or suspension structure for E-board officers who get out of line. After all, Andy Stern sure as hell had one set up for Sal Rosselli, right?

This is why co-presidencies never, ever work.

The SEIU Ethics Commission

Perez Stern has come up with a draft copy of the recommendations that the SEIU Ethics Commission is going to make to the IEB. I can't do enough justice to that report to summarize it here, so click on over to Perez, but make sure that you have your barf bags, as well as your Buzzword Bingo cards, at the ready.

The Zombie UHW Midterm Report Card

It should come as no surprise that Zombie UHW's attention has been not completely on what they should be doing, namely providing enthusiastic and supportive representation of its dues-paying members. This is especially the case at KaiPerm, where the Zombie UHW scab staffers seem to have much more in common with the management than they do with the people that they are purported to represent.

The nice folks at NUHW decided to put a flyer out to give the nice folks at Zombie UHW a midterm grade report. Needless to say, it ain't pretty...



For those of you who think in GPA terms, that's a nice, hefty 0.2 for SEIU. And we all know what Dean Vernon Wormer thought of people who get a 0.2...



Indeed...

SEIU - The Interweb's One-Trick Pony

Anyone here wanna know why SEIU sucks?

Because whenever they come upon an issue that they think is important, their first approach is to set up a Trojan Horse website.

It happened to UNITE/HERE...



...then it happened to EAA via SEIU 721...



...and now the computer nerds at SEIU have decided to give the Fresno IHSS folks a big ole heapin' helpin' of internet obfuscation...



Considering the success that The Purple Plague has had with the EAA and UNITE/HERE raids, one would think that they would choose another page from the playbook.

The Fresno site is pretty clean right now - not much to it at this time - but don't be surprised if we start seeing all sorts of anti-NUHW propaganda showing up real soon.

I suppose that's mostly because Zombie UHW doesn't have anything good to brag about when it comes to the Fresno IHSS rank-and-file.

Kaiser Gals Say, "Fres-YES!"

Courtesy of PerezStern, here's a couple of ladies from Kaiser in Stockton who are getting their ground game on down Fresno way.

Well done, ladies! One Thousand Quatloos are coming your way!

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.