Meet The New MAPE, Same As The Old MAPE

(image courtesy of www.new-mape.org)

Clan Barney evidently just can't catch a break.

It appears that one of the old legacy locals of SEIU 1021 is getting itself ready for a petition to pull out of 1021 in favor of going their own way.

The new Marin Association of Public Employees, largely composed of the leadership and rank-and-file of the old legacy SEIU 949, last Friday turned in petitions to the state PERB indicating their wish to separate from SEIU 1021.

Their reasons for doing so can be found on their website, but those reasons sound (once again) eerily similar to those reasons being given by NUHW supporters for wanting to break away from Zombie UHW. Things like wondering where dues money goes, lack of representation, lack of ability to vote on pocketbook and dues issues, etc., etc.

And SEIU 1021 is evidently regurgitating some of the very same lies that they have been and are using against NUHW.

You have to wonder what is going through the head of Our Glorious Maximum Leader right now, seeing as he now has brushfires burning in UHW, 6434, 721, 1021, 221, and a thriving reform movement going on right now in 521 - all locals that were either trusteed by Andy Stern, or were created out of thin air by Andy Stern out of previously functional locals.

When you keep getting whacked in the face by things that you create, wouldn't you think about stepping back and wondering if your creations are getting a bit out of hand?

Certifiable

NUHW is now officially the exclusive collective bargaining representative for the SoCal KaiPerm employees formerly represented by Zombie UHW.

Any other questions, Zombie supporters?

Rumor Has It...

From the NUHW Facebook crew...

NLRB just released blocking charges at USC University Hospital in Los Angeles. SEIU, get ready for your next Smack Down!!

I have a suspicion that USC is NOT one of the facilities that Zombie UHW wanted released by the NUHW NLRB...

UPDATE - 2/3 @ 7:30 p.m. - Confirmation from the NLRB!!!

Q: How Can You Tell a Zombie Is Lying?

A: It's lips are moving.

From a KP source...

Ok it has started in wcr... ths scabs are going around telling everyone that the LA kaiser employees lost their benefits because they voted for nuhw

Those are some SERIOUS sour grapes...

"We Did It!"

Enjoy a bit of video coverage of the SoCal Tsunami...

The LMP Shakedown

It seems Clan Barney isn't too pleased with NUHW leaking details of their Sooper Seekrit Backroom Deals...

(click to embiggen)

Wow. Once again, KaiPerm is trying to get the membership to pay for something that has benefitted management for almost 13 years, and it appears that SEIU has decided to go along for the ride.

Memo to Brave Sir Regan: There is a difference between negotiation and capitulation, ya know.

Right now, SEIU's best financial hope is to get a whole bunch of money transferred into the LMP trust, and into an account that they will still try to control once they get their miserable asses kicked to the curb come June.

For an example of how something like this may well go down, check out the Randy Shaw writeup on how SEIU tried to get control of UNITE/HERE's Amalgamated Bank.

An Urgent Request

From a member of the Providence Tarzana NUHW crew...

Two nights ago the husband of one our NUHW leaders at Tarzana Medical Center was brutally shot in the head. He is the hospital in very grave condition. Out of respect for the family's privacy I am not mentioning her name. She is a very strong NUHW leader who fought threats of termination and SEIU's bullying in order to see that EVS workers had a fair election. She needs our help now. She has a child with special needs and her family was just getting by before this horrific tragedy.

I am asking everyone who will be at next weeks leadership meeting in L.A. to bring a donation to help her family. This has devastated the workers at Tarzana and we have been collecting money for the past two days but so much more is needed. Give as much as you possibly can.

To those of you who may be attending that leadership meeting, please consider donating anything and everything you can to the family of this true rank-and-file labor leader.

If and when any details regarding a contribution fund are uncovered, they will go up here ASAP.

In the meantime, spread the word that one of our family is in trouble and needs our help.

Tasty's Asked the Question...

...anybody got an answer?

Tasty hears that recently the trustees gathered up the staff and essentially said 'you gotta win or there won't be money to pay your salaries.'

Now after 2 huge losses, has it begun?

According to some of the commentary in the LA Times blogs regarding the SoCal Tsunami, it may well have begun...

Dear Brothers and Sisters, on behalf of the 81 organizers brought in from all corners "we apologize", Dave Regan and Anna Burger have threatened our livelihoods for the last time.

We were weak, we all believe in the labor movement, however, after 57 of us have been "laid off, pending review" we seek forgiveness.

While we here at ¡AA! generally subscribe to the notion that it is far better to ask for forgiveness than permission, it is regrettable that the forgiveness had to be asked for after having come out here to be a part of Andy's Zombie Army.

SEIU's Whiteboard of Extinction

Fans of the reimaged Battlestar Galactica will know all about the "Whiteboard of Extinction", upon which the President of the 12 Colonies would write down the number of human survivors remaining after each calamity that would befall the Ragtag Fugitive Fleet at the hands of the Cylons.

Evidently, such a Whiteboard of Extinction may well exist at Zombie UHW Headquarters as well, what with the "UHW Report" coming out today with some very interesting numbers...

Small Kaiser Group Votes to Take Risk with NUHW

Ballots counted Tuesday, January 26 in an election among 2,300 Kaiser professionals, psych-social workers, and RNs show that those workers voted to leave SEIU-UHW to join NUHW. The election only affects this small group in Southern California and not the nearly 50,000 other SEIU-UHW members at Kaiser who are launching the biggest and most active statewide contract campaign in history.

NUHW has put these workers at grave risk for their own purposes. These workers had their raises and benefits locked in for almost two years. Now, they will have to re-bargain their contract on their own in this economic crisis--at the same time Kaiser is cutting healthcare and other costs among management and non-union workers.

Over the past year, 53,464 SEIU members have chosen to stay united in SEIU-UHW for better wages, healthcare, and other benefits. Only 2,600, including the recent Kaiser workers, have chosen NUHW, which still has no members under contract and few resources to fight for workers

As most readers will recall, that number of members who have "chosen to stay united" in Zombie UHW has routinely (at least until today) been "over 55,000" - notwithstanding the fact that a huge chunk of that people having "chosen to stay united" were forced to do so by the NLRB.

It appears that Zombie UHW and SEIU are doubling down on stupid where it comes to their tone and how they come off to others.

Hot Off The Presses

...from the NLRB...


(click on image to embiggen)

One Man's Open Letter to SEIU

From the Facebook crew...

MY LETTER TO SEIU--- After celebrating today’s NUHW victories I wanted to thank the people I felt were most responsible for our success. So, here goes.

I would first like to thank Elesio Medina for being the most unqualified person to lead a Trusteeship. You...r lack of leadership, vision, and compassion are what motivate me... every day to lead and support NUHW.

Next I would like to thank the second least qualified person to lead a Trusteeship, Mr. Dave “stake thru the heart”, “old school ass whooping” Regan. They certainly broke the mold when they made you (thank God). Lucky for you that you were born without a conscience, otherwise the disgusting and despicable things that you do and say might actually bother you. Must be a real asset for you.

Next I would like to thank Gerrald Hudson for being a stupid, lying idiot, and a total suck up to Andy Stern, that helps us a lot.

That brings us to Mary Kay “back stabbing liar from hell” Henry. The only person in my life I have ever met that happily dips bullshit in chocolate and covers it with colorful sprinkles and serves it to you with a smile. You should open your own store in the mall, Mary.

And Anna “I wish I had a penis” Burger. Your disdain for members actually wanting to participate in their own future is so written on your face. You cringe at the mere mention of member democracy. Your lust for power and control consumes you the way the power of the ring consumed Gollum in The Lord Of The Rings. And you look like that contorted, bug-eyed freak too.

Ah but the Granddaddy of them all. That’s right, the Grand Poobah of Tyranny himself. Mr. Andrew “control at all costs” Stern. Your obtuse and narrow thinking have brought SEIU and the labor movement to the brink of collapse. Your desperate quest for relevance has blinded you to the reality that surrounds you. You are a small and pitiful man. I want to personally thank you for calling workers, myself included, selfish during our bargaining with our employer. I don’t know what world you live in, where workers who fight to get other workers who have no benefits, health insurance and vacation time are deemed selfish. It must be in a world outside your $300,000 a year Ivory Tower.

Oh, and Andy, thank you very much for mocking us at last year's convention and treating us as insignificant. That really helped us more than you’ll ever know. Again, thanks one and all. Your leadership created NUHW and you should be proud of that. You fucked up SEIU but you brought about the makings of a new and vibrant Labor movement in NUHW.

P.S. Here's your sign

Preach, brotha!!!

The Trusteeship At One Year of Age

I had planned a detailed explanation of just what a disaster the Trusteeship has been for SEIU and UHW, but the nice folks at NUHW beat me to the punch, with their review of where NUHW stands one year after its founding.


Follow the link and you will have an exact layout of the elections won and lost by each party (it's 7-2 for NUHW by the way). The NUHW piece takes a much more optimistic and forward-looking tenor to its report.


I, on the other hand, am a cynical and backward-looking fellow, and in preparing for this "year in review" of UHW, I got a chance to actually read through the archive (as well as that of the dear, departed PerezStern, SonomaRedRevolt and TastySternburger), and I find myself truly appalled at what has gone on with UHW, and what SEIU has done to that once-great organization.


Who in their right mind would have believed that, one year removed from the imposition of the trusteeship, that the remains of UHW, with SEIU's full and complete backing, would have lost five straight elections, and to have the cumulative "no union" vote be almost equal to, if not greater than, the number of people voting to stay with Zombie UHW?


The beginning of the end for Zombie UHW within KaiPerm came much sooner than anyone could have expected, just about two months into the trusteeship, with the sounds of Esquirol Medina's robocall still echoing in my head about how "everything will be the same," and then the form letters went out to all the stewards who did not swear a loyalty oath to SEIU uber alles, and as a result were summarily fired as stewards.


That, in a nutshell, really set the wheels in motion, because as a result of that mass dismissal of stewards, Zombie UHW no longer had the support staff within KaiPerm to withstand the anger of the KaiPerm UHW membership. We've seen the pension giveaway, the allowance of KaiPerm to violate the contract regarding force reductions, the Pharmacy staffing double-cross, and now Zombie UHW's intent to raise dues, combined with Brave Sir Regan's desire to extend the Trusteeship beyond its legally alotted three years.

And so, when finally given an opportunity to voice their opinion on the matter, the SoCal KaiPerm membership told Zombie UHW precisely where it can go and what it should do with itself.


Of course, Zombie UHW remains utterly tone-deaf in this regard, as evinced by the statement that their spokespunk, Steve Trossman, put out in the wake of today's drubbing at the hands of NUHW...

"While today's election results are disappointing, the fact is only about 2,600 SEIU-UHW members have chosen NUHW over the past year, in contrast to more than 55,000 SEIU members who have chosen to stay united in our union.

"What's more, NUHW is seeking to stop union elections for nearly 5,000 hospital, nursing home, and home care members at 42 facilities because they know if the elections take place they will lose. Although the National Labor Relations Board, SEIU-UHW, and several of the employers have all agreed to election dates in early February, NUHW has refused to enter into the agreements.

"The bulk of SEIU-UHW's 50,000 Kaiser members are now launching the largest and most active contract campaign in history with the full support of the union's 150,000 California health care members. SEIU-UHW members at Kaiser are also part of the 100,000-member Coalition of Kaiser Permanente Unions, and expect to be at the bargaining table this spring as part of the coalition to negotiate a new national agreement.

"Meanwhile, NUHW has put these workers at grave risk because they will no longer be part of the Kaiser coalition and will have to try to bargain a contract on their own."

That bulk of Zombie UHW's 50,000 Kaiser members are already chomping at the bit to get out of SEIU's grip, and today's results will only double down on that desire. It is the height of arrogance for Trossman to think that he speaks for those of us who are stuck in Zombie UHW, because in about five months UHW is going to (once again) get kicked to the curb. The only way for Zombie UHW to preserve its position within KaiPerm is to check its hubris, up its humility, and take a good, hard look at what it is doing to the membership - because for damn sure it's not doing anything FOR the membership.

And now it is apparent that SEIU and UHW-West are going to prove to everyone around that they are the sore losers that they now appear to be, by forbidding admittance of a legally and duly-elected union in the Coalition of Kaiser Permanente Unions.

So Happy Freekin' Birthday to the SEIU-UHW West Trusteeship. You all have quite a track record built up so far.