Breaking news: Today, approximately 300 workers at William Osler Hospital in Ontario, Canada voted by a two-to-one margin to decertify SEIU and join a new union!
For these workers, it’s been a two-year battle to liberate themselves from SEIU. Back in 2009, they formed a new union and requested government-run elections so they could leave SEIU. SEIU officials – using the same playbook of dirty tactics they’re using in California – sued the new union’s leaders and filed bogus charges at the labor board to stall workers’ elections.
Well… after two years of struggle, the first group of workers finally got their chance to vote. And they delivered a serious thumping to SEIU… despite all the union staffers that SEIU parachuted into the hospital and the dirty smear campaign that SEIU unleashed on workers.
Tasty hears that Sharleen Stewart (the president of SEIU Local 1-Ontario and a member of SEIU's International Executive Board) came to today’s vote count but scurried out of the room when it became crystal clear that SEIU was losing bigtime.
For those who don’t know her, Sharleen Stewart is the Marge Faville of Canada. In 2004, SEIU merged six SEIU locals in Ontario into one. Andy Stern then handpicked Sharleen to run the mega-local. Like Marge, she reportedly pulls down a giant salary and runs the union with a mix of nepotism, incompetence and deliberate neglect of the members.
One report describes how Sharleen handed out jobs at the SEIU local to her brother, daughter, son and long-time friend… and even placed some of her family in luxury condominiums on Toronto’s waterfront, with the rent paid by the union's members.
Time for Sharleen to take a hike, eh?
Congrats to the workers at William Osler Hospital! And good luck to hundreds more Canadian healthcare workers who’ll be voting in elections in the weeks ahead!
