Kaiser Strike Update

Greg Maron

Support for Kaiser workers’ historic strike keeps on growing! The Teamsters have joined 23,000 Kaiser workers (from NUHW, the California Nurses Association and the Stationary Engineers… plus members of the Pharmacists Guild) in pledging to honor the picket line. The Teamsters gave “strike sanction” to the walkout, meaning truck drivers won’t cross workers’ picket lines.

Meanwhile, Jobs with Justice put out the following email that hammers Kaiser for pocketing $5.7 billion in profits while it ‘short-staffs’ its hospitals and clinics and tries to cut health and pension benefits for frontline caregivers.

Even the Democratic Party got in on the action, announcing they’ll be walking picket lines with Kaiser Permanente workers on Thursday. And Beyond Chron published this article on the upcoming strike.

What about SEIU?  Sources tell Tasty they’re getting increasingly desperate as more and more of SEIU’s own members say they plan to honor the strike. This has caused Dave Regan to deploy purple-shirted storm troopers to Kaiser facilities, where they’re teaming up with Kaiser's supervisors to wage their latest fear-and-disinformation campaign. 

Check out the following email that SEIU sent to SEIU’s social worker members via Kaiser’s internal email system (that partnership really comes in handy!). The email threatens SEIU’s members by claiming they’re “not protected” if they honor the strike (which is plain wrong). Check out the last line of the email, which seems to say that Kaiser workers should never strike. Sounds like the boss wrote the email, right?

As for SEIU’s strike-breaking staffers, Tasty hears that SEIU’s Greg Maron put on quite a performance on Monday… which won him Tasty’s “Scab of the Day” award. Registered Nurses at Kaiser Modesto Medical Center report that Maron -- along with SEIU staffers Jared Mayhugh and Jose Santana -- used their Kaiser-issued ID badges to enter the hospital’s locked nursing units and then rip down CNA flyers from the nurses’ bulletin boards.

Maron, who’s apparently been taking charm classes from Dave Regan, then threatened the stunned RNs and on-duty SEIU members by telling them they’d be disciplined if they participate in the strike.

To finish off a performance befitting a third grader, Maron started taunting the RNs that, “CNA is weak.” Way to go, Greg! That makes total sense!  Let’s see… SEIU’s members won’t even listen to you… so you gotta resort to threatening your own members with discipline... so... SEIU is super powerful, dude! You know what would be, like, totally powerful? What about threatening SEIU members’ children? And then tearing up their homework if they don’t listen?

Meanwhile, SEIU’s parade of abuses against its own membership seems to be reaching a tipping point… kinda like a giant pile of bullshit teetering atop SEIU’s Purple Palace. Check out the email below! (B/t/w, “CKPU” stands for “Coalition of Kaiser Permanente Unions”).