Just when you
thought they might've run out of scams, Tasty hears that SEIU officials have devised
elaborate new tricks to cheat their members out of fair elections.
In an
earlier post, Tasty described how SEIU rigged an internal union election at
Kaiser Walnut Creek Medical Center in order to get John
Cuddihy (an ally of Dave Regan)
elected as a Shop Steward… despite the fact that Cuddihy is universally
distrusted because of his back-room deals with management.
Here’s the
latest chapter in this ugly story:
Last week, SEIU
announced it would be holding membership elections at the Northern California hospital
in order to “reconfirm” its Shop Stewards. In the Medicine Department, workers breathed
a massive sigh of relief as they imagined they’d finally have a chance to
remove Cuddihy as their fraudulently elected Steward. Whew!
On election day,
40 workers from the Medicine Department walked together to the cafeteria to cast
their votes to remove Cuddihy from his union position. When they arrived in the
cafeteria, workers were shocked to learn that SEIU officials had concocted an
intricate scheme to keep Cuddihy in his position. Here’s what happened:
Instead of
allowing the department’s workers to vote on Cuddihy, SEIU carefully divided
the 40 workers into eight separate groups of voters. These eight groups were
then assigned to vote for eight separate Shop Stewards (talk about "re-districting"!).
Seven of the eight candidates were people that the workers had never even heard
of -- people who work in distant parts of the hospital like the Urology
Department. And (you guessed it) the eighth group of workers was assigned to
vote for Cuddihy. But this group of voters had been hand-selected by SEIU so as
to contain the only three people who would possibly vote for Cuddihy… including
Cuddihy himself!
And that’s how SEIU executed its latest assault on union democracy... so they could "reconfirm" Cuddihy to his union position.
Apparently, the
hospital’s workers are outraged at SEIU’s latest election swindle, and are terrified to imagine the ballot-box fraud that SEIU will undoubtedly commit when it’s time
to “ratify” the massive health and pension concessions that SEIU has already
inked with Kaiser executives.
Looks like SEIU has boundless creativity when it comes to committing
election fraud, but zero energy or initiative when it comes to fighting the
boss and defending its members!
