Check out an audio recording of an internal SEIU-UHW
conference call that focuses on Kaiser Permanente’s layoffs of an estimated 1,000
employees in California… even though Kaiser is banking billions in profits. The recording is posted below.
Here's the background:
In an earlier post, Tasty shared a copy of Kaiser execs’ email
instructions to managers about layoffs targeting 550 employees in Southern
California. That email was dated October 23.
Then, on November 13, the president of Kaiser’s Northern
California Region, Greg Adams, sent
an email to all of Kaiser’s NorCal’s employees in which he described the
company’s “need to adjust staffing to align with our current hospital census
counts, manage costs, and operate as effectively as possible.” Layoffs.
Which brings us to the conference call.
On November 22, SEIU-UHW
officials held a conference call -- only for the union’s shop stewards -- where
they coached the stewards on how to respond to members’ questions about the
layoffs. Here’s what the union staffer said:
What we want to make sure is communicated to the members, and in our facilities, is that everyone know that SEIU-UHW along with the Coalition of Unions are against the layoffs. Okay? If any questions come up in your facilities where they wanna know, “Did SEIU-UHW know?” No, we did not know, right?
The SEIU-UHW officials tell a story that’s hard to believe --
that Dave Regan and other union officials knew absolutely nothing about the
NorCal layoffs until November 13, when Greg Adams sent his email to all Kaiser employees.
One steward asks: “What kind of partnership is that?” Other stewards
offer detailed info about the layoffs -- even a newspaper article -- that the
union officials claim to be totally unaware of.
There’s also a revealing discussion about SEIU’s total and complete
failure to represent Kaiser workers on the job. A steward describes how Kaiser
supervisors have been given free rein to “weed out” any workers “they don’t appreciate.”
Another steward says, “They are terminating more people than they ever have…
they’re trying to get rid of people.”
Be sure to listen to the end of the 7-minute recording. That’s
where the SEIU-UHW staffers offer ingenious ideas about how
SEIU-UHW is supposedly going to “fight” the layoffs of an estimated 1,000
employees? You guessed it.... flashmobs and “dance-offs!” Tasty is not kidding.
