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| Myriam Escamilla |
Tasty hears that Myriam
Escamilla -- the Director of SEIU-UHW’s Nursing Home Division – recently
put on quite a show inside the union’s office in Oakland. Apparently, she began
screaming at “her staff” after they failed to recruit a single nursing home
worker to help with SEIU-UHW’s get-out-the-vote effort for the upcoming election at Kaiser
Permanente.
Here’s what’s happening.
Dave Regan has ordered
SEIU-UHW’s staff to recruit workers and shop stewards from the union’s non-Kaiser
facilities in order to assist SEIU’s GOTV effort for the Kaiser election.
Unfortunately, even the union’s shop stewards are decidedly unenthusiastic
about helping.
So… Regan has resorted to offering them cold hard cash: $900 for
a few days of work. (Tasty hears that SEIU is now boosting the pay because too few workers are biting.)
Even with the lure of purple cash, Myriam Escamilla has failed
to recruit a single worker from the union’s nursing homes. That’s what led to her
recent outburst, which was reportedly accompanied by lots of fist-pounding and teeth-gnashing
in an apparent impression of Dave Regan.
So… why are the union’s shop stewards not so interested in
helping SEIU-UHW?
Hmm… maybe it has something to do with all of the sell-out
contracts that SEIU officials have rammed down their throats? Or the union’s
total lack of representation of workers who need help defending themselves
against nasty bosses? Or the back-room deals that Regan and Escamilla have cut
with greedy companies?
In fact, Tasty hears that things have gotten even worse for the
union’s nursing home workers. Several months ago, Regan stripped at least half
of SEIU-UHW’s Union Reps out of the union’s nursing homes, and then reassigned
them to Kaiser hospitals because of SEIU's declining support. As a result, even the
union’s own shop stewards are threatening to file NLRB charges -- called “Duty
of Fair Representation” charges -- against Regan and Co. for failing to help
the union’s dues-paying members.
Tasty would love to be a fly on the wall when Greg Pullman -- Regan’s Chief of Staff --
summons Escamilla to his office for an accountability session. At one point, Pullman
actually married Escamilla. And, in a quirk that appears to afflict high-paid
SEIU officials like Tyrone Freeman – it’s unclear whether they ever actually ended
their marital liaison.
Sounds like they’ll have lots to talk about!
