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| SEIU-UHW's Dave Regan |
SEIU-UHW’s Dave Regan
has spent the past two years trying to negotiate a secret unionization deal with the California Hospital Association,
according to insiders.
Under Regan’s proposed pact, California’s hospital
corporations would designate SEIU-UHW
as their ‘preferred union’ and would allow SEIU-UHW to unionize their workers
without a fight. SEIU-UHW would then force the newly organized workers into
cheap, pre-negotiated “template” contracts.
For those who are familiar with the Purple Palace’s past
adventures, this back-door scheme is classic “SEIU.” And
it has Dave
Kieffer’s fingerprints all over it.
Unfortunately, there’s one small problem with Regan's current entrepreneurial
effort.
The Bosses aren’t buying Regan’s deal… even though “Wall
Street” Dave has made a hefty sales
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| Cal.Hospital Assn's Duane Dauner |
So… since the Bosses aren’t swallowing Regan’s secret
unionization scheme, Regan is now trying to find ways to convince them to sign
a deal.
How?
Regan is planning to use a two-part strategy of (1)
cheapening the deal for the Bosses by further dumbing down the terms of workers’
pre-negotiated contracts and (2) pressuring the Bosses by threatening to file statewide
ballot initiatives that would try to inflict financial pain on California's hospital industry.
The latter part is a re-run of Regan’s failed efforts of the past.
In 2003, Regan was reprimanded by the Ohio Elections Commission when he tried to use a ballot campaign to
“blackmail” county officials into allowing SEIU 1199 Ohio to unionize county workers, according
to a series of articles about “Issue 15”
in the Cleveland Plain Dealer.
In 2012, Regan tried to use a similar unsuccessful
ballot scheme in California. That year, Regan spent $5.5 million of
SEIU-UHW members' dues dollars to collect signatures to place two
initiatives on the statewide ballot. In the end, however, Regan backed down
from his ballot threat, which would've required SEIU-UHW to spend millions more
dollars to actually convince voters to back the measures on election day.
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| SEIU's Meg Niemi after a hefty dose of snake oil. |
This time around, Regan is reportedly threatening to re-run
the same two 2012 ballot initiatives and also to add a third one that would threaten
to limit hospital CEOs’ salaries.
During the next few days, SEIU-UHW will
reportedly submit its ballot initiatives to the Attorney General’s office for “title
and summary” requests -- the first step in the initiative process.
Interestingly, Tasty hears that Regan convinced Meg Niemi, the president of SEIU Local 49 in Oregon, to run five
ballot measures in Oregon!
Apparently, Niemi swallowed a hefty dose of
Regan’s snake oil, and is busy preparing “Issue 15”-styled campaigns in hopes that thousands of "template" workers will pour into her union like manna from heaven.
Stay tuned, because Tasty plans to publish more details about
Regan’s back-room deal with the Hospital Association!
