A source has provided a document that sheds more light on Dave Regan’s proposed partnership deal with the California hospital industry.
To date, Tasty’s sources have described only several
features of the deal: a ban on strikes, the implementation of pre-negotiated “template”
labor contracts on workers, and the elimination of many job classifications in
order to give companies greater ability to "flex" and "multi-task" workers.
What else is in Regan’s deal?
Well, check out the terms of a similar partnership deal/unionization
pact that SEIU was negotiating with California's nursing home industry in
2007 (see full document below).
The document emerged from the dark recesses of SEIU’s secret
negotiations after Sal Rosselli and his reformers blew the whistle on SEIU's corrupt back-room deal… which caused Andy
Stern, Mary Kay Henry and the
Purple Palace to launch their effort to oust Rosselli and his reformers via a bogus trusteeship.
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| SEIU's Dave Kieffer |
The document details the terms of a partnership deal under discussion
between California’s nursing home bosses and SEIU’s Dave Kieffer, who was the intellectual architect and lead negotiator of the 2007
deal. Kieffer is reportedly playing a similar role in SEIU-UHW’s current
negotiations with the California's hospital industry.
The document is nothing less than stunning.
It contains a
lengthy list of favors (euphemistically called “policy benchmarks”) that SEIU
would have been required to accomplish in order to get “100% neutrality” at the Bosses’ nursing
homes across the state. (“100% neutrality” means the right to organize all of
the Bosses’ workers without any resistance).
In this case, the Boss is like a pet owner holding out
taste treats in mid-air while telling his salivating purple poodle, “Jump HIGHER!”
So... what dirty deeds was SEIU prepared to perform for its
corporate paymasters? The list is jaw-dropping.
Item #1 required SEIU to betray California’s elderly and
disabled nursing home residents by helping the Boss to re-write California's laws so
nursing home companies would pay far less money to their patients when they killed, maimed,
injured or abused them. Here's how it's described in the document below, with the term "facility" referring to a nursing home:
Reform tort law to set hard caps on non-economic punitive damages for elder abuse claims. Prevent all other legislation that expands potential liability of a facility.
Here are some additional items from Kieffer’s document:
Item #4 requires SEIU to steer $3 billion of additional
Medicaid funding into the Bosses’ pockets.
Item # 5: “Prevent all consumer activist regulation and
enforcement aimed at mandating quality care through greater punishment.”
Items 5, 6, 8 and 9 require SEIU to push through a variety
of back-door maneuvers to undermine minimum-staffing laws that are designed to protect the safety and health of
nursing homes residents.
On the second page, item #8 prohibits SEIU from saying
anything bad about the Boss… ever! It reads: “No negative rhetoric ever…”
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| Freeman was sentenced to jail for corruption |
Item #9 requires SEIU to establish only one statewide SEIU union in California guided by “Tyrone Freeman’s vision/philosophy.” WTF! In a
reference to Sal Rosselli, the language states: “No Bay Area exceptions,” meaning the Boss demanded that SEIU remove Rosselli in order to do business. Like the Purple Palace, the Boss prefers to deal only with corrupt and incompetent union leaders like Freeman.
Item #11: “No strikes, slowdowns, etc ever for any reason.”
Item #12: “Only long-term template CBAs, else letter
disclaiming interest placed in escrow and available if union seeks changes in
provisions.” (The term "CBAs" refers to collective bargaining agreements.)
Item #13: “Union is happy to have little or no role in
workplace decision-making.”
Under the section entitled “Collective Bargaining
Agreement”…
Item #1: “50 year collective bargaining agreement per the
current template with ‘no strike’…”
Item #2: “No cap or limitations on economic return to
employers.” (That is, SEIU would agree to allow the Boss to make as much profit as possible.)
Item #9: “No ability for union to demand 100% paid health
care or use of union pension plan.”
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| SEIU-UHW's Dave Regan |
For example... SEIU's deals typically include gag clauses that block workers from criticizing healthcare corporations even when they jeopardize the health of patients. They also include provisions that require SEIU to fully embrace corporations' disgusting anti-consumer policy and legislative agenda.
It's a dirty deal with the devil... which SEIU is fully willing to accept.
In fact, Californians have already seen the consequences of SEIU's deals with the devil during Regan's trusteeship.
Last year, Regan teamed up with the California Hospital Association to try to roll back California's landmark nurse-to-patient staffing law... even though this would have hurt thousands of SEIU's own members who are Registered Nurses.
More recently, Regan directed SEIU-UHW's political organizers to lobby alongside Kaiser Permanente to kill a bill introduced by UNITE HERE and multiple other unions that sought to hold down health insurance premiums by forcing companies like Kaiser to be more transparent about its price hikes on consumers.
All of this begs the question... what else is in Regan's proposed partnership agreement with the California hospital industry?
