"I needed a shower..." says a Journalist Who Attended Press Conference by SEIU-UHW's Dave Regan and California Hospital Association

So just how dirty is the "back-room deal” between SEIU-UHW’s Dave Regan and the California Hospital Association (CHA)?

According to a news editor, the recent press conference between Regan and the CHA’s Duane Dauner was enough to send journalists running for the shower.

Here are some excerpts from an article by Ron Shinkman, the Editor of Fierce Health Finance.

I've spent a long time--perhaps too long--as a journalist, so I have the diminished expectations department pretty well covered. Until last week.

 That was when I attended by telephone a press conference held by the heads of California's largest hospital lobby and healthcare employees union. So much world-weary cynicism oozed through the receiver that if my phone could actually speak, it probably would have asked me if it could take a shower….

 Regan's union recently pulled the plug on [two ballot initiatives.] The union worked out some sort of backroom deal instead. The two parties spent the entire press conference trying not to discuss it. Dauner, at times sounding imperiously irritated, declared the details should remain confidential. An exhausted and defeated-sounding Regan sounded like he could use a nap…

Ouch!

How “defeated” is Regan?

According to Shinkman, “Wall Street” Dave has given up on the idea that SEIU will ever fight for workers' interests or “butt heads” with corporations. Instead, Regan and the Purple Palace are pursuing a strategy that Regan calls "21st century unionism” …in which SEIU does the Boss’s bidding for him.

Here’s what Regan told journalists during the press conference, according to Shinkman’s article:

Regan said this deal, whatever it might be, was the only way to protect jobs. He added that the traditional job of unions--which when they were a force to reckon with included butting heads with management and occasionally striking-- was a "zero-sum game."

So all of you SEIU members out there... the next time SEIU gives away your pension and slashes your benefits… or refuses to defend you against a raging maniac of a supervisor, you know why...