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| SEIU-UHW's Dave Regan |
SEIU-UHW’s Dave Regan
is attempting to snatch 9,000 members from “SEIU Nevada” through a backroom
deal with the local's president, according to inside sources.
Here's what's happening:
SEIU Nevada’s 18,000 members are roughly divided between public-sector
workers (mainly Clark County employees) and private-sector workers in the
healthcare industry.
In July of 2013, Martin
Bassick, a county employee, was elected president of SEIU Nevada.
Regan apparently approached Bassick about splitting SEIU
Nevada’s membership in half and "giving" the union’s 9,000 healthcare
workers to Regan. It's not clear what Bassick would get in return. According to Tasty’s sources, these discussions have taken
place completely "behind the members' backs."
If Nevada’s healthcare workers were handed over to Regan, observers
say it would be disastrous.
Regan is notorious for making backroom deals with employers
and would likely use Nevada's 9,000 workers as bargaining chips to get better
deals from HCA and Dignity Health for Regan’s 150,000 members in California. In
2008, Regan famously backed a deal to trade away the pensions of SEIU workers in
one state in order to advance SEIU officials’ personal agendas in other states.
Observers also point to Regan's track record at SEIU-UHW,
where he has…
- Slashed workers’ health insurance, retirement plans and other benefits -- including the elimination of 20,000 workers’ pensions at Dignity Health and Daughters of Charity Health System.
- Sharply reduced representation services for the union's membership, allowing bosses to fire 33-year employees at the drop of a hat.
- Aggressively boosted monthly union dues, including a 50% increase in the maximum dues rate to $124 per month -- with an ongoing $10 increase each year, which means the top rate is now $134 per month!
- Dramatically increased Regan's own salary to $300,000 a year and also transformed SEIU-UHW into a profit-making machine, with the union ending last year with $38 million in cash.
- Made countless backroom deals with bosses including a recent deal with the California Hospital Association that would lower workers’ pay and benefits, prohibit workers from criticizing hospitals' poor patient-care practices, and ban workers from striking.
- Violated SEIU’s own Constitution by using ramrod ratification votes to force major benefit cuts down workers' throats.
It sounds like SEIU Nevada's members ought to give
Bassick a jingle over at the Lacquered Up Nail Salon on Rainbow Blvd.
