A source has
leaked two letters penned by SEIU-UHW's Dave
Regan that describe his deepening war with SEIU leaders. (The
letters are viewable below.)
In June, Regan leaked an
earlier attack memo to the press that targeted SEIU President Mary
Kay Henry ("Who’s
Gonna Bell the Cat?").
In his
latest letters, Regan says he is "repulsed and disgusted" by SEIU’s
leaders who are selfishly pursuing "control, internal power and
organizational dominance."
And that's
just the beginning of Regan's rant.
In an "Open
Letter to Leaders in SEIU" entitled "What Has Become of Us? The Shame of SEIU," Regan accuses
SEIU’s leaders of being "consumed with power and domination in the service
of nothing but appetite."
In case Regan's
phrasing seems a bit whacky ("in the service of nothing but appetite"),
Dave's letter also includes a quote from William Shakespeare.
So, uh… what
prompted Dave's latest poison pen attack against SEIU President Mary Kay Henry and SEIU officials?
 |
| SEIU-UHW's Dave Regan |
It appears
that Purple Palace officials have stepped up their war against Regan following their
earlier successful effort to slash SEIU-UHW’s membership by 60,000 members.
In recent
weeks, SEIU officials outmaneuvered Regan by inking their own secret deal with the
California Hospital Association (CHA),
thereby driving another nail into the coffin of Regan's secret pact with the CHA…
which, by the way, has been languishing on its deathbed for months.
How did the
SEIU officials do it?
According to
the terms of Regan's CHA deal, Dave is required to secure billions
of dollars of new government revenues for California hospital companies in
order to win the right to unionize 100,000 hospital workers. In recent weeks, however, Purple Palace officials teamed
up with the California Teachers
Association, California Governor
Jerry Brown, and the CHA to sponsor
an initiative that undercuts Regan's scheme for delivering billions of dollars to
the hospital bosses.
This "chess
move" has Regan spitting mad.
 |
| SEIU's Henry and Butler |
In his two
letters, Dave personally attacks Gov. Jerry Brown, the California Teachers
Association, the Hospital Association, Laphonza
Butler (President of the SEIU California State Council), Jon Youngdahl (Executive Director of
the SEIU California State Council), and other SEIU leaders.
Oh, and
Regan also attacks his former bunkmate, Duane
Dauner (the CEO of the California Hospital Association), for inking a backroom
deal with his SEIU rivals.
Regan is so angry that he sent a letter to the CHA's
membership trashing Dauner for being weak and ineffective, for selling out his members'
interests, committing "monumental failures," and (more generally) for
"the failure of Duane Dauner."
Nice.
Talk about
burning bridges. Regan's hate mail appears to signal that his "visionary,"
21st century deal with the CHA is as dead as a doornail.
In SEIU's second
attack on Regan, SEIU recently announced it’s sponsoring a statewide ballot
initiative in California that competes directly with one that SEIU-UHW has been
pursuing for months. Essentially, the SEIU California State Council and various
SEIU local unions across the state are waging a head-to-head ballot fight against SEIU-UHW, which the Los Angeles Times describes this way in a recent
article:
The fractious internal politics of one of California’s most powerful unions spilled into the movement to raise the statewide minimum wage Tuesday, as one wing of the Service Employees International Union announced a proposed ballot initiative that would compete with a measure backed by another branch of the labor group.
In his recently leaked letters, Regan attacks SEIU officials for conducting secret talks with the CHA:
 |
| SEIU's Jon Youngdahl |
"These meetings with the Association representing all of UHW's hospital employers were never disclosed by either Butler or Youngdahl to UHW and clearly were intended to undermine and destabilize the hospital organizing work UHW was told to 'focus' on."
He goes on
to attack SEIU's national leadership for being "insecure and weak" and
also accuses them of "sabotage," "threats,"
"retaliation," and "impunity."
Here's more
from Dave:
What are the implications for SEIU as a whole when the elected leader of the State Council takes it upon herself to secretly communicate with another local's employers and the employer Association for the sole purpose of sabotaging both the organizing and political work of that local?
What are the implications for the health and future of SEIU when UHW is forced to pay $2.5 million per year -- or be threatened with all manner of retaliation -- to a State Council that has license from the national leadership of SEIU to sabotage with impunity the legitimate work of UHW?
What does it mean when the national leadership of our union, and the state leadership of our Council, is so insecure and weak that they could even contemplate, let alone act upon, the sort of destructive behavior have recently been subjected to?
 |
| CHA's Duane Dauner |
Cry me a
river, right?
It's always quite entertaining to see Backroom Dave -- whose snake-like
qualities have never been mistaken for moral righteousness -- try to portray himself as the innocent victim of unscrupulous evildoers.
Yo Dave, what goes around comes
around. Ain't karma a b*tch.
Stay tuned
for the next act of Dave’s Shakespearean drama.
Meanwhile, here are Regan's
two letters.
