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| Regan and Dauner |
Here's an e-mail
from Duane Dauner to Dave Regan that helps explain the legal battle that's
raging between SEIU-UHW and the California Hospital Association.
It highlights a gag clause that Regan wrote into his secret "partnership" deal with the hospital industry.
According to Dauner, the gag clause is so far-reaching that it blocks SEIU-UHW from supporting legislation, taking legal action, and even exercising free speech.
On November
24, 2015, SEIU-UHW filed a lawsuit in Sacramento Superior Court calling Dauner "corrupt"
and a "saboteur." It alleges that Dauner (CEO of the California
Hospital Association) and two other executives violated their responsibilities
to a joint "partnership" committee by entering into an agreement with
the SEIU California State Council to sponsor a statewide revenue-generating
ballot initiative that competes with Regan's preferred initiative.
Two weeks
later, on December 7, Dauner sent the following e-mail to Regan (SEIU-UHW's President)
notifying him that SEIU-UHW's lawsuit violates the gag clause in
Regan's secret deal with the CHA (aka, the "Code of
Conduct").
Under the gag clause, SEIU-UHW is prohibited from calling Dauner
a "saboteur." Why? Regan's gag clause prohibits SEIU-UHW
from making "derogatory" comments about bosses.
Furthermore,
the gag clause blocks SEIU-UHW from filing a lawsuit or taking any legal action against the CHA…
or against any of "the officers, directors, managers or shareholders" of the corporations that signed Regan's deal.
Oh... and
SEIU-UHW can’t initiate or support any regulatory action or legislation -- including ballot initiatives
-- unless it first gets the approval of the hospital industry's bosses.
Regan's gag
clause is so broad, in fact, that it bans SEIU-UHW from carrying out any "anti-employer
activities" whatsoever!
In the end, we'll likely see that Regan's sell-out gag clause is the source of his own undoing -- a sort of self-administered guillotine blow to the cervical region.
Here are
some excerpts from Duane’s e-mail to Dave (full text is below):
Dave,
CHA hereby gives notice of its complaint that SEIU-UHW's litigation against C. Duane Dauner, Gregory A. Adams, Mark R. Laret, James R. Holmes, and Caring for Californians, LLC (collectively, "the Defendants") violates provisions of the Code of Conduct, including Subsections I(B) and II(C)...
In particular, under Section I.B of the Code of Conduct, SEIU-UHW is prohibited from "carry[ing] out or engage[ing] in any ‘Anti--Employer Activities,’" which are defined to include "instigating or supporting... litigation" that is "directed at or with respect to CHA or signatory hospitals or health systems and any of their officers, directors, managers or shareholders." The Union's decision to file a lawsuit against CHA's President and three of its officers is a clear violation of this provision.
Furthermore, the inflammatory language SEIU-UHW uses in its complaints -- labeling Mr. Dauner as a "saboteur" and accusing him of "corrupt acts," for example -- constitutes a separate violation of the Union's duties to refrain from "reputation... attacks" or "personal attacks" directed at CHA and its officers and to avoid "derogatory comments" about CHA. (Sec. I.B.1 and I.B.2)
These recent actions make clear that SEIU-UHW has abandoned any pretense of compliance with the Code's requirement that it address differences with CHA through "cooperation rather than confrontation" and "in a positive manner." (Preamble, Sec. I.B.1) The CHA therefore intends to bring this complaint to Arbitrator Ahearn promptly, seeking an order requiring SEIU-UHW to immediately withdraw both lawsuits and prohibiting SEIU-UHW from filing similar litigation in the future.
