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| Dave Regan |
SEIU-UHW’s Dave
Regan has returned to his ballot-initiative habit once again.
This week, Regan
announced two ballot initiatives targeting the kidney dialysis industry in
California, where he’s trying to squeeze some kinda deal out of one of the
state’s the largest dialysis companies, DaVita Inc.
The two measures --
tentatively titled the “Kidney Dialysis Patient Protection Act” and the “Fair
Pricing for Dialysis Act” -- must be approved by the California Attorney
General before Regan can begin collecting signatures from more than 700,000
California voters to qualify the initiatives for the statewide ballot in
November 2018.
Regan has been super
un-successful at using ballot initiatives to ink sweetheart deals with hospital
CEOs in both California and Arizona. Tasty estimates he’s spent more than $25
million of union members’ dues money on his failed ballot initiatives... and hasn't produced a single organizing victory.
Now… he appears to be
turning his ballot-initiative phaser on the kidney dialysis industry.
What’s going on?
Since 2016, Regan has
been attempting to organize DaVita workers at kidney dialysis clinics. But he’s
been unsuccessful. So he’s now trying his ballot-initiative thang to see if
DaVita’s CEO might be open to giving him a special deal... at a really good price!
Of course, that’s the
problem with Regan. Once he disappears into a hotel suite with the CEOs, workers
will never get to know what kind of deal he makes with his pin-striped pals.
In 2014, he
negotiated a secret deal with the California Hospital Association…
which Regan then refused to show to the union’s Executive Board, let alone the
rank-and-file workers.
Two years later, a copy of the deal became
public as a result of a lawsuit. It turned out that when Regan was alone
with the bosses in the hotel suite, he agreed to ban SEIU-UHW members from
striking, force workers into pre-negotiated contracts with substandard wages
and benefits, and gag union members from filing patient-care complaints against
hospitals or even criticizing their CEO’s gold-plated salaries.
So the kidney
dialysis workers need to beware. If Wall Street Dave actually succeeds in
getting a meeting with DaVita’s CEO, workers better be damned sure they force themselves into the meeting.
Other things to
watch:
Will the kidney
dialysis industry attempt to enforce a California law that makes
it illegal to use ballot initiatives as a bargaining chip?
Will Regan
raid SEIU-UHW members' strike fund for the millions of dollars it will cost to pay
signature-gatherers to collect the more than 700,000 signatures for the two kidney dialysis ballot measures?
Stay tuned.
