Adios, Dave: Union Quits Coalition to Join Rival Alliance of Kaiser’s “Partnership” Unions

Dave Regan’s Coalition of Kaiser Permanente Unions (“the Coalition”) just got smaller.

Last week, UNITE HERE Local 5 -- which represents 2,000 Kaiser workers in Hawaii -- announced its decision to leave the Coalition and join the Alliance of Health Care Unions (“the Alliance”).

Formed in March 2018, the Alliance is a rival group of “partnership” unions that bolted the Coalition following Regan’s attempt to seize greater control over unions’ decision-making process.

In a June 18th announcement on its website, the Alliance describes the development this way:

On Wednesday, June 13, the Alliance Steering Committee accepted UNITE HERE Local 5 as our newest member. Alliance Chair Kathleen Theobald hailed the move, saying “The union makes us strong – and the more unions in our Alliance, the stronger we are. Local 5 is a powerful, committed local union with experienced leadership, and we’re very happy to welcome them!” Local 5 represents approximately 2,000 KP workers in Hawaii.

“With our contract expiring in a few months, UNITE HERE Local 5 has joined the other Kaiser unions with 2018 expiration dates in bargaining,” said Secretary-Treasurer Eric Gill. “Together, we will achieve a contract settlement that meets our economic needs, builds greater solidarity among our allied unions and holds Kaiser management responsible to the highest degree of partnership with unionized Kaiser workers.  We appreciate the Alliance’s prompt acceptance of our union’s participation.”

In a post on its own website, UNITE HERE Local 5 told its members:

Aloha Kaiser Brothers and Sisters,

UNITE HERE! Local 5 was accepted into the Alliance of Health Care Unions yesterday… As a member of the Alliance, we will join 45,000 Kaiser workers from 21 other locals in attaining a National Agreement. That process has already begun. Local bargaining will also commence in the coming weeks. Please stay involved and committed to getting a good contract that benefits all.

Local 5’s departure represents a blow to the Coalition and SEIU-UHW's Dave Regan. Local 5’s President, Eric Gill, held the second highest position on the Coalition’s Board of Directors. Gill was the “Vice Chair” while Regan serves as the “Chair.”

The move leaves the Coalition with 11 local unions from three international unions (SEIU, the Office and Professional Employees International Union, and the International Federation of Professional and Technical Employees).

Meanwhile, the Alliance has 22 local unions from nine international unions (Teamsters, Steelworkers, AFSCME, American Federation of Teachers, UFCW, ILWU, Operating Engineers, UNITE HERE and the KPNAA).

Will the Coalition keep on shrinking?

Definitely possible, say sources.

Tasty hears that OPEIU Local 30 is weighing a switch to the Alliance. Such a move would be especially embarrassing for Regan since Local 30’s Executive Director Walter Allen currently serves as the Coalition’s “Interim Executive Director” following the departure of Hal Ruddick.

UNITE HERE’s exit follows the departure of a number of the Coalition’s longtime staff, some of whom quit in order to join the Alliance. Tasty hears these defections are continuing.

Kaiser: "We won't bargain with Coalition unions or SEIU-UHW in 2018"

This week, Kaiser Permanente finally revealed how it’s going to deal with its now fractured “partnership” unions.

On Monday, Kaiser’s executives gathered about 100 representatives from nearly all of its unions in a ballroom at the downtown Marriott Hotel in Oakland, Calif. In attendance were leaders from both of the partnership groups including SEIU-UHW’s Dave Regan, AFSCME’s Denise Duncan, Pete diCicco, Walter Allen, and Hal Ruddick.

Kaiser’s executives -- including Greg Adams, Dennis Dabney, Jim Pruitt and Chuck Columbus -- announced they will not bargain with either the Coalition of Kaiser Permanente Unions or SEIU-UHW this year.

Kaiser, however, will begin negotiating in the weeks ahead with the newly formed Alliance of Health Care Unions for contracts covering most of the Alliance’s members. Kaiser says it’ll negotiate with the Alliance unions at a single bargaining table, although it plans to sign separate labor contracts with each Alliance union rather than a single “national agreement.”

When will Kaiser bargain with SEIU-UHW?

Not until next year, when SEIU-UHW’s local union contract expires.

So why is Kaiser bargaining first with the Alliance unions?

According to Kaiser, it’s scheduling bargaining according to the expiration dates of each union’s so-called “local agreement.” (Note: In addition to a single “national agreement,” each partnership union also bargains a “local agreement” that covers issues specific to that particular part of Kaiser’s workforce.)

It turns out that most of the Alliance unions’ “local agreements” expire in 2018. Meanwhile, virtually all of the Coalition unions’ local agreements don’t expire until 2019.

 

Dave Regan

Kaiser’s announcement on Monday represents a big setback for Regan, who attended the Marriott meeting with Greg Pullman (Regan's Chief of Staff), Bruce Harland (Regan’s hack attorney), and several others.

Why?

The Alliance unions will go to the bargaining table first… before Regan and the other Coalition unions. This will allow the Alliance to set a pattern as far as wages, benefits and working conditions that Kaiser will undoubtedly ask SEIU-UHW to follow.

That’s precisely the opposite outcome from what Regan has been trying to achieve.

Since at least 2017, he made multiple attempts to seize control of the Coalition so he’d have greater power over this year’s national bargaining.

Now, as a result of overplaying his hand and expertly exploding the partnership unions into pieces, national bargaining has been canceled and Regan -- along with SEIU-UHW’s members -- have been relegated to the back seat.

In addition, Regan has successfully destroyed the unity among Kaiser’s 29 partnership unions. This will likely allow Kaiser to drive further wedges between them.

How did Reagan react to Kaiser’s announcement on Monday?

One hint comes from the red-hot rhetoric that SEIU-UHW used in an update to its members after the meeting. Here’s an excerpt:

Kaiser said they will refuse to negotiate a new National Agreement, leaving each union to bargain their own local agreement… The level of arrogance and contempt from Kaiser leadership in the meeting was palpable. There is no Partnership in Kaiser’s mind… Kaiser’s idea of “Partnership” is more like a Dictatorship. SEIU-UHW and our Coalition allies will not stand for this.

SEIU-UHW's Dave Regan Fires Kaiser Coalition's Executive Director

Dave Regan

According to internal sources, Dave Regan -- the newly named Chairman of the Coalition of Kaiser Permanente Unions (CKPU) -- has fired its Executive Director, Hal Ruddick. Ruddick’s last day will be Friday, April 20.

Ruddick will be replaced by an “interim” executive director, Walter Allen, say Tasty’s sources. Allen is the Executive Director and CFO of OPEIU Local 30, which represents 6,500 office and clerical workers in Southern California.

As reported earlier, Regan has been feuding with Ruddick for some time despite the fact that Ruddick was one of Regan’s loyal lieutenants at SEIU-UHW. In fact, in 2013 Regan put Ruddick into his job atop the CKPU after its prior Executive Director, John August, was ousted following wide-ranging allegations of sexual harassment and abuse.

In 2012, August became the center of a spiraling scandal after he reportedly sexually harassed a Kaiser partnership staffer who, upon quitting, turned in her phone… which contained comprising files and e-mails implicating August.

According to Tasty’s sources, Walter Allen plans to show up tomorrow at Kaiser’s national headquarters in the Ordway Building on the shores of Oakland’s Lake Merritt, where the Executive Director of the CKPU maintains a fancy, rent-free office courtesy of Kaiser’s executives. Perhaps Allen will do some remodeling.

Today’s developments are the latest in a series of dizzying events that have seen Kaiser’s so-called “partnership unions” split in two like a rotten peach.

Three weeks ago, eight of the 11 international unions in the labor-management partnership announced they were quitting the CKPU because they couldn’t work with Dave Regan, whom they accused of trying to orchestrate a power grab.

Days later, the eight international unions -- the Teamsters, Steelworkers, AFSCME, American Federation of Teachers, UFCW, ILWU, Operating Engineers and the KPNAA -- announced they had hired Pete diCicco as the Executive Director of their newly formed coalition, the Alliance of Health Care Unions.

Kaiser's HQ in Oakland

Meanwhile, Regan quickly ascended to the position of the Chairman of the Board of the CKPU, which has only three international unions as its remaining members (SEIU, OPEIU and IFPTE). Apparently, it’s from his position as Chairman inside the CKPU’s increasingly empty board room that Regan fired Ruddick.

Ruddick’s firing and his replacement by a presumably temporary “interim executive director” signals even more instability inside the CKPU. Tasty hears there's great nervousness among the CKPU’s staff about layoffs now that a substantial portion of its sponsoring unions have quit.

Stay tuned.

Kaiser Unions: “Adios, Dave!”

Pete diCicco

Just days after ditching the Coalition of Kaiser Permanente Unions because of SEIU-UHW’s Dave Regan, 21 Kaiser unions indicated their departure isn’t mere bluster or a negotiating tactic. They’re already taking steps to build a new coalition of partnership unions for the long haul.

The unions -- the Teamsters, Steelworkers, AFSCME, American Federation of Teachers, UFCW, ILWU, Operating Engineers and the KPNAA -- hired Pete diCicco as the Executive Director of their new coalition, according to a press release issued on March 30.

Why is this important?

diCicco was one of the founders of the Kaiser labor-management partnership in 1997 and served as the Executive Director of the Coalition of Kaiser Permanente Unions for its first decade. diCicco -- whose bio is described in the press release below – has deep relationships with Kaiser executives as well as Kaiser’s unions. He knows how Kaiser and the partnership work.

By hiring diCicco, the new coalition of unions -- called the Alliance of Health Care Unions -- showed they have a plan, are quickly executing it, and are here to stay.

Meanwhile, Regan can’t seem to stop himself from lapsing into his volatile, “old school” ways. In addition to trash-talking his former union allies as sell-outs and “the small unions,” he reportedly demanded this week that Kaiser executives refuse to deal with the new coalition of unions, which happens to represent more than 45,000 workers.

Great move, Dave!

According to Tasty’s sources, the local dog catcher carries more weight inside Kaiser’s HQ than Regan, especially given Dave’s most recent ballot initiative blunder.

In other drama, Regan is reportedly feuding with his coalition’s Executive Director, Hal “Purple Lies” Ruddick. This should be interesting now that Dave has named himself as the “Chairman of the Board” at the Coalition of Kaiser Permanente Unions.

Based on Regan’s past behavior, the members of Regan’s coalition are in for a rough ride. 

Fasten your seatbelts!

   AHCU Press Release: "New Alliance of Kaiser Unions Hires an Executive Director" -- 03-30-2018 by tastysternburger on Scribd

Dave Regan’s Ballot Initiative Knocks SEIU-UHW out of Kaiser Partnership

Here’s some interesting news from California.

Kaiser Permanente has blocked SEIU-UHW from participating in upcoming bargaining with its “partnership” unions after SEIU-UHW’s Dave Regan filed a statewide ballot initiative targeting Kaiser, according to an internal memo issued by Kaiser executives last week. A copy of the memo along with the ballot initiative is below.

What’s going on?

Here’s what Tasty has learned so far.

Apparently, Regan has become increasingly marginalized by Kaiser’s execs and by the other “partnership” unions in the Coalition of Kaiser Permanente Unions (the “Coalition”). The Coalition, which is made up of 28 unions representing 100,000 Kaiser workers across the US, bargains a national contract with Kaiser once every three years.

In late 2015, Regan sued Greg Adams, a top Kaiser exec, who served on the board of the California Hospital Association (CHA) and was caught up in Regan’s failed ballot initiative targeting the CHA.

Then, in August of 2017, Regan reportedly pissed off the other partnership unions when he tried to change the Coalition’s bylaws in order to give SEIU-UHW virtually all of the power to call the shots during the next round of national bargaining, which begins early next year. Other unions, including AFSCME, rejected Regan’s proposal, which sparked a shouting match during a three-day meeting of the partnership unions in Portland, Oregon.

Apparently, Regan has burnt turf not only with AFSCME but with SEIU locals in both Oregon and Colorado, including his erstwhile buddy Meg Niemi.

And another source reports that Regan no longer has the support of Hal Ruddick, the Executive Director of the Coalition. Ruddick is a former hack staffer at SEIU-UHW whom Regan got appointed to his position at the Coalition. Later, Regan reportedly attempted to have Ruddick fired, but was unsuccessful -- which hasn’t made Regan super popular at the Coalition’s offices.

After failing to convince the partnership unions to give him more power, Regan asked Kaiser’s execs for their help. In an internal memo issued last week, Kaiser's Senior Vice President and Chief Human Resources Officer Chuck Columbus wrote:

…for months now, SEIU-UHW’s leadership has insisted in private meetings that Kaiser Permanente management negotiate with SEIU-UHW as the sole representative of the Coalition in upcoming National Bargaining. In these meetings, SEIU-UHW’s leadership has threatened that if we refused their demands, they would put an initiative on the California ballot that would adversely affect Kaiser Permanente… We said no to SEIU-UHW leadership’s demand.

Meanwhile, Kaiser reportedly has told Regan it plans to propose cuts to SEIU-UHW members’ wage structure in Northern California.

Currently, SEIU-UHW’s members from San Francisco to Sacramento to Fresno are covered by a single pay scale.

Regan and Kaiser Senior VP Chuck Columbus

Kaiser’s execs told Regan they will propose cuts such that future SEIU-UHW hires in Sacramento would earn 10% less than those in the San Francisco Bay Area, while new hires in Fresno would earn 20% less than the Bay Area.

Regan, seeing takeaways on the table and little power inside the CKPU or with Kaiser’s execs, decided to turn to his old stand-by tactic of a statewide ballot initiative. On November 16, he filed an initiative with the California Attorney General (“Accountability in Managed Health Insurance Act”) which would prohibit Kaiser from raising its monthly insurance rates until Kaiser’s capital reserves drop below a certain level.

Kaiser’s response?

Kaiser removed SEIU-UHW from next year’s partnership bargaining, saying Regan’s ballot initiative violates the terms of its partnership deal with SEIU-UHW. Kaiser’s memo says:

In sponsoring this destructive initiative, SEIU-UHW leadership has violated both the spirit and the actual terms of the agreements that set up our valued Labor Management Partnership. Accordingly, we today have informed the leadership of SEIU-UHW that we are withdrawing certain privileges of Partnership from SEIU-UHW due to the union’s outrageous conduct. Among the privileges we have withdrawn is participation of SEIU-UHW in 2018 National Bargaining. 

Kaiser’s memo then takes a shot at Regan and his ballot initiatives:

Over the past few years, SEIU-UHW leadership has used the initiative process to force concessions from various employers. All these efforts have failed. If SEIU-UHW goes ahead with spending the millions of dollars it will take to get this initiative on the ballot, we are confident that once California voters understand the impact on Kaiser Permanente, they will join us to defeat this measure in November.

These developments are quite a turnaround for Regan, who has prided himself on being Kaiser execs’ lapdog.

For example, in 2012 Regan convinced the partnership unions to adopt an invasive corporate wellness program that allows Kaiser to peer inside workers’ bodies and collect blood samples and other “biometric data” so Kaiser can monitor workers’ weight, blood pressure, smoking rate, cholesterol levels and personal lives.

In another episode, Regan directed SEIU-UHW staffers (including Greg Maron and Jared Mayhugh) to work as strikebreakers alongside Kaiser managers to stop SEIU-UHW members from joining strikes by NUHW and the California Nurses Association (CNA) at Kaiser.

And then there are Regan’s famous “wellness walks.” Instead of picket signs and picket lines, Regan gave purple pedometers to SEIU-UHW members and told them to lose weight so as to reduce Kaiser’s health insurance costs.

Regan quickly became known as Kaiser’s Richard Simmons.

If Regan has been such a loyal lapdog to Kaiser’s execs, why is Kaiser now seeking takeaways from Regan?

One observer put it this way: “Because they can.” This observer points to Regan’s failure to build a rank-and-file organization inside Kaiser facilities that can fight takeaways.

A similar explanation comes from RoseAnn DeMoro, the Executive Director of the CNA. At a rally several years ago when Regan was in the throes of his lovefest with California hospital execs, DeMoro predicted that the execs would eventually kick Regan to the curb. “These corporations will treat Regan like they do every class traitor. They’ll toss him aside once he’s no longer useful to them.” (Tasty is paraphrasing DeMoro here.)

The fact that Kaiser is coming after Regan for wage cuts in Northern California is quite a stunning historical reversal.

In the late 1980s, Kaiser unilaterally imposed a similar multi-tiered wage structure across Northern California, which Kaiser workers tried to overturn by waging a seven-week strike. Afterwards, Sal Rosselli was elected president of the union and, during the next 15 years, he and his team dramatically expanded and strengthened the union and successfully eliminated Kaiser’s multi-tiered wage structure in 2005. In fact, Rosselli went even further, negotiating improvements to Southern California Kaiser workers’ wage structures to help close the wage gap with their Northern California co-workers. (Kaiser’s Southern California workers earn substantially less than those in Northern California.)

Since parachuting into California in 2009, Regan has taken no steps whatsoever to address the lower wage rates paid to SEIU-UHW members at Kaiser’s Southern California facilities. And he’s now facing a push by Kaiser execs to re-impose the multi-tiered wage structure that Rosselli successfully eliminated back in 2005.

                                                     

In other words, Regan is poised to possibly deliver a massive failure to tens of thousands of Kaiser workers.

What’s next?

 

Hal Ruddick, the Coalition's Executive Director

The Coalition unions have been conducting surveys and electing bargaining committees to participate in national bargaining, which begins early next year. SEIU-UHW, of course, will be on the sidelines. It won’t bargain with Kaiser until 2019, when its “local union agreement” with Kaiser expires on September 30, 2019.

As far as Regan’s ballot initiative, once it’s cleared by the California Attorney General, SEIU-UHW will need to spend millions of dollars to collect enough voter signatures to qualify the measure for the November 2018 ballot.

By the way, Regan also has filed at least nine other ballot initiatives for the November 2018 ballot, which target Stanford Health Care, DaVita Inc., Watsonville Community Hospital, and Pomona Valley Hospital Medical Center. Regan’s increasing reliance on ballot initiatives raises an interesting question about whether his corporate targets will band together to try to block his use of ballot initiatives as bargaining leverage, as an earlier piece of California legislation appeared to do.

What do Kaiser workers say about Regan’s ballot initiative?

According to Tasty’s contacts, workers had no idea their union’s president had even filed a ballot initiative until Kaiser officials sent them the memo below.

It’s another symptom of Regan’s so-called “innovative 21^st century unionism,” which relies on hiring lawyers to file ballot initiatives rather than organizing workers to build workplace power.

   Kaiser Permanente's memo to employees on SEIU-UHW's Ballot Initiative:12.12.2017 by tastysternburger on Scribd

   SEIU-UHW's Ballot Initiative against Kaiser Permanente in California by tastysternburger on Scribd

Kaiser's "Partnership Unions" Prepare for Bargaining amid Fireworks

Kaiser CEO at CKPU's conference

The “partnership” unions are beginning to prepare for next year’s negotiations with Kaiser Permanente… which means it’s time for more “instant recesses,” dance-offs, “Contract Buddy,” Team Salad Days, and Zumba.

However, in an interesting new development, Tasty’s sources also report growing tensions between various partnership unions.

Here’s what Tasty knows.

Two weekends ago (August 25-27), the partnership unions -- the “Coalition of Kaiser Permanente Unions” -- held a three-day conference at the Hilton Portland and Executive Tower in Portland, Oregon.

Kaiser CEO Bernard Tyson spoke to the conference, which also included multiple “Thrive activities,” Zumba, and “Instant Recesses” to the music of Michael Jackson and Bruno Mars.

Other items on the agenda?

"Reflections on 20 Years of Partnering" and workshops including "The Road to Workplace Wellness," "Projecting Confidence and Credibility," "BMI Boot Camp: Become a Trail Blazer for Health," and "Tag – You’re It."

In 2012, SEIU-UHW’s Dave Regan famously pushed the partnership unions to implement an invasive “wellness” program” that allows Kaiser officials to monitor employees’ biometric data including their BMI (“Body Mass Index”), blood pressure, smoking rate, and cholesterol level. Instead of strikes, Regan pressed Kaiser workers to wear “purple pedometers” and conduct “wellness walks” to get in shape for their employer.

So what about the tensions between partnership unions?

 

SEIU-UHW's Dave Regan speaking at CKPU conference

Tasty’s sources say those arose on Sunday, when leaders of various partnership unions, including Regan, addressed the conference about next year’s negotiations with Kaiser. 

Apparently, multiple unions successfully banded together to outvote Regan and SEIU-UHW on various issues… which angered Regan.

How to fix it? 

Regan proposed changing the voting rules in order to give Regan and SEIU-UHW more votes… which of course angered the other unions.

According to Tasty’s sources, the tensions burst into the open with Ragin’ Dave Regan literally screaming from the podium and attacking the partnership unions that opposed him.

Here’s how one source put it: “Regan lost it. He was screaming his ass off. I know the dude is a hothead, but I didn’t expect this.”

Stay tuned for more…

Hospital Worker Takes Case to US Supreme Court after SEIU-UHW Officials Fail to Protect Pensions for 15,000 Workers at Dignity Health

A California hospital worker named Starla Rollins has taken a fight to protect 15,000 workers' pension benefits all the way to the US Supreme Court.

Last week, Rollins’ attorneys asked the Supreme Court to safeguard the retirement benefits of tens of thousands of workers at Dignity Health, a giant hospital company headquartered in San Francisco. 

Even though Dignity’s pension plan covers more than 15,000 SEIU-UHW members, SEIU-UHW President Dave Regan and other SEIU-UHW officials have refused to lift a finger to defend workers’ pensions.

Here’s what’s going on:

In 2009 and 2012, SEIU-UHW’s Dave Regan and Hal Ruddick teamed up with Dignity executives to implement sharp cuts to the pension plan covering SEIU-UHW members at more than 30 hospitals across California.

Then, in 2013, Starla Rollins -- a 26-year Ward Clerk at Community Hospital of San Bernardino -- discovered that SEIU-UHW officials had allowed Dignity to underfund SEIU-UHW members’ pension plan by $1.2 billion. (Yes, that’s a “b” for “billion.”)

Because SEIU-UHW officials refused to do anything, Rollins decided to sue Dignity in a class-action lawsuit on behalf of herself and her co-workers. Her lawsuit -- “Starla Rollins v. Dignity Health”-- was filed in 2013. Tasty covered it in this earlier post.

Here’s the latest.

Last July, Rollins and her attorney won an important victory in federal court after doing battle with Dignity’s high-priced lawyers for three years. (See below the decision issued by the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals.) 

Dignity, rather than accepting defeat, appealed the court’s decision to the US Supreme Court.

Last week, lawyers for both sides argued their case in front of the Supreme Court.

Starla Rollins

The case centers on the following question: A federal law (the Employee Retirement Income Security Act) requires corporations to adequately fund their employees’ pensions so workers actually receive the pension payments they earned when they retire. 

Dignity acknowledges it has underfunded workers’ pension. But company executives claim they’re exempt from federal law because Dignity is a “religious organization” …even though Dignity has bought up many non-religious hospitals. It even changed its name from “Catholic Healthcare West” so it could re-brand itself as a non-religious company.

What happened during last week’s oral argument at the US Supreme Court?

According to a transcript (see copy below), Judge Sonia Sotomayor grilled a lawyer representing Dignity. Here’s an excerpt from her questioning:

[Dignity is] the fifth largest healthcare provider in the nation. They have 60,000 employees. Do you believe that Congress's vision was to let, what is essentially, a corporate entity opt out of protecting all of those employees?

Kick their asses!

So what happens next?

The Supreme Court justices will publish their decision sometime in June.

What about SEIU-UHW? It continues to do absolutely nothing to protect its members’ retirement benefits. Apparently, “Wall Street” Dave Regan is too busy polishing the CEO’s shoes.

So... huge props to Starla!

In fact, Rollins has been waging not one but two important legal battles against SEIU-UHW for its failure to support its members.

In the second case, Rollins won a giant victory last October when a federal court ordered officials from both SEIU-UHW and Dignity Health to stand trial for illegally laying her off from her 26-year job and then refusing to honor her union contract’s seniority agreement. Rollins was part of the union’s leadership team prior to SEIU’s 2009 trusteeship, when NUHW President Sal Rosselli led the union.

Let’s keep our fingers crossed for the Supreme Court’s June decision! Stay tuned.

  US Supreme Court's Oral Argument on Starla Rollins v.  Dignity Health pension case: 3-27- 2017 by tastysternburger on Scribd

  Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals: Opinion on Starla Rollins v. Dignity Health pension case: 7-26-2016 by tastysternburger on Scribd

Sources: Dave Regan Is on His Way Out

Job application??

Dave Regan is calling it quits at SEIU-UHW.

Sources inside SEIU-UHW recently confirmed that Regan will not stand for re-election as SEIU-UHW’s president when his three-year term expires in early 2017.

Ten months ago, Tasty reported that Regan told members of SEIU-UHW’s Executive Board he was throwing in the towel. At the time, he said he would support Chokri Bensaid, the director of SEIU-UHW’s Kaiser Division, to become his replacement.

Why is Regan leaving?

Observers point to a series of colossal failures that have taken a serious toll on SEIU-UHW and its members, including... 

• Regan’s backroom deals and mega-failures at the bargaining table that have stripped tens of thousands of SEIU-UHW members of their pensions and other benefits; 

• his failed battle with SEIU President Mary Kay Henry that has left Regan deeply isolated inside SEIU; 

• his loss of 65,000 homecare and nursing home workers that halved his union’s membership; 

• his failed backroom deal with the California Hospital Association that has cost SEIU-UHW’s members more than $25 million and has left the union mired in expensive legal battles and more politically isolated than ever; 

• his failure to organize healthcare workers to join SEIU-UHW; 

• etc.

And don't forget the personal scandals, such as Regan's physical assault on a process server that splashed his face across TV newscasts in California.

Where will Regan go next?

Coming to a reality TV show near you? 

It's not clear at this point.

However…Tasty hears that Diamond Dave would be absolutely perfect for a new reality TV show that Donald Trump is planning to launch after the US presidential election. 

Dave Regan’s Pal at Dignity Health Is a Pioneer in the Gig Economy

Lloyd Dean -- the CEO of Dignity Health and a close ally of SEIU-UHW’s Dave Regan -- is courageously forging new ground in the gold-plated gig economy.

Earlier this week, Tasty described how Dean works full-time as the CEO of the US’s third-largest health system, Dignity Health… but finds enuf time to pocket $350,000 a year for sitting on Wells Fargo’s board of directors.

Well… it turns out Dean holds down a number of other side-gigs, too.

He happens to sit on the board of directors of McDonald’s Corporation, which is one of the targets of SEIU’s Fight for $15 campaign.

Wonder if Regan’s infamous gag clause, which "Wall Street" Dave signed with Dean and other CEOs, prohibits SEIU from discussing Dean’s sky-high salary?

How much does McDonald's pay Dean?

Approximately quarter million dollars a year in cash and stocks for attending board meetings. Thus far, he’s assembled thousands of shares of McDonald’s stock for himself and the “Dean Family Trust,” according to SEC records.

Dean also sits on the board of Navigant Consulting, Inc., a Chicago-based management consulting firm, which pays Dean $200,000 a year in cash and stock.

Recently, Dean gave up his seat on two other corporations’ board of directors. Those companies happen to pay far less than Wells Fargo, McDonald’s, and Navigant.

 

Fight for $15

Last year, he resigned his board seat at Premier, Inc., which paid him only $50,000 a year in cash. 

Chump change, right? 

Premier, based in Charlotte, NC, provides performance-improvement consulting and group purchasing to hospitals and nursing homes across the US.

He also ditched his seat at Cytori Therapeutics, Inc., a San Diego-based biotechnology company where Dean was the Chairman of the Board. During Dean’s last year at the company, he pocketed 16,030 stock options, 10,550 shares of restricted stock, and $33,625 in cash, according to the company’s SEC filings.  

Tough gigging for the 1%.