UFCW Local 400's lawsuit against Kaiser... and two news articles

Three quick items:

1. Here's a copy of the lawsuit filed by UFCW Local 400 against Kaiser Permanente in federal court for refusing to follow their collective bargaining agreement, negotiated under the labor-management partnership. Tasty mentioned the lawsuit in this post.

2. Check out an article by labor journalist Steve Early entitled “AFL-CIO Delays CA Hospital Vote: What Happened to Employee Free Choice?” The article describes how SEIU recently enlisted the AFL-CIO’s Rich Trumka to delay an NLRB election requested by 700 California hospital workers who, on March 30th, requested an election to dump SEIU-UHW and join NUHW.

Early takes Trumka/SEIU to task for turning their backs on "employee free choice,” the labor movement's top legislative priority for years.

So why are workers at the hospital in Chico, Calif. bolting Dave Regan’s SEIU-UHW? Here's what one worker tells Early:

“In our last contract, SEIU bargained away important language and put up absolutely no fight for livable wage increases. Then they rushed a contract ratification vote, giving us little notice and no copies of the contract they had bargained…Only 100 out of 700 employees voted. This is not how a union should behave.”

Yo Diamond Dave: Is that what SEIU calls "free choice" and worker democracy?

FYI, journalist Cal Winslow has also published an article on the campaign by hospital workers in Chico: "California Healthcare Workers Fight for a Union that Will Fight for Them."

3. Lastly, see another article in “New York Capital” describing SEIU 1199 New York’s tight relationship with the hospital industry -- the Greater New York Hospital Association (GNYHA) -- and 1199NY’s split from the New York State Nurses Association (NYSNA), the state's largest nurses' union with 37,000 members. 

The two unions' opposing philosophies reflect a similar split among California’s healthcare unions, where SEIU-UHW has climbed deep inside the pocket of the state's hospital bosses and joined the bosses in attacking California's patient safety laws.

“Pretty much everything he says is completely wrong”

SEIU-UHW's Dave Regan

SEIU-UHW’s Dave Regan suffered an interesting smackdown in a March 30 article featured in “Capital,” a New York publication (Dan Goldberg, "Health Union Split Complicates Nurses' Jobs Push,” Capital New York, March 30, 2015).

Remember how Regan partnered with the California Hospital Association in a failed effort in 2012 to roll back California's nurse-to-patient staffing ratio law?

At the time, RoseAnn DeMoro (Executive Director of the California Nurses Association) said the following about Diamond Dave:

“It would be hard to imagine a more immoral and corrupt scenario than for a labor leader to be lobbying other unions to endanger patients on behalf of corporate hospital executives whose only concern is increasing profits.”

Well, this week’s article focuses on a similar split between the New York State Nurses Association and SEIU 1199 New York… but also includes a fiery exchange between the CNA and Regan.

Here's an excerpt from the article. (FYI, the “Greater New York Hospital Association” is the hospital industry's Chamber of Commerce in New York -- equivalent to the California Hospital Association.)

The same tensions that are now developing in New York are present in California where SEIU United Healthworkers West strongly opposes the staffing ratios that [NYSNA Executive Director Jill] Furillo helped put in place, and uses much the same rhetoric as GNYHA [the Greater New York Hospital Association].

“Sadly, California's mandated inflexible nurse staffing ratios have not improved patient care,” Dave Regan, president of SEIU United Healthcare Workers West, said in an email. “…This short-sighted approach is completely at odds with recent innovations in healthcare, which have seen significantly better patient outcomes – at lower costs -- by utilizing a team-based approach."

Charles Idleson, communications director for the California Nurses Association said Regan's statement was “laughable, dishonest and misrepresented life in California."

"Pretty much everything he says is completely wrong,” Idleson said. “He hates nurses. He hates our organization. He has a partnership with the hospital association in California.”

Idleson said Regan's close working relationship with the California Hospital Association blinded him from doing what's right for nurses and patients.

“He has given up trying to engage in typical, traditional labor activity,” Idleson said. “His entire approach is to cut massive deals with employers that benefit the top tier of his union even at the expense of his own members.”

That same charge could be leveled at [SEIU 1199 George] Gresham and [GNYHA President Ken] Raske, who both believe cooperation serves their memberships better than knock-down, drag-out fights.