Max Arias and The Poseurs: Now Playing at UHW!

Tasty got this email about an SEIU organizer named "Max."

"Tasty - do you know a SEIU staff person named Max whose working in UHW's nursing homes? I just went to the NLRB vote count at All Saints nursing home and some of us supporters of NUHW were waiting in front of All Saints for the start-up of the vote count. All of us have worked in nursing homes for years (one of us is almost 70 years old) and we're all women. Anyway, we're waiting there, and this SEIU staffer named Max walks in front of us, turns, and says "Fucking bitches" and then walks away. Who is this guy??? He's Latino with curly hair."

Umm, ok.

Well... Tasty did a little investigating. Turns out this is Max Arias, a staffer from SEIU Healthcare Illinois-Indiana who's been working on the trusteeship for more than a year. Max is a classic poseur. You see, young Max fronts all kinds of progressive attitude and credentials (apparently, Max loves to tell everyone how his father is a leftist leader in El Salvador) even as he disrespects actual workers who've spent decades busting their asses in nursing homes.

SEIU is filled with these types. Remember Rahul Varshney, who revels in posting narcissistic videos of himself babbling about "the workers' struggle" as he dances to Wu Tang Clan? Rahul is the guy who, along with with SEIU staffer Dana Hohn, conspired with HR officials to fire Will Brennan, who'd spent 23 years working as a telephone operator at Olympia Medical Center. Why did Rahul and Dana get him fired? Simply because Will opposed SEIU. (Btw, Tasty is looking forward to next month, when Rahul, Dana Hohn and 4 other SEIU staffers will go on trial for threatening and bullying the rank-and-file workers who pay their wages.)

In SEIU, there are also lots of poseurs who sit on the sidelines and preen their progressive pedigrees as they avert their eyes from the outrageous and immoral conduct of their union. They pretend not to notice when Mary Kay Henry calls the cops on rank-and-file workers. Or when she locks elected bargaining committee members out on the sidewalk while SEIU cuts secret deals with the boss. They cover their eyes when Eliseo Medina gets an immigrant nursing home worker fired from her job simply for passing a petition in favor of NUHW. And they stare at their feet when SEIU President Emeritus Andy Stern calls workers "terrorists" simply for requesting democratic elections to change unions.

Is this who is left at SEIU? What kind of staff are running UHW? Aren't they trying to WIN votes?

USC votes NUHW!

After SEIU pulled out of the election and the boss pulled out the big guns with out of state union busters--workers overcame the lies and voted for NUHW!


Main Unit:

NUHW 393
No Union 122

Pros:

NUHW 30
No Union 34

Don't worry Pro's! Tasty thinks we'll see ya next year!

Hey USC workers...Union Busting is Disgusting!

...when you vote tomorrow, vote for NUHW.

Because as this pic should remind you, SEIU and the Boss are working against YOUR interests. Here's Cory Cordova (SEIU staffer in jeans) working hand-in-hand with the Weissman Group (USC's union-busting consultants).

And here's another photo of Cordova working with USC's human resources officials, union busters and attorneys.

The History of Dolores and Eliseo

As SEIU's staff targets revered labor leader Dolores Huerta, a former UFW activist and SEIU staffer reflected in Beyond Chron today.

Highlight:

As UFW leaders in ‘73, both Eliseo Medina and Dolores Huerta attended the funerals, and have done some historic work since, sometimes together, in building progressive movements. But there is something more sinister than ironic in Medina’s role now in SEIU as EVP and Trustee of UHW, which resorts to collaborating with the bosses and even the cops to keep Sister Huerta from talking with Kaiser workers who have the bad manners to demand to decide for themselves which Union they want to represent them.

and...

If new pooh bah Mary Kay Henry’s idea of change is keeping Raynor and the workers’ dues he stole from UNITE HERE (I hear he’s just a hoot to work with…), and sucking up to Kaiser and calling the cops to keep Dolores Huerta from talking to those pesky workers while escalating a campaign of fear and intimidation against her own members — she’s gonna be in confession for a goddamn year.

Also this critique of Eliseo's new role as a "labor leader."

USC Voting Tomorrow and Thursday...

The workers will be choosing between NUHW and no union--SEIU dropped out. USC has mounted an intense anti-union campaign, including suspending NUHW supporters and threatening workers...and guess who helped 'em?

That's right! SEIU! From today's LA Times:

"According to healthcare workers union, SEIU officials have informed at least two employees that it would be better to reject union representation than to vote for the rival group.

"SEIU and the hospital management are scheming and plotting together for people to vote no union," said a healthcare workers union supporter, Michael Torres, a respiratory therapist at USC University Hospital. "We don't know the difference between SEIU and management anymore.""

The word on the street is that SEIU actually met with MANAGEMENT to plan the no-union campaign at USC, and has dropped out so that their pitiful few votes would go to "No Union" as opposed to NUHW.

Great job so far, Mary Kay! This is the largest election opportunity since you assumed your crown and instead of uniting workers, SEIU is trying to keep workers at USC from having a union!

SEIU Loses More Public Sector Workers in Cali! Will SEIU Ever Learn?

Yesterday, the votes were totaled in that decert election that an SEIU staffer was blogging about on the Oakland A's blog.

The results? About 1,464 public-sector workers voted to leave SEIU Local 1021 and join a new independent union called the Marin Association of Public Employees (MAPE). You can see the vote totals at MAPE's website.

Local 1021 is a "mega-local" that SEIU created by merging 10 locals and then appointing a Stern-o-phile to run the union. After merging the unions, SEIU quickly set up a 1-800 call center to handle members' grievances. Members complained that they never saw their Union Rep.

And when workers started to form a new union, SEIU pulled out the same bag of dirty tricks that UHW members are so familiar with. Check out this letter from former Local 1021 steward Christine O'Hanlon. Sound familiar? SEIU removed workers' elected stewards, attempted to block the election, and lied to members that they would lose their contract if they voted to join the new union, etc. So Fresno of them!

Congrats to Marin County workers and your new union, MAPE!

WWIII?

Check out Randy Shaw's article about SEIU's intention to create "WWIII" at Kaiser facilities--in a desperate attempt to intimidate NUHW supporters.

WWIII? Why all the shock and awe rhetoric? Well, Tasty has been hearing directly that it is common knowledge at SEIU HQ in DC that, if the election were held today, there would be no way for SEIU to win the election and NUHW would represent all 40,000+ Kaiser workers.

Clearly, SEIU knows that losing Kaiser would be a huge defeat. Current UHW staff members have said that more than once Dave Regan has told staff that it is "over for SEIU's healthcare organizing if NUHW wins Kaiser." (Tasty doubts it would be the end of SEIU healthcare organizing, but agrees that if--no, WHEN!--NUHW wins Kaiser it will mean SEIU will have to finally listen to what the members want.)

But be that as it may, SEIU really really wants to win this one, even if it means destroying the healthcare facility in order to save it... starting in classic purple fashion by harassing and expelling famous and revered UFW founder Dolores Huerta. She stopped in to talk to workers who felt harassed and contacted her. Check out Red Revolt for more...

Also, see the youtube video that NUHW posted.

A couple of facts missing from Shaw's story:
-Apparently SEIU's chief stewards followed Dolores outside and yelled, "We're close to the fields Dolores, why don't you go back there."
-NUHW didn't even set up this meeting with Dolores Huerta, according to workers and NUHW staff, the members called her on their own and arranged the visit.

Anyway, the whole thing couldn't have made Dolores too upset, just yesterday she sat at President Obama's table at the state dinner honoring Mexican President Calderon.


Not on the guest list? Andy, Anna, Eliseo or new SEIU President Mary Kay...

As NUHW wins elections, SEIU loses elections.

Looks like SEIU's election problems are spreading like a bad flu. On May 14, about 600 workers at HCA's Rio Grande Regional Hospital in McAllen, TX voted down SEIU in a first-time union election by a tally of 184 (No Union) to 175 (SEIU). This was the first of five elections at HCA hospitals in Texas that SEIU is running under a neutrality deal it made with the company. (Oh, but aren't these deals the future of healthcare organizing?)

SEIU chose to run the first election at Rio Grande Regional because that's where SEIU had the strongest support from workers. In fact, Tasty hears that SEIU was so confident of victory that they told the California Nurses Association to hold off on scheduling the RN election at the same hospital so that CNA could benefit from the momentum of an SEIU election victory. Oh, CNA, when will you ever learn?

So, which SEIU staffers were responsible for SEIU's stunning success at Rio Grande Regional? None other than Norm Yen and Allyn Umel, two SEIU scabs who've been staffing the UHW trusteeship for months! (That is Norm in the picture from the SEIU Local 5 website, but that isn't Allyn that he is holding.)

SEIU's problems at HCA can only gonna grow worse. First of all, SEIU has four more elections at Texas hospitals where it has even weaker support from workers. And soon, SEIU will face a decert election by RNs at this HCA hospital in St. Petersburg, FL.

Is this all the awesome new organizing that MK is always talking about?

"Hella Bullshit Has Gone Down" 1021 Gossip Time!

This started 2 weeks ago on an Oakland A's Fan blog:

It all started when an SEIU PA staffer's husband IDed another union staffer from Cali on the blog...then the gossip started flying! Turns out 1021's new leadership got rid of a lot of staff (bye bye Andy-ites!)...

So readers: who is in and who is out?

____________________________________________

Yeah im SEIU local 1021 staff
by designatedforassignment on Apr 28, 2010 9:15 AM PDT up reply actions

What is that, public sector?
by Nick on Apr 28, 2010 9:19 AM PDT up reply actions

yup yup!
by designatedforassignment on Apr 28, 2010 9:22 AM PDT up reply actions

Fun time to be a public sector union organizer in CA
“May you life in interesting times…”
by Nick on Apr 28, 2010 9:24 AM PDT up reply actions

if by fun you mean AAAAAAAAAAAGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGg !!!!!!!!!!
weve been doing all internal bullshit since ive been there but it looks like we might be going back to external organizing in the private nonprofit sector soon.
by designatedforassignment on Apr 28, 2010 9:26 AM PDT up reply actions

You're an external organizer, right?
by Nick on Apr 28, 2010 9:30 AM PDT up reply actions

thats what my paychecks say
is that what im doing right now? no
by designatedforassignment on Apr 28, 2010 9:40 AM PDT up reply actions

"Come help me with my contract campaign!"
Yeah, I’ve been there.
by Nick on Apr 28, 2010 9:53 AM PDT up reply actions

yeah and there is a messy decert that im working.
by designatedforassignment on Apr 28, 2010 10:26 AM PDT up reply actions

That's the only kind there is
by Nick on Apr 28, 2010 10:31 AM PDT up reply actions

I hear there has been a pretty major housecleaning
I hope it gets better. I could tell you some stories though I probably shouldn’t
by Buck Turgidson on Apr 28, 2010 9:41 AM PDT up reply actions

Id like to hear them
Yeah everybody who was appointed by Stern got their asses handed to them in the local election. But the way the bylaws were created gave too much power to the Chief Elected Officer so were dealing with that shit now.
by designatedforassignment on Apr 28, 2010 9:42 AM PDT up reply actions

and so it goes
I couldn’t deal with the intrigue so I left.
by Buck Turgidson on Apr 28, 2010 9:46 AM PDT up reply actions

Been bad for a long time
But it is unspeakably bad right now.
by Buck Turgidson on Apr 28, 2010 9:39 AM PDT up reply actions


Today:


I voted for you to get out of your basement
However, knowing your work situation I’m glad you have a little free time to hermit in your hovel. Thanks for the piece.
by Buck Turgidson on May 17, 2010 2:34 PM PDT reply actions

funny you mention work
Pretty much all of the Org dept senior team just quit/got fired today.
by designatedforassignment on May 17, 2010 2:45 PM PDT up reply actions

who's the new director?
I’d love to hear your take – if you have time to shoot me an email.
by Buck Turgidson on May 17, 2010 4:39 PM PDT up reply actions

Dont know yet
It was just announced today. Hella bullshit has gone down. Ill send you an email.

Local 99 members: Get Your Protective Gear On!

Word is, Liz "the hammer" Castillo is working at SEIU Local 99!

Salinas Valley Workers Vote for NUHW!

NUHW 408

SEIU 242

No union 13

...congrats to those workers!

Andy Doesn't Want to Make an Analogy, But if He Were to Make an Analogy--Sal is Bin Laden.

God, Andy Stern-don't let the door hit you on the ass on the way out.

Check out this Washington Post article on Stern's departure, which finally says a lot of what we know about SEIU and it's many many problems created by the Stern TEAM. (Like, you know, Mary Kay.)

Highlight? Andy says this about NUHW:

"It's a tragedy in terms of how the money was spent, but a necessity in terms of preserving the organization's integrity," Stern said. "I don't want to analogize this, but there is not enough money you can spend in America to protect us from terrorists. And you know, sometimes you have to spend money to protect the integrity of the institution from its own version of self-righteousness and terrorism."


Complete article posted below:

Andrew Stern departs the SEIU now weakened by infighting and expenses

By Alec MacGillis
Washington Post Staff Writer
Friday, May 14, 2010; 9:37 AM

In celebrating her election last weekend to the head of the Service Employees International Union -- the fastest-growing and most politically active union -- Mary Kay Henry vowed to "build on the success" of Andrew L. Stern, the charismatic and ambitious labor leader who is taking his influence to new arenas, such as President Obama's deficit commission.

But the state of the union Stern is leaving behind is more mixed than Henry let on. Even as Stern turns his attention to the nation's spending problem, his own union's spending -- notably the multimillion-dollar tab from internal battles he has waged -- is drawing sharp criticism from within the labor movement. Stern has expanded his union, but his decisions have left it, and the labor movement as a whole, financially strapped, according to disclosure reports that have received little scrutiny.

Stern has played an active role in Washington, visiting the Obama White House more than three dozen times and overseeing his union's prominent role in the health-care overhaul. And the 1.8 million-member union has grown in a time of labor decline, making Stern the most consequential labor leader of his era.

Spending by his organization, however, increasingly has been driven not by the usual labor priorities -- organizing workers and helping elect political allies -- but by internal strife, financial disclosures show.

In 2008 and 2009, SEIU sent hundreds of its officials to California to wage a turf war with a big breakaway chapter, spending $2.5 million each year on hotels in the state, a fivefold increase from 2007. In Fresno alone, the organization spent more than $300,000 on lodging before narrowly winning an election over dissident leaders.

The battle in California also helped drive up the union's legal costs last year by 64 percent to more than $11 million, a bill that also reflected a separate showdown with the hotel and restaurant workers union and the fallout from corruption allegations involving several Stern loyalists.

Other expenditures in 2008 and 2009 include a $17,000 bulk purchase of Stern's book; $46,000 to a little-known Hollywood actor for "public persona development" of SEIU officials; and $1 million to a filmmaker who made a movie about SEIU.

Stern and other SEIU officials vigorously defend the union's $300 million budget. They note that the organization improved its finances last year, bringing them into the range of other high-spending unions. And they say they needed to expend money on the internal battles to protect the union from people who sought to weaken it from within.

"It's a tragedy in terms of how the money was spent, but a necessity in terms of preserving the organization's integrity," Stern said. "I don't want to analogize this, but there is not enough money you can spend in America to protect us from terrorists. And you know, sometimes you have to spend money to protect the integrity of the institution from its own version of self-righteousness and terrorism."

* * *

But critics note that the millions of dollars in union dues devoted to internal disputes -- both by SEIU and rival unions -- could have been spent on organizing or advocating for labor's top priority, stalled legislation that would make it easier to organize workers. To bring its spending closer into balance last year, SEIU cut dozens of organizers and saw its growth slow to 50,000 new members, from 115,000 in 2008.

"These sort of fights have been absolutely destructive," said Bob Bruno, a labor relations professor at the University of Illinois at Chicago. "They take the eye off the ball, and are not focused on what the real objective should be. Too much money is being spent vilifying each other, chasing their own tail."

Since Stern, 59, rose from being a Pennsylvania social worker and took the union's helm in 1996, it has doubled in size, signing up thousands of janitors, home health aides and food service workers, among others. It has also become a political force, pumping millions of dollars into election campaigns and making purple-shirted SEIU workers a regular sight at protest rallies.

But Stern's leadership has had a polarizing impact on the movement he sought to revive. His 2005 creation of a federation to challenge the AFL-CIO left a rift, even as his alliance, Change to Win, has fallen short of its organizing goals. Several unions may return to the AFL-CIO.

His strategy also sparked discord within SEIU. Instead of traditional organizing to win union elections, SEIU spent heavily to elect pro-union governors who have opened up sectors of public employment to unionization. And it has cut deals with employers who would allow certain workplaces to unionize in exchange for SEIU settling for employer-friendly terms.

Stern argued for growing membership, whatever it took; others saw such deals as undermining workers. The disagreement intensified as Stern consolidated chapters and centralized power in Washington.

That conflict played out most bitterly in California, where leaders of a 150,000-person SEIU chapter based in the Bay Area criticized new contracts as too weak and resisted the union's plans to move 65,000 long-term-care workers into a new statewide chapter. In early 2009, SEIU ousted the dissident leaders after they refused to accede to the shift, and the ousted leaders then formed a new union that is trying to reclaim its former members.

SEIU has spared no resources to quash the dissidents. It paid Ray Marshall, a former U.S. labor secretary, $176,000 to conduct a 2008 hearing on the dispute, which included SEIU's accusation that the dissidents had shifted funds into a secret account to prepare for their later breakaway, which the dissident leaders deny. Marshall played down the importance of the funds but gave SEIU the go-ahead to oust the dissident leaders.

In addition to its hotel costs for the California fight, the union spent $200,000 on security firms to guard its officials and its Bay Area offices. Some officials stayed so long that the union rented houses for them. The union said it made a clerical error when it listed in its disclosure forms a $15,400 "consulting" expenditure to Sharon Pelle in Berkeley, which Pelle, owner of the I Touch You massage therapy business, said was payment to rent her house. (Tasty's note: LOL.)

* * *

Last month, a San Francisco jury ruled in SEIU's favor in a financial dispute with the dissidents. But the breakaway union has won several elections, netting it 3,600 workers, and its officials are confident it will win thousands more in coming months.

"We disagreed with [Stern's] direction of top-down deals with employers, his controlling the direction of the union from Washington, instead of workers controlling it," said Sal Rosselli, the dissidents' leader.

The latest drain on SEIU's coffers has been its intervention in the divorce of the textile workers' union, UNITE, from the hotel and restaurant union, HERE. Stern is an ally of the head of the UNITE side, Bruce Raynor, and SEIU rushed to form an affiliate, Workers United, to absorb workers from the split.

SEIU says it has gotten 100,000 workers into Workers United, which the hotel union disputes. But SEIU has had to heavily subsidize Raynor's faction while it fights in court for its assets. Workers United brought in $10 million in dues, but spent $19 million, and lists $3.9 million owed to SEIU. Stern says his intervention may pay off once Workers Unite is on its feet and its members are paying dues. But he admitted some doubt.

"Now everybody gets 20-20 hindsight," he said. "It's like saying we're going into Iraq and we'll be out in a month and after six years you say, if I knew it would have been six years is this what I would have done? I made a decision based on what I thought was going to happen."

Stern says he uses a simple standard for spending: thinking of an SEIU janitor cleaning the building across from the union's Dupont Circle headquarters. "Every two weeks he takes a little bit of his dues and gives it to the union," he said. "When we think the union is about our life and not his, we've sort of lost our moral compass."

That outlook has not kept SEIU from spending on its image. In 2008, the union paid Simon & Schuster $17,000 to buy hundreds of copies of Stern's book, "A Country That Works," for its convention. Union officials say Stern did not benefit from this.

It spent $700,000 since 2007 on a New York public relations firm, Change Communications, that has promoted the union with bloggers and academics, in addition to other tasks.

And it spent $1 million in 2008 and 2009 on Catalyst Media Productions as it made a movie about the union, "Labor Day." Stern called this a well-intended mistake. "Like all people [we] would love to have our union be seen in a very positive light by large numbers of people," he said. The filmmaker "sold us on 'you can make this movie that everyone would want to watch.' We believed him and it didn't work."

In the race to replace Stern, Henry beat his anointed successor, Anna Burger. But Stern is confident the union will stay its course. Henry has hinted at ending the UNITE-HERE brawl, but staunchly supports the move against the California dissidents.

"The discussion as I'm hearing it in the union," Stern said, "is about who . . . can build on what's happened here -- and not tear it down and change it."

SEIU Burger with Fries, for real!!

Mary Kay Henry has had a rough time in her first few days as SEIU's president. After repeatedly telling the press that she wants to help SEIU make peace with the rest of the labor movement, she caused a stir when she talked about SEIU organizing in the retail food (aka Grocery Stores). SEIU's P.R. team quickly issued this press release to try to calm the nerves over at the United Food and Commercial Workers (UFCW), one of the few unions still left in Andy and Anna's Change to Win!

"Despite a recent media report," says the press release, "SEIU has no intention of organizing grocery workers. SEIU fully recognizes the food sector as a core industry of sister union United Food and Commercial Workers International Union (UFCW), which represents more than a million supermarket workers."

Yeah well... not exactly. The press release neglects to mention that SEIU leaders have drawn up plans to organize tens of thousands of restaurant workers. Check out this excerpt from an internal plan to organize fast food workers prepared by SEIU's Property Services Division. The plan was presented to SEIU's Executive Committee (which includes our girl MK) in December of 2009.

According to the document, by December of 2009 SEIU had already researched the restaurant industry, mapped restaurant chains across Southern California, and conducted "initial probing" of fast food workers in LA.

The memo recommends a "post-labor law reform" organizing plan with the following one-year goal: "Organize 15,000 food service workers in LA County and thousands of additional workers in an east coast market in the first 6 months."

Hmm... Mary Kay simply forget about this plan when she issued the recent press release saying that "SEIU fully recognizes the food sector as a core industry of sister union United Food and Commercial Workers International Union?" (Tasty wonders what other industries SEIU is secretly planning to organize...)

Kinda funny how SEIU has forgotten its own urgent pleas for OTHER unions to focus on their core industries. Last time Tasty looked, there were 9 million unorganized healthcare workers across the US. Perhaps SEIU's recent election experience in California has convinced SEIU leaders that healthcare workers are more interested in joining NUHW, so SEIU needs to search out more fertile organizing pastures in banking and fast food?

And here Tasty almost believed that MK would be different...Welcome Mary Kay, the new Burger Queen.

Some Links to Check Out, Readers.

Catch-up on the goings-on!

With the Powers that Be...

Meet your new boss, same as your old boss. LA Times article has maybe the most defensive quote ever for a closing line.

And as we see on Keyser Soze’s blog, The Red Revolt, the members aren’t buying what Mary Kay is selling.

Though at the same time it became clear, via Ben Smith, that Mary Kay was not the first choice, but instead it was Patrick Gaspard-former 1199 staff and current White House staff. He declined.

Mary Kay kicked off her reign with a blessing, which Tasty found to be strangely religious and deeply odd.

Mary Kay plans on mending rifts, starting with trying to organize grocery stores? Bloomberg/Newsweek on her plans.

Mary Kay can either prove that she is really going to bring SEIU in a new direction of honesty and partnership, or she can protect that loser Raynor. Her choice, according to Beyond Chron!

Andy Stern, in the meantime, is pissing off the left and the right with his back door dealings on Obama’s fiscal commission. Sound familiar?

Oh, and he says we should be looking to private retirement funds instead of Social Security. Andy does always keep the boss’s bottom line in mind!


Meanwhile in the field...

NUHW Kaiser So-Cal members let you know about their work on the NUHW website.

Unite Here supporters did a hilarious send-up of the Lady Gaga, as well as announce a boycott of the Westin St. Francis in San Francisco.

SWU Can't Even Get One Friend!

And Tasty thought Santa Rosa was embarrassing!


You can't go lower than ZERO!!

Last night SEIU lost another NLRB election - this time by the count of 38 (NUHW) to 0 (SEIU). The votes were cast by dietary workers at USC University Hospital in Los Angeles.

The workers, who are employed by Sodexo, had been members of SEIU's Service Workers United (SWU) for several years... until they were finally allowed to vote and chose NUHW!

What are the SEIU Zombies doing out there that they can't get ONE SINGLE VOTE? They should have to pay the members back for the cost of their salaries!

SWU is the Kip Drordy of unions.

I guess ONE vote is better than ZERO?

Today, SEIU got just ONE vote in an NLRB election among housekeeping and dietary workers at Lakewood Regional Medical Center, a 172-bed hospital in Southern California. These workers, employed by Sodexo and have been represented by SEIU's Service Workers United (SWU) for several years, filed a petition to join NUHW in February of 2009. SEIU's EFCA-killing attorneys blocked workers' election for 15 months while SEIU sent multiple staff from New York, including SWU office jockey Sascha Eisner, to campaign for SEIU.

Well, today workers finally got a chance to vote and delivered the final word to SEIU. SEIU got just ONE vote. Here are the tallies for the two units:

Dietary Unit: 12 (NUHW), 0 (SEIU-SWU), and 6 (No Union)
Housekeeping Unit: 11 (NUHW), 1 (SEIU-SWU) and 8 (No Union)

Guess workers can't wait to get the hell out of SWU? Sorry Sascha...

It's Zombie Appreciation Month, Readers!

Thanks to a vigilant reader, Tasty has learned that the Zombie Rights Campaign has declared May 2010 Zombie Cultural Appreciation Month! (I know, what the hell is the Zombie Rights Campaign? I hope COPE isn't paying for that.)

Well, there has been quite a SEIU Zombie influx in California's Hospitals and Nursing Homes over the past year! That makes you, dear readers, perfect for nominating the Zombies that you "appreciate" the most!

Most violent Zombie? (I think we know who will win there.) Most ridiculous Zombie?

The possibilities are endless, send in your favorite:

tastysternburger@gmail.com or on Facebook.

money money money money. MONEY!

Are you concerned that poor Andy Stern will be retiring and might be short of the kind of cash that keeps him knee deep in pale purple threads?

Fear not.

Not only will Andy be making $19,000 a month from his pension (is your pension that good?), he is also marketing himself on the speakers' circuit! Check out the scoop at The Red Revolt.

Want Andy to speak at your next conference, meeting or bar mitzvah? It will cost you a cool $10,001-$20,000 if you live local to Andy. If he has to travel it's more like $20,001-$30,000.

And I forget, is he still bringing in $ on the his book?

Hey Raynor--That Wasn't YOUR $15 Million!

The New York Daily News is reporting that a court-appointed watchdog has formally urged the Feds to conduct an investigation into SEIU Executive Vice President Bruce Raynor and other SEIU officials to determine "whether Bruce Raynor and the union officials who acted with him violated [federal labor law] by converting [the $15 million dollars] to their own use and the use of the minority of union members who supported them."

Read the full story at the NY Daily News.

Observers speculate that Andy Stern is one of "the union officials who acted with" Raynor...could this be a reason for Andy's surprise resignation?!

It may also explain other news that's circulating among SEIU insiders...Tasty hears that Stern is currently trying to negotiate a special severance package from SEIU's International Executive Board that would require SEIU members to pay for Stern's future legal bills, which could run into the millions of dollars.

Remember... Andy Stern has literally made bank from SEIU members. Last year alone, he took home more than a quarter million dollars in pay. And Stern's SEIU pension will pay him $227,000 a year.

So, Stern now wants SEIU members to pay his personal legal bills for allegedly siphoning millions of dollars from union members?

Tasty bets that SEIU officials are gonna hear an earful from angry members across the country. So who sits on SEIU's International Executive Board? It's made up of about 65 people, including Dave Regan, Eliseo Medina, UHW Deputy Trustee Debbie Schneider, Anna Burger, Mary Kay Henry, Stephen Lerner, and the presidents of many SEIU local unions--most appointed by Stern himself.

ps Andy, it doesn't make you look LESS like a crook to wear a pinky ring.