Court Sentences SEIU Official in Illinois

It looks like Tyrone Freeman is not the only SEIU official who's got problems with the law. The U.S. Department of Labor posted the following notice about John McMahon, the president of SEIU Local 335T in Chicago:

On October 20, 2011, in the United States District Court for the Northern District of Illinois, John McMahon, former President of Workers United, Service Employees International Union (SEIU) Local 335-T (located in Chicago, Ill.), was sentenced to two years probation including six months of home confinement.  McMahon was also ordered to pay $12,460 in restitution and a $25 special assessment.  On June 9, 2011, McMahon pled guilty to one count of making false entries in union financial records, in violation of 29 U.S.C. 439(c).  The sentencing follows an investigation by the OLMS Chicago District Office.

So what did McMahon plead guilty to? Well, it looks like he stole $15,283 from the union's members while he was president. Here's what Local 335T's IRS tax return says:

Of course, McMahon's theft is small-time compared to the million-dollar heist that Tyrone Freeman committed while serving as the president of SEIU Local 6434 and a member of SEIU's International Executive Board. What kind of time does Freeman face if convicted of his crime? And which additional SEIU officials might be implicated in the crime? Hopefully, we'll get answers in 2012!

Feds Pursue Criminal Charges against SEIU’s Tyrone Freeman

Tasty has learned that the U.S. Department of Justice is quietly pursuing criminal charges against Tyrone Freeman for stealing more than $1 million from SEIU members in Los Angeles. Freeman is the faithful ally of Andy Stern and Mary Kay Henry who helped launch SEIU’s attack against SEIU-UHW after Stern appointed him as the President of SEIU Local 6434.

Things were going fine for Freeman and SEIU until 2008, when the Los Angeles Times broke a headline-grabbing story about Freeman’s massive corruption scandal. SEIU was forced to remove Freeman from his position and file a half-hearted lawsuit to recover the money he'd stolen. Since then, SEIU has shown little interest in pursuing the lawsuit, which has languished among stacks of dusty records at the courthouse.

Fortunately, in February the feds jumped onto the case. That’s when the U.S. Department of Justice asked a Superior Court judge to intervene in SEIU's civil lawsuit against Freeman so the feds could prepare "criminal proceedings" against Freeman, according to these court records. The judge placed key filings by the feds "under seal.”

In August, the judge gave the feds five more months to prepare their criminal charges, according to this court filing. On January 12, Freeman's attorneys are scheduled to appear in Los Angeles Superior Court for a "status conference" on the feds' criminal investigation as well as the separate civil lawsuit against Freeman.

Tasty hears that SEIU officials are plenty nervous about the feds’ criminal investigation. Why? Well, there's boatloads of evidence that top SEIU officials -- including Eliseo Medina, Steve Trossman, Jim Philliou, Dave Kieffer, Andy Stern and Mary Kay Henry -- knew about Freeman's corruption for seven years before the Los Angeles Times exposed it to the world. In fact, in 2001, Steve Trossman (who currently serves as SEIU-UHW’s Communications Director) reportedly played a key role in hiding Freeman's crimes from SEIU's members and the public, according to this article in the Los Angeles Times.

Tasty hears that SEIU officials are especially nervous that new details will emerge if Freeman takes the stand to try to avoid a lengthy jail sentence. Meanwhile, many SEIU members are hoping that officials inside the Purple Palace will finally pay the price for assisting Freeman in stealing more than a million dollars of low-wage workers' hard-earned money!

Canadian Healthcare Workers Win Pair of Victories

Last week, workers in Toronto won two more victories against SEIU.

First, on December 20^th, a panel of three Canadian judges knocked down SEIU’s latest legal assault against the “Ontario Workers’ Union” (OWU), a new union that’s won at least five elections against SEIU since July. 

In SEIU’s latest legal attack, fancy purple lawyers have been trying to stop the new union from participating in elections by claiming that OWU’s constitution is somehow “flawed” and that the union was “formed illegally.” 

After SEIU lost this argument in front of the labor board, SEIU then appealed the decision to a higher court. On December 20, a panel of judges heard SEIU’s appeal. Normally, it takes 4 to 6 weeks for the judges to reach their decision. In this case, the judges reportedly needed only 40 minutes to rule against SEIU. And, to top it off, the judges ordered SEIU to pay thousands of dollars of attorney fees to OWU as a penalty for dragging the new union through the bogus legal challenge.

On the very next day, SEIU suffered its second defeat. That’s when approximately 200 lab workers at St. Michael’s Hospital in Toronto voted to join OWU in a government-run election. The lab workers, who’ve never had a union before, recently decided to unionize… so they decided to approach their co-workers (who’re in SEIU) about joining SEIU. According to one source, the SEIU members told them “what a crappy union SEIU is,” and steered them to the Ontario Workers’ Union. 

As the date for last week’s union election approached, SEIU reportedly launched its usual smear campaign and then dispatched large numbers of SEIU organizers to tell workers to vote “no union.” Fortunately, workers persevered, and handed SEIU its second loss in a week.

According to one source in Ontario: “There's a definite stench of fear coming from the purple palace as OWU grows stronger and SEIU members realize they can liberate themselves from their purple chains...”

Way to go, Canadian healthcare workers!

NUHW Settlement at Providence Tarzana Medical Center Shows Contrast with SEIU

Congrats to 550 NUHW members for ratifying a new three-year contract with Providence Tarzana Medical Center in Los Angeles! The settlement boosts workers’ pay and benefits… and offers a razor-sharp contrast with SEIU’s style of concessionary bargaining. Here are the details:

Last week, NUHW’s members ratified a contract that provides 2% wage increases during each of the next three years, improvements in their retirement plan and a ban on subcontracting. Quite an accomplishment, especially considering that the hospital lost $80 million during the past three years.

What about SEIU? It represents 600 RNs at the same hospital.  In July, SEIU negotiated a two-year wage-freeze for the RNs without even letting the membership vote on the issue, according to this SEIU leaflet. SEIU also gave up its members’ job security and subcontracting protections.

So how cozy is SEIU with the company’s executives? SEIU’s leaflet to Tarzana RNs actually quoted management’s lead negotiator, allowing him to explain to SEIU members why they should accept a 6% cut to their wage scales.

Tasty hears that news of NUHW members’ settlement at Providence Tarzana is flying through Kaiser. Here’s an email that Kaiser workers sent out last week:

-----Original Message-----

From: honestmembers@yahoo.com

Date: Tue, 20 Dec 2011

To:

Subject: As NUHW grows STRONGER, SEIU officials are having a panic attack....

Congratulations NUHW,

What a resilient display of member to member strength coupled with the best negotiating experience in the healthcare industry.  Your progressive actions moved more than 550 members interests at the Providence Tarzana Medical Center to settlement despite the current lackluster contract bargained by the so called powerful SEIU union that is currently in place for its members at the "same facility".

In Unity,

VOTE SEIU OUT

SEIU Official in Hot Seat over Affair with Staffer

Steve Matthews & Dave Regan

Looks like Steve Matthews, the Executive Director of SEIU Local 721, is facing growing problems for his extra-marital romance with a union staffer. Check out the message below, where Bob Schoonover (Local 721's president) announces that an “independent investigator” will be appointed to examine “allegations against our Executive Director.”

Meanwhile, sources tell Tasty that things are kinda crazy at the union’s offices in Los Angeles. Matthews’s mistress has reportedly gone missing for the past week, and staffers speculate that Matthews placed her on medical leave in an effort to quiet the controversy. On the other hand, it's possible he's just trying to protect her health. Matthews’s wife is apparently none too pleased about the extra-curricular activities, and she’s reportedly been calling the union’s offices to try to track down Steve’s mistress.

Up north, a staffer at SEIU-UHW reportedly overhead a phone call in which Dave Regan gave advice to Matthews about how to manage the mess. Dave, who’s reportedly had multiple affairs with union staffers, has become an expert in extricating himself from these kinds of sticky messes. Looks like Regan can add “crisis consulting” to his list of special contributions to SEIU, along with his role as "Chief Advocate for the Voting Rights of Workers."

As far as Tasty can tell, it looks like things are gonna get even messier at Local 721. In fact, Schoonover has asked SEIU President Mary Kay Henry to appoint “a personal representative” to help stabilize the union. Fortunately, Mary Kay Henry had the incredible foresight to appoint SEIU’s “Director of Organizational Equity” to help Local 721. (WTF!!) For those who’re wondering how SEIU officials spend your hard-earned dues money, SEIU's "Director of Organizational Equity" earns $152,584 a year... presumably to extricate hormonally charged SEIU officials from their self-made scandals.

Tasty suggests that Mary Kay also appoint an independent investigator to examine Dave Regan’s messy affair with an Executive Board member at SEIU 1199 Ohio. Along with the other affairs.  Oh... and by the way, perhaps Mary Kay might actually investigate why, for the past three years, Regan has refused to implement SEIU’s order to transfer 65,000 homecare and nursing home workers to Local 6434... which, of course, was the supposed reason for SEIU's trusteeship in the first place.

Well, it’s been a tough week at SEIU. Here's Schoonover's memo:

From the desk of Bob Schoonover and Linda Dent

Dear Local 721 Board Members and Staff:

This has been a tough week at Local 721.  Because of the challenges facing our local, Linda and I have asked SEIU International President Mary Kay Henry to appoint a personal representative to help us assess our current situation and to assist us in putting together a plan to build the unity and stability of our leadership team and to strengthen our union.

President Henry has appointed Public Division Director Leslie Frane to serve in this role.  Leslie, along with SEIU Organizational Equity Director Bill Pritchett, will be in Los Angeles this week to speak with Local 721 Board members and staff members. They want to hear our thoughts about the challenges we face and the best path to greater unity within our local.            

                                                                                        

Leslie and Bill’s conversations will NOT include any questions that relate to pending allegations against our executive director.   Consistent with the SEIU Ethics Code, those allegations will be investigated by an independent investigator, whom we expect to be named shortly, in a completely separate process.

One characteristic of good leaders is a willingness to ask for assistance and advice in the face of serious challenges.  That’s why we asked President Henry to appoint a personal representative, and that’s why we are asking you to be completely candid with Leslie and Bill if you are asked (through Christina Rodriguez) to meet with them. 

Thank you for your cooperation with this process, for your patience in this difficult situation, and for the hard work you do on behalf of our members every day of the year.

In unity,

Bob Schoonover

SEIU-UHW's Latest Election Fraud

Just when you thought they might've run out of scams, Tasty hears that SEIU officials have devised elaborate new tricks to cheat their members out of fair elections.

In an earlier post, Tasty described how SEIU rigged an internal union election at Kaiser Walnut Creek Medical Center in order to get John Cuddihy (an ally of Dave Regan) elected as a Shop Steward… despite the fact that Cuddihy is universally distrusted because of his back-room deals with management.

Here’s the latest chapter in this ugly story:

Last week, SEIU announced it would be holding membership elections at the Northern California hospital in order to “reconfirm” its Shop Stewards. In the Medicine Department, workers breathed a massive sigh of relief as they imagined they’d finally have a chance to remove Cuddihy as their fraudulently elected Steward. Whew!

On election day, 40 workers from the Medicine Department walked together to the cafeteria to cast their votes to remove Cuddihy from his union position. When they arrived in the cafeteria, workers were shocked to learn that SEIU officials had concocted an intricate scheme to keep Cuddihy in his position. Here’s what happened:

Instead of allowing the department’s workers to vote on Cuddihy, SEIU carefully divided the 40 workers into eight separate groups of voters. These eight groups were then assigned to vote for eight separate Shop Stewards (talk about "re-districting"!). Seven of the eight candidates were people that the workers had never even heard of -- people who work in distant parts of the hospital like the Urology Department. And (you guessed it) the eighth group of workers was assigned to vote for Cuddihy. But this group of voters had been hand-selected by SEIU so as to contain the only three people who would possibly vote for Cuddihy… including Cuddihy himself!

And that’s how SEIU executed its latest assault on union democracy... so they could "reconfirm" Cuddihy to his union position.

Apparently, the hospital’s workers are outraged at SEIU’s latest election swindle, and are terrified to imagine the ballot-box fraud that SEIU will undoubtedly commit when it’s time to “ratify” the massive health and pension concessions that SEIU has already inked with Kaiser executives.

Looks like SEIU has boundless creativity when it comes to committing election fraud, but zero energy or initiative when it comes to fighting the boss and defending its members!

More SEIU Concessions in California

A reader sent along more news about the concessionary contracts that SEIU is bargaining throughout California. Last Thursday, the Stockton Record reported that SEIU negotiated a contract that cuts the wages, health insurance and pension benefits for nearly 4,000 government workers employed by San Joaquin County in California. Here are some excerpts from the article, entitled “S.J. Workers’ Health, Pension Costs to Rise:”

San Joaquin County government workers will shoulder a larger share of their health and retirement benefit costs in a labor deal approved last week by county officials…

The deal calls for individual employees to contribute to their health care premiums. Typically, workers paid a share of their health care only if they included dependents in their coverage. Union workers also will be contributing more to the cost of their pensions and take a 1.15 percent pay reduction in the form of three furlough days a year.

The workers also agreed to a second-tier retirement plan for new employees, which would change the pension formula and raise the minimum retirement age…

SEIU will return $2.5 million to the county from a fund to help cover retirement health care costs.

Tasty hears that the deal's terms on health insurance will have devastating, open-ended effects on employees. Not only do workers now have to pay a share of monthly premium costs for "employee-only" insurance, they will now pay at least 50% of future increases in monthly premiums. As premiums go up and up, workers will likely be on the hook for hundreds of dollars per month to insure their families. Here’s a cost-out of SEIU’s concessions for an average employee who gets coverage for herself and one dependent from the Kaiser health plan (click on the image below to make it larger):

Steve Matthews Channels Dave Regan in Latest Romance

Steve Matthews

Looks like SEIU Local 721’s newly appointed Executive Director is working hard to keep pace with Dave Regan’s passion for extra-marital romances. Readers report that Steve Matthews, who’s only headed the Los Angeles-based union since September, is running into problems after getting busy with a Local 721 staffer. It’s too bad that Local 721’s members didn’t listen to Tasty’s warnings about Matthews! Here are excerpts from a reader’s recent email (Tasty replaced the women’s names with initials):

Do you remember seeing the blog post where Steve was exposed for having an inappropriate relationship with T. who was a member of uhw and that he was fired from?

He's up to the same thing.  He is still married to T. and is also having an affair with L. who is a former union member and now on staff at our local.  We were ok when we could at least pretend it wasn't happening but he has been making decisions that affect us and our dues.  Steve recently created a new department in the union and put L. in charge of it and gave her a raise!  When are we going to draw the line? We can't keep covering for Steve and letting him make decisions about our union that affect all of us.

Steve has a history of inappropriate relationships and has gotten fired over these every time. He has poor judgement and pits members against other members and staff against other staff members… Steve uses his position of power to take advantage of women.

What are we going to do about all of this?  The decisions that are being made are really bad and I was told that everyone is talking about it at the union office.

Tasty hopes that Matthews pulls out (so to speak) before he commits something similar to what Dave Regan did in Ohio. Back when Dangerous Dave was President of SEIU 1199 Ohio, he reportedly impregnated one of the union’s Executive Board members and then pressured her to get an abortion, after which he promptly dumped her from the union’s board.

Tasty hears that Regan’s escapades are well known inside SEIU. In 2009, soon after Regan landed in California to impose SEIU’s trusteeship, a union staffer questioned Regan about the Ohio incident during a union staff meeting. Apparently, Regan didn’t deny the incident, but instead challenged the staffer to a fist fight in the parking lot. What a class act! Well, now we know why SEIU pays Regan a salary of $300,000 a year – all that extra-curricular romancing is expensive!

“Where’s the SEIU-UHW Representation?”

Apparently, that’s a question that lots of workers at Kaiser Permanente are asking these days. Tasty gets a steady stream of emails from Kaiser workers who report that Dave Regan and Co are providing virtually zero support to Kaiser workers. Take, for instance, the case where Hortencia Armendariz and other SEIU-UHW staffers sat on their hands while Kaiser terminated a 33-year employee at Kaiser Walnut Creek Medical Center, which prompted shock and outrage even among SEIU's own supporters.

Tasty’s seen a lot of tragic stories, but was especially horrified by this one from a worker at Kaiser Los Angeles Medical Center. Here it is:

Where’s the SEIU-UHW representation? On 12/2/2011 Joseph Birch a 32-year medical records clerk was terminated because the Human Resources Rep., Tina Parrish, decided that she felt he was not "truthful" during an investigation - mind you, without any proof.

This same investigation led to the termination of his wife a year ago, who passed away earlier this year from cancer while waiting for SEIU UHW to mount a defense for her. She tried in vain for months and months to get her case heard, with no response from SEIU.

Nowadays, if Kaiser "feels" you violated a rule or policy, they can take punitive action without recourse or representation from SEIU UHW.

HOW MUCH MORE OF THIS REPRESENTATIONAL INCOMPETENCE DOES THIS MEMBERSHIP HAVE TO ENDURE? SEIU has no intent of representing its members. Their agenda is to use our funds as a stream of revenue for their expansion.

Andy Stern on Hot Seat over SIGA Bid-Rigging

SEIU President Emeritus Andy Stern is in more hot water over allegations that he helped rig a $432 million, no-bid government contract for his company, SIGA Technologies. Check out CNN's special investigation -- entitled "Sweetheart Deal with Your Money?" -- that aired on Anderson Cooper 360^◦ in recent days. 

The report highlights Stern's role in the deepening scandal... and even features a picture of Stern flashing his famous purple scarf. Here are some of the questions posed by CNN's Anderson Cooper:

Why would a guy like Andy Stern, who has all these political connections, why would he be on the board of this thing? Why would you bring in someone like that unless it was to get influence with the White House?

And why is it that the company with deep ties to the White House -- the company that just got a big contract for a drug that’s not been proven yet -- why is it going to make an 85% profit on its government contract?

And that's just the beginning! Here's the full video

And a second CNN segment features Anderson Cooper's interview with one of SIGA's board members about the SIGA scandal.

So what did Stern get from the dirty deal? Well, the report hints at Andy's likely payoff when it reports that SIGA's top two executives each got bonuses of up to a quarter-million dollars for landing the giant government contract.

How much did SEIU's President Emeritus pocket from the deal? It's not clear, although there's still a chance the entire scheme will come crashing down under the weight of multiple government investigations into Andy's back-room deal. Stay tuned!

SEIU-UHW Hal Ruddick's Dirty Laundry in the Windy City

Hal Ruddick

Remember Hal Ruddick? He's the SEIU staffer who negotiated the $217 million pension cut at Catholic Healthcare West (CHW).

Well… Tasty has learned that Ruddick’s sell-out deal at CHW is simply par for the course. Check out this story, which comes complete with back-room deals, a raid on workers' health fund, and an effort to divert millions of tax dollars to try to fix Ruddick's collapse of workers’ health benefits. 

The story takes place in Chicago, where Ruddick was an SEIU staffer before parachuting into SEIU's California trusteeship in 2009. While in the Windy City, Ruddick was the lead negotiator for a labor contract with the Illinois Association of Health Care Facilities that covered 8,000 SEIU nursing home workers.

During the negotiations, the nursing home bosses refused to cough up money for workers' wage increases. Ruddick, rather than fight the nursing home companies, decided to cut a backroom deal that allowed the bosses to raid workers' health insurance fund in order to finance a small wage increase. It was a great deal for the bosses, who didn't have to pay a penny for the new contract. And Ruddick was perfectly positioned to cut the deal since he also served as a trustee of workers health and welfare fund. (See below)

After the bosses halted their monthly contributions to workers’ health insurance fund, the fund quickly plummeted towards bankruptcy. In just 36 months, it lost $7.3 million -- or 75% of the money that it had built up over many years, according to IRS Form 5500s filed by the SEIU Local 4 Health and Welfare Fund.

So, with workers poised to lose all of their health coverage, Ruddick fled to California. Meanwhile, back in Chicago, others attempted to repair the damage left by Ruddick. With outstretched palms, they approached the Illinois legislature and introduced two bills (HB504 and HB503) in hopes of getting millions of tax dollars to save health coverage for the nursing home workers and their families. Here’s how SEIU Healthcare Illinois-Indiana described the bills:

 

By then, Ruddick was living it up in sunny California and had long forgotten about the Chicago nursing home workers. Dave Regan had placed Ruddick -- a purple pillar of integrity -- on SEIU-UHW’s Executive Committee and handed him a $155,304 salary courtesy of SEIU-UHW members.

What's next for Ruddick? Tasty hears he's preparing to cut CHW workers' health benefits in the negotiations that are currently underway. Look out, CHW workers!

SEIU's Greg Maron: Escort to the Stars!

A reader in California reports that SEIU staffer Greg Maron has taken on a new gig as a highly paid escort. For those who don’t know him, Maron pockets $140,000 a year as a Director of SEIU-UHW’s Kaiser Division and is affectionately called “Mr. Moron” by Kaiser workers. In September, he was last seen threatening SEIU-UHW members with termination if they joined the strike waged by 21,000 members of NUHW and CNA against Kaiser Permanente.  

Well, on Friday, Maron reportedly showed up at NUHW’s offices in Northern California with an SEIU videographer and two Kaiser workers from Southern California. The two workers -- Garry Brooks and Jerome Scott -- are SEIU’s “Dynamic Duo of Disinformation.” Last year, Brooks and Scott were featured in SEIU videos, leaflets, mailers and email blasts as they told Kaiser workers that they’d lose their pay and benefits if they voted to join NUHW. These illegal threats -- along with the rest of SEIU’s lies -- were so severe that the NLRB overturned the results of last year’s election and ordered a new one.

Federal records reveal that SEIU officials paid a handsome price for the duo’s disinformation services. For example, SEIU-UHW paid Garry Brooks more than $10,000 for his services in last year’s NLRB election, according to the U.S. Department of Labor.

…which brings us back to Maron’s visit to NUHW’s offices on Friday. That’s where Mr. Moron and Co. insisted they had a right to enter NUHW’s offices -- video camera in hand -- to review NUHW’s financial records. Yeah right!! The purple propagandists then shot a video in the hallway claiming that NUHW was somehow undemocratic for refusing entry to the SEIU-paid propaganda team.  

SEIU’s idiotic media stunts definitely make for good humor, but Tasty has an idea for a more compelling video. It's simple:  SEIU should put Dave Regan in front of a camera so he can answer questions like these:

• Why are you getting paid $300,000 a year – nearly triple what Sal Rosselli earned as the president of SEIU-UHW?

• Why did SEIU-UHW make $11.8 million in profits during the first eight months of this year? If SEIU-UHW is so profitable, why are you planning to raise union dues on the membership in January?

• What happened to SEIU-UHW members’ $4.1 million strike fund, which you dissolved earlier this year?

• Why is Greg “$140K” Moron spending his time escorting SEIU’s propaganda teams instead of helping all of the Kaiser workers who’ve been unjustly fired because SEIU is simply refusing to enforce workers’ contract?

• It's been three years since SEIU imposed its trusteeship. Why have you failed to transfer SEIU-UHW’s 65,000 homecare and nursing home members to Local 6434, which was the whole reason for the trusteeship?

Oh… and if you’re short on videographers, Tasty would love to help!

Dave Regan's For-Profit Unionism at SEIU-UHW

Hey, SEIU-UHW members: Ever wonder what Dave Regan is doing with all of your union dues? Tasty hears he’s definitely not using them to hire Field Reps to support the membership or enforce the union’s contracts. In fact, workers say it's pretty much impossible to get a return call from SEIU-UHW's Field Reps -- even when workers are getting fired after 33 years on the job.

Meanwhile… SEIU-UHW keeps raising members’ dues. Earlier this year, Dave Regan increased Kaiser workers' dues by $4 per month. And next month, he'll boost dues by another $4 per month. 

So where's all this money going?

Well, check out this remarkable document. It’s a financial statement from SEIU-UHW that details all of the union’s revenues and expenses from January through August (“Actual YTD” means “the actual money that's been received and spent year-to-date”). 

The bottom line: SEIU-UHW pocketed a profit of $11.8 million in the first eight months of 2011! That’s a profit margin of roughly 20%. In other words, for every $100 of dues that are paid by a worker, SEIU-UHW is keeping $20 as pure profit. WTF! Tasty has never heard of a union making profits. (Here's a view of SEIU-UHW's financial statement, although you can see a larger and clearer version here).

So how did Regan convert the union into a profit-making business venture? Basically, CEO Dave is taking in more dues from members, but providing less staff to assist the membership. It’s the ultimate business scam: “Pay me more money… and I’ll give you less services.”

And what’s Regan doing with all the profits? Well, we already know where a large chunk of them are going:  sky-rocketing salaries for “Wall Street” Dave Regan and all of his East Coast transplants. Since taking over SEIU-UHW, Regan's salary has nearly tripled compared to what Sal Rosselli earned at the time of the trusteeship. Here’s what Regan took home in 2010 ($298,647), according to the U.S. Department of Labor:

And that’s not all: Steve Trossman (SEIU-UHW’s Communications Director) makes nearly double what Sal Rosselli used to earn. Meanwhile, SEIU’s fat cats are shoveling vast quantities of money (equal to 14% of their salaries) into their SEIU pension funds, even as the same SEIU officials cut back-room deals to eliminate the pension plans for workers at Kaiser Permanente and Catholic Healthcare West.

SEIU's Neneki Lee Joins Toto and the Wizard

Remember SEIU's Neneki Lee? She's the SEIU staffer from D.C. who was hand-picked to take over SEIU Local 99 in Los Angeles but then quit in a huff when Bill "The Hotel" Lloyd refused to give up his overpaid job and massive perks. After Neneki quit, SEIU officials placed her in a new job at the Coalition of Kaiser Permanente Unions.

Well, it looks like Neneki's new job includes pushing "Wizard of Oz"-themed propaganda on Kaiser workers across California. Check out this email from Neneki, who used Kaiser's internal email system to blast out the super-defensive piece that SEIU and Kaiser are hoping will somehow reverse workers’ growing disgust with the Labor-Management Partnership.

To: Tamara K Turner/CA/KAIPERM@Kaiperm, Tammy J Tuey/CA/KAIPERM@KAIPERM, Tamoe A Bloemhof/CA/KAIPERM@KAIPERM, ...

From: Neneki Lee <neneki.lee@unioncoalition.org>
Date: 12/07/2011 09:34AM
Subject: FW: Myths and realities of partnership--see the Fall Hank issue!

From: Tyra.L.Ferlatte@kp.org [mailto:Tyra.L.Ferlatte@kp.org]
Sent: Tuesday, December 06, 2011 3:43 PM
To: OLMP.CKPU.Steer.Cm-KPPO-ORD@kp.org; OLMP.CKPU.Staff-IREG@kp.org
Subject: Fw: Myths and realities of partnership--see the Fall Hank issue!

The Fall 2011 issue of Hank is out! Please do all you can to help bring this issue to people's attention. Below is a brief description and links to the stories, which you can also find (along with the cover image art) at LMPartnership.org/hank.


Partnership? Really? : Is the partnership just a way for unions to grab power? Or is it the opposite--a way for management to co-opt the unions? There's also the thought that partnership is an effective, sustainable way to improve quality and reduce costs. In the 14 years since the LMP was formed, a lot of beliefs have taken hold--myths and realities that the Fall 2011 issue of Hank explores in the cover story. Get a cup of coffee, start reading and wake up to the reality on this side of the rainbow. Features individuals and teams from Colorado; Georgia; Mid-Atlantic States; Fresno, Hayward, Richmond and San Jose medical centers in Northern California; and Woodland Hills in Southern California. (Coming soon: a new LMP video that explores more of these ideas -- watch for an announcement in LMP Flash!)

From the desk of Henrietta: Join the total health revolution

Editor's letter: Whose reality is it, anyway? Be sure to take the quiz and test your LMP savvy! 

All in a Day's Work cartoon: Working in partnership

Back cover poster: Path to Performance online toolkit 

Thanks,
Tyra Ferlatte

~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Tyra Lucile Ferlatte
Communications manager/Hank editor
Labor Management Partnership
Kaiser Permanente
1 Kaiser Plaza, 24 L, Oakland CA 94612
510.271.5943 office
8.423.5943 internal tieline
510.301.1020 mobile

What's next for Neneki? Well... even though she apparently loves promoting Toto and the Wizard, Tasty hears she’s eying a higher-paying job inside the purple partnership with Kaiser. Sources say that SEIU President Mary Kay Henry appears to be positioning Neneki to take over John August's job as the Executive Director of the Coalition of Kaiser Permanente Unions. 

Apparently, MKH has a history of hatin' on John August. In fact, in her earlier days, Mary Kay fired August from his job as Deputy Director when she became the head of SEIU's Healthcare Division. Rumor has it that Mary Kay wants to axe August and appears to be preparing Neneki to take his spot. Looks like things are gonna get violent on the "Other Side of the Rainbow"!