SEIU Rushes Vote on Concessions at Daughters of Charity Health System

How dirty and dishonest is SEIU? Check this out. 

On Thursday, Tasty described the status of SEIU-UHW’s bargaining with the Daughters of Charity Health System, which employs 3,000 SEIU-UHW members at five hospitals in California.

Well, on Saturday night, SEIU officials announced they had accepted the company’s “last, best and final offer,” which includes these massive cuts:

• Terminating workers’ defined-benefit pension plan and replacing it with a cheap 401(k) plan.
• Cutting workers’ health insurance benefits by, for example, forcing workers to pay 25% of the monthly premiums for the company’s PPO plan, which has been free for employees until now.
• Implementing a Wellness Program that forces workers to pay 20% of their monthly health insurance premiums if they fail to meet the program’s requirements.
• Doubling workers’ out-of-pocket costs for prescriptions, doctors visits and other healthcare procedures.

So… will workers get a fair chance to reject these massive cuts during SEIU’s ratification vote? Not if SEIU can help it. Basically, Dave Regan and Co. are trying to ram the agreement down workers’ throats before they even have a chance to get the facts. Here’s what’s happening:

At 9:35pm on Saturday night, SEIU officials sent the following email to workers announcing SEIU’s "settlement" and declaring that ratification votes would begin IN LESS THAN 12 HOURS… AND ON A SUNDAY MORNING! Here’s the email -- be sure to check out the date and time at the top of the email:

From: SEIU-UHW Daughters of Charity Bargaining Team  <online@seiu-uhw.org>
Date: April 28, 2012 21:25:59 PDT
To:
Subject: Locking in our raises and benefits depends on YOU
Reply-To: info@seiu-uhw.org

Dear Mary,

We have great news! After months of difficult bargaining and united actions by SEIU-UHW members across our hospitals, we have finally reached a tentative contract agreement with Daughters of Charity. Our agreement ensures raises and benefits for the next three years, and we urge everyone to come out on Sunday and Monday to VOTE YES to lock in these guarantees.

We're working hard this weekend to make all the details available to you, so come out on Sunday and Monday to get more information and cast your vote.

 

St Francis Voting

Sunday, April 29th - Cafeteria 10am-7pm

Monday, April 30th - Cafeteria 7am-7pm

 

Seton Voting

Seton:  Seminar Room 2

 

Sunday:

1st Session:     6:30-12:30

2nd Session:    2:30-5:30

 

Monday:

1st Session:      6:30-1:00

2nd Session:     2:00-6:00

3rd Session:      7:00-8:30

 

Coastside Voting

Solarium

 

Sunday:

1st Session:      6:00 -11:00

2nd Session:     2:00-5:00

 

Monday:

1st Session:      6:00-12:30

2nd Session:     2:00-6:00 

3rd Session:      7:30-8:30

 

St Vincent Voting

Sunday, April 29th – Conference Room C 11am-7pm

Monday, April 30th – Conference Room B 7am-11pm

 

O’Connor Voting

Sunday, April 29 - Cafeteria  7am-7pm

Monday, April 30 - Cafeteria 

 

St Louise Voting

Sunday, April 29 - Cafeteria 7am-7pm

Monday, April 30 - Cafeteria

 

See you there!

Here's an excerpt from SEIU's lame "Q&A" about the proposed agreement (click on the image to enlarge it):

And SEIU officials are blatantly lying about the terms of SEIU’s concessionary agreement. For example, SEIU's “Q&A” falsely informs workers that their “pension is in really bad financial shape." Last week, SEIU delivered the same information in this leaflet, which says workers’ pension plan “is broken.”

So what’s the truth about the pension plan? Last week, the pension plan’s administrator issued an “annual funding notice” (see below), which reports that the plan is 92.5% funded. Underfunded? Hardly.

What's sorely “underfunded” is the basic honesty and integrity of SEIU's corrupt officials who first of all accepted a sell-out agreement and now are doing their damnedest to ram it down workers’ throats. 

Pension Funding Notice for Daughters of Charity Health System Workers-2011