Kaiser’s Phil Marineau is Nuts about Brazilian Butts

Kaiser's Phil Marineau: "I love Brazil Butt"

Remember Phil Marineau?

He's the guy on Kaiser Permanente’s board of directors who recently said "I gotta go to the head” when workers asked him about Kaiser's repeated patient-care violations and its demands for benefit cuts from workers even though Kaiser is making billions in profits.

Why does Marineau spend so much time in “the head?” It turns out he’s developed a keen interest in butts… and, er, Brazilian butts in particular.

Marineau is the former CEO of Pepsi. After making billions of dollars by selling sugar-packed sodas to the public, he's now making a buck from the public’s rapidly expanding waist lines… by hawking weight-loss schemes!

And that's not all. Like many fancy-pants capitalists, Marineau is apparently just a two-bit huckster in a three-piece suit.

The folks over at UNITE HERE, who represent Kaiser’s workers in Hawaii, recently launched a website that outs the nefarious business scam perpetrated by Marineau and his buddies at a New York private equity firm.

The scam works like this.

Marineau’s latest business venture -- Beach Body, LLC -- is a fitness-product company that sells exercise DVDs, nutritional supplements and work-out equipment including P90X, Insanity, and Brazil Butt Lift.

Brazil Butt Lift’s website features tons of photos of women’s butts along with classy appeals to readers like these:

“Booty Makeover Guide”

"Holy Hottie! Get me that booty!”

“Want to get a supermodel sexy booty in just 60 days?"

“My butt lifted an inch and I ended up losing 20 pounds." (WTF??)

The centerpiece of Beach Body’s scam is a “Multi-Level Marketing” scheme. Basically, Beach Body signs up regular people to serve as so-called "Coaches" who sell the company’s products for a commission. These “Coaches,” who are considered “independent contractors,” sign a 14-page contract filled with tons of hidden charges, fees, taxes, etc that drain money out of each unsuspecting Coach’s pocket as quickly as s/he can sell product.

from Brazil Butt Lift's website. Phil is one classy dude.

According to UNITE HERE’s website, more than half of the “Coaches” don’t make a penny from selling the company’s products! But Beach Body makes wads of cash, of course.

It's a perfect business model for Marineau and his money-grubbing pals over at LNK Partners, a New York private equity firm where Marineau is a partner.

That is… until UNITE HERE outed all of the details behind Marineau’s Brazil Butt scam!

Here's a link to UNITE HERE’s website:  http://www.beachbodybummer.org/

SEIU Officials Plot a Takeover of Purple Palace

A group of top SEIU officials is sharpening their knives in preparation for a bid to take over the penthouse suite atop the Purple Palace.

Here’s what’s happening, according to reliable sources.

SEIU-UHW’s Dave Regan is actively organizing to unseat SEIU President Mary Kay Henry in SEIU’s next “election” in 2016.

Unlike the Machinists or Teamsters, SEIU doesn’t allow its members to vote in the once-every-four-years elections to choose SEIU’s president and the International Executive Board. Instead, workers' votes are cast by the leaders of each local union, thereby turning the local leaders into giant powerbrokers who control up to several hundred thousand votes each.

So who has Regan recruited to his plot against Mary Kay Henry?

George Gresham (the president of SEIU 1199NY) along with the leaders of various local unions who supported Anna Burger (the former Secretary-Treasurer of SEIU) during the succession struggle that followed Andy Stern’s resignation in 2010.

In addition, Tasty has learned that Andy Stern has joined Regan and Gresham. Why? Stern is telling insiders he wants to oust Henry because she's destroying the empire that he built while he was president of SEIU.

What’s the real reason?

Stern wants more power at SEIU. When he was pushed from office in 2010, he worked to create as many divisions among SEIU’s top leaders as possible. He publicly backed Anna Burger’s effort to become SEIU’s president while encouraging Mary Kay Henry to run against her.

Stern’s calculation? Internal divisions provide greater opportunities to recapture power.

Who will run against Mary Kay Henry in 2016?

Good question. Tasty hears that Regan and Gerry Hudson, whom MKH tried to knock off her slate several yrs ago, are both vying to climb atop this new coalition.

Stay tuned for more details on the infighting among the power-hungry purple officials!

Election News from Seton Medical Center in California

Here’s more news from the NLRB election at Seton Medical Center, where on March 19th approximately 700 workers voted to dump SEIU-UHW and join NUHW.

According to Tasty’s sources, SEIU-UHW outspent NUHW by an estimated ten-to-one margin… but still lost!   

Dave Regan assigned dozens of staff to chase down workers inside the hospital and at their homes, where workers faced a steady onslaught of door knockers, robo calls, purple mail pieces, and email blasts.

As the election approached, workers at one hospital facility ventured outside to find Regan’s massive purple RV plunked down on the hospital’s property and blocking traffic.  

SEIU’s main campaign tools were the usual: fear, threats and misinformation. But SEIU officials -- known as the masters of mendacity -- were sometimes so over-reaching in their lies, they became outright comical. For example, SEIU tried to tell workers they'd lose their pension if they voted for NUHW -- even though Regan had already given away workers' defined-benefit benefit pension two years ago!

Whoops!!

Workers say that another key to the election was SEIU’s massive "trust deficit" among workers.  In 2012, Regan forced giant benefit cuts down the throats of workers by holding a ramrod ratification vote that gave workers just 9 hours advance notice before the voting began on a Sunday morning. When workers filed formal protests noting that the rushed vote violated SEIU’s own constitution, SEIU’s Dave Regan and Mary Kay Henry simply ignored the workers and SEIU's own constitution.

Regan, in a laughable effort to overcome the distrust, handed out notarized “Guarantees" to convince the workers they’d somehow be in a whole world of hurt if they voted for NUHW. (See below.)

So how did workers respond? 

Tasty hears they openly mocked Regan by stripping the yellow stars from his notarized forms and pasting them on their uniforms like so many sheriff’s badges.

Hey Dave, sounds like there are a whole lotta new sheriffs in town!

   The Notarized "Guarantee" from SEIU-UHW's Dave Regan during Election Campaign at Seton Medic...

700 California Hospital Workers Vote to Dump SEIU-UHW and Join NUHW

NUHW won a big election victory yesterday at Seton Medical Center, where a unit of nearly 700 workers voted to leave SEIU-UHW and join NUHW. 

Here’s the final NLRB tally, which was announced late last night. The 500-bed hospital is located just south of San Francisco.

NUHW: 279

SEIU-UHW: 252

No Union: 19

More election coverage to follow!

SEIU-UHW Caught in the Act of "Partnering" with Kaiser at Fancy Hotel

The W Hotel in San Francisco

It looks like the folks over at NUHW caught SEIU-UHW and Kaiser Permanente in the act of "partnering" at a fancy hotel in downtown San Francisco.

Here’s what happened.

Ten days ago, NUHW activists made an unannounced visit to the “W Hotel,” a luxury hotel with a spa, restaurant, two bars and panoramic views of the San Francisco skyline.

At the hotel, Kaiser's turbo-paid Board of Directors was meeting with an army of business-suited Kaiser execs and SEIU officials. 

Among those in attendance was SEIU-UHW’s Hal “Mr. Giveback” Ruddick, who took over John August’s spot atop the "Coalition of Kaiser Permanente Unions.”

NUHW's visit caught the Kaiser board members by surprise. Apparently, the time and location of Kaiser's board meetings are tightly held secrets. Kaiser's board meets just six times a year in fancy hotels in cities across the US. Each board member is paid more than $200,000 a year to attend the six meetings. Quite a tough gig for the 15 fatcats who sit on the board of “nonprofit” Kaiser. 

Readers may recall that NUHW recently exposed massive financial conflicts of interest, which bounced one member, Christine Cassel, off the board and into national headlines.

Check out the video below to see how Phil Marineau, a Kaiser board member and former CEO of Pepsi and Levi Strauss, responded when NUHW activists tried to talk with him inside a lobby of the W Hotel about the crisis gripping Kaiser’s mental health services.

Soon thereafter, the NUHW activists were reportedly surrounded by Kaiser’s plainclothes security guards who pushed them out of the building -- prompting NUHW to file a police report against Kaiser.