Dave Regan Performs Love Act with CEOs at SEIU-UHW's Exec Board Meeting

SEIU's Dave Regan

Here's the latest on Dave Regan’s secret deal with the California Hospital Association (CHA).

Earlier this month, Regan invited Duane Dauner (the CEO of CHA) and several other execs from California's largest hospital corporations to speak at a meeting of SEIU-UHW’s Executive Board.

The execs -- Duane Dauner, Greg Adams (CEO of Kaiser Permanente Northern California), Wade Rose (Vice President of External and Government Relations for Dignity Health), and Judy Coffin (Dignity’s Vice President and Associate General Counsel) -- participated in a talk-show style "panel discussion" with Regan during the meeting.

As Regan sat onstage with his panelists, a handful of SEIU-UHW members lobbed scripted softball questions to the execs like: "What's your background?” and "What's the proudest and most

CHA's Duane Dauner

memorable moment in your career?"

Next, Regan let the Bosses preach to the assembled workers. "It's time for everyone to sacrifice," said the Bosses. Kaiser's Greg Adams reportedly told the group:

Healthcare costs are too high. We have to work together to bring them down. It's time for everyone to embrace the change and work together.

Next up was Dauner:

We want to maintain a living wage for healthcare workers. But costs keep rising. We can't keep this up.

While the Bosses cried “We ain’t got no money" and "The sky is falling," not a single SEIU-UHW official or board member uttered a peep about ballooning corporate profits and skyrocketing executive salaries. 

Kaiser's Greg Adams

... including Dignity's $776 million in profits during the first nine months of its fiscal year. Or Kaiser's $2.1 billion in profits during the first six months of 2014. Or Greg Adams $2.2 million in pay plus nine pension plans.

After completing his polyamorous sex act with the four execs, Regan dried the beads of sweat from his brow and presented a motion to SEIU-UHW’s Executive Board to transfer $10 million of the union's dues dollars to a joint CHA-SEIU political fund. 

The union's board -- with more than 20% of its elected positions currently vacant -- dutifully consented.

The next day, Regan told the workers that the fatcat execs had been "very impressed with the professionalism of the Executive Board.” That's not quite the term Tasty would use. 

So why are workers giving $10 million to the hospital industry's Chamber of Commerce?

It's all part of Regan's partnership deal with the industry. Under the deal, Regan committed to use SEIU’s political power to win $15 billion a year of new government funding to fatten hospital corporations’ bottom line. In exchange, the corporations will push as many as 60,000 hospital workers into SEIU-UHW, which has agreed to force these unsuspecting workers into pre-negotiated labor contracts with rock-bottom wages and benefits… as well as gag clauses that block the workers and SEIU-UHW from criticizing the companies for bad patient care or excessive profits.

It's a deal with the devil. In fact, it's so despicable that Regan refuses to show a copy to SEIU-UHW’s own Executive Board! When board members ask for one, Regan and Co. reportedly rebuff the workers, saying: "We don't want NUHW to get ahold of a copy."

Dignity's Wade Rose

What's next for Regan's love affair with the top-hatted paramours?

Regan has invited Dauner and a crew of hospital CEOs to attend SEIU-UHW’s upcoming "Leadership Assembly," an annual meeting of rank-and-file members.

And that's not all! 

Regan will attempt to expand his polyamorous sex act by inviting top CEOs from California's nursing home corporations to attend. Stay tuned!

Kaiser's Cynthia Telles Puts 5,000 Square-Foot House Up for Sale

Has Kaiser's Cynthia Telles decided to pull up the stakes and head for the hills?

Telles, one of the members of Kaiser Permanente's vastly overpaid Board of Directors, is selling her 4,670 square-foot house in Sherman Oaks, a pricey Los Angeles suburb. 5 Bedrooms. 6 Baths. Brazilian mahogany floors. 4-car garage.

Check out this pic of her dining room. (More pics below.)

By all accounts, it's been a difficult few months for Telles.

Cynthia also happens to sit on the Board of Directors of scandal-plagued General Motors, which faces at least $35 million in government fines and multiple class-action lawsuits for illegally covering up defects in its cars that contributed to the deaths of at least 13 people.

GM pays Telles $200,000 a year to sit on its board. However, the ongoing revelations about the scandal appear to be too much for Telles, who recently announced that she plans to resign her seat.

At Kaiser, Telles pockets another $226,000 a year for attending just six board meetings a year. (The 1% really struggles, right?) At Kaiser, Telles has been under fire for being MIA during the ongoing crisis gripping Kaiser's mental health services.

Telles -- a psychologist -- is the only member of Kaiser's board with any mental health training. Nonetheless, she refuses to meet with Kaiser's own psychologists to discuss the crisis at Kaiser... which has already resulted in a $4 million fine by government investigators, three class-action action lawsuits by patients, multiple suicides linked to Kaiser's delayed care, and a call for a criminal investigation into Kaiser's falsification of appointment records.

Telles at Airport Commission

Recently, Kaiser caregivers spoke at a meeting of the Los Angeles Airport Commission (yup, Cynthia also sits on that board) and asked her why she failed to answer any of the 100+ personal letters from Kaiser mental health therapists -- which NUHW ultimately posted on a website called DearCynthiaTelles.com

Last week, Northern California’s East Bay Express blasted Kaiser in a front-page article called "Deadly Delays," which describes suicides connected to Kaiser's deliberate delays in providing mental health care to its patients.

So why has Telles decided to put her colossal crib up for sale? 

Perhaps she's planning to downgrade to a 300,000 square-foot pied a terre now that she'll be missing that yearly $200K check from GM.

If Cynthia needs any relocation advice, I'm sure Tasty's readers would have plenty of creative ideas.

Here are more pics of Cynthia's house... in case you're in the market.

Where is she now? Rebecca Malberg

SEIU's Rebecca Malberg

Remember Rebecca Malberg? 

In 2009, she was one of the East Coasters who parachuted into California with Dave Regan and served as a "Deputy Trustee” during SEIU’s infamous trusteeship of SEIU-UHW.  

Malberg -- who’s never been known as the sharpest knife in the drawer -- was rewarded for her blind loyalty to Regan with a seat on SEIU-UHW’s Executive Committee and a $150,000-a-year salary.

In a surprise move, Malberg recently announced she was jumping off Regan’s purple ship for a consulting gig.

Readers may recall Malberg for her role in the infamous Fresno homecare election. Back in mid-2009, she helped direct SEIU’s campaign of threats and lies against Fresno's homecare workers -- which included instructing SEIU organizers to threaten undocumented homecare workers with deportation unless they voted for SEIU.

In an earlier post, one of SEIU’s remorseful shocktroopers described Malberg’s role this way:

i am ashamed to say that i campaigned for seiu-uhw in fresno in 2009, and seiu-uhw staff - led by rebecca malberg, debbie schneider, greg pullman instructed other locals' staff and members to lie to fresno homecare workers.  we told them they would lose their benefits if they voted for nuhw.  We told them they would lose everything - their retirement, their health insurance, their voice.  it was so despicable, and unethical.  seiu-uhw "leaders" lied not only to the fresno workers, but the hundreds of rank and file leaders and staff from locals around the country who were organized or were dispatched to help. we stalked these fresno homecare workers for weeks... it was sickening, and i am sorry to have participated in such an illegal act of bullying and lies.

Where is Malberg now?

She recently took a job at a consulting firm called Harbage Consulting, which is headquartered in California's state capitol. The firm does political consulting; past clients include Arnold "The Terminator" Schwarzenegger. Harbage also consults with private and public-sector clients "with a focus on increasing value in healthcare delivery," according to the firm's website.

A Fresno homecare worker who was intimidated by SEIU

For any clients who are considering hiring Malberg, you might want to check out these reports -- including the conclusions of a government investigation -- about her role in SEIU’s campaign of threats, intimidation and ballot tampering aimed at pressuring low-wage homecare workers to vote for SEIU in an election.

The reports speak volumes about Malberg’s integrity and moral principles. After all… what kind of person would threaten low-wage immigrant homecare workers with deportation in order to win a vote?

SEIU’s Andy Stern Joins For-Profit Company to Make Piles of Cash for Big Business

SEIU's Andy Stern

Andy Stern, SEIU’s President Emeritus, has joined the board of yet another for-profit corporation.

Stern, who already serves on the board of SIGA Technologies (a pharmaceutical company controlled by billionaire Ron Perelman), recently joined the Advisory Board of “BeneStream,” a start-up venture headquartered in New York. 

BeneStream pledges to deliver "piles of money" to large corporations by helping them push their low-wage workers onto the taxpayer-funded Medicaid rolls.

What does BeneStream do?

Under Obamacare, large companies will be required to provide health insurance to all of their employees beginning in 2015. That costs money, right? Fortunately for the Bosses, there’s a loophole built into the law. If workers happen to sign up for Medicaid, then companies are no longer on the hook for their health insurance.

That’s where BeneStream comes in. 

Stern's company says it’ll save companies buckets of money for the Bosses by helping them identify low-wage workers on their payrolls and then signing them up for taxpayer-funded Medicaid benefits. Here's an excerpt from BeneStream's website:

And here's what BeneStream’s CEO says on a slick video featured on the company's website:

The one solution that’ll save you a pile of money as an employer is the BeneStream solution… We work with employers that have 50 or more employees to screen their low-income workforce for Medicaid and then enroll those people in Medicaid when we can, saving employers the cost of insurance… The employer wins because they save the cost of insuring someone...

Stern serves on BeneStream’s five-member Advisory Board with people like Kevin Hill, a fatcat insurance exec at companies like Oxford Health, CheckpointHR, HealthPlanOne, and United Healthcare. 

According to a press report, BeneStream recently raised "$1.58 million from angel investors.” 

So how much is SEIU’s President Emeritus pocketing for pimping for BeneStream?

Not clear. But when Stern first joined SIGA’s board in 2012, he took home 35,000 stock options and $116,094 in cash. 

SEIU's Coutni Pugh Deploys Purple Parachute, Lands Gig at Consulting Firm

So what happened to Courtni Pugh after she rigged a ramrod contract-ratification vote covering 23,000 staffers at Los Angeles Unified School District… and then promptly resigned as SEIU Local 99’s Executive Director so she could high-tail it out of town before the proverbial sh*t hit the fan?

According to “Politico,” Pugh has taken a job with Hilltop Public Solutions, a DC-based political consulting firm that does tons of business with SEIU.

On July 31st, a “Politico” posting included a blurb that began this way:

FIRST LOOK - Hilltop adds SEIU's Courtni Pugh -- Forthcoming release: "Putting the finishing touches a year of major growth, Hilltop Public Solutions [will announce] today that veteran California organizer and political strategist Courtni Pugh has joined the firm and will oversee Hilltop's new Los Angeles office. Courtni most recently served as Executive Director of the Service Employees International United (SEIU) Local 99.

Hilltop -- which also does business as S&B Public Solutions LLC -- is headed by Nick Baldick and has run multi-million dollar campaigns for SEIU, according to the firm's website.

It's par for the course at the Purple Palace -- yet another soft landing for a top SEIU official.