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| Kirk Adams |
Here's some Purple
Palace intrigue.
One of
SEIU's top elected officials is jumping ship… apparently the result of tensions
inside Mary Kay Henry’s leadership team.
Earlier this
month, Kirk Adams -- one of SEIU’s
five "Executive Vice Presidents" and the Director of SEIU's
Healthcare Division -- announced he’s leaving SEIU to take a job with the
"Healthcare Education Project,"
an organization jointly run by New York's hospital bosses and 1199 New York.
By making
the move, Adams is leaving Mary Kay Henry’s team and joining up with leaders of
1199NY (including George Gresham and
Gerry
Hudson), who’ve reportedly been
plotting to unseat Mary Kay Henry from her position atop the Purple Palace.
Adams is a
longtime SEIU insider. He served as the "Chief of Staff" for both Andy Stern and Mary Kay Henry. Most recently, he’s been the Director of SEIU’s Healthcare
Division, which has been failing in its efforts to organize hospital workers to
join SEIU.
So what’s
the "Healthcare Education Project?"
It's part of
a partnership between the New York hospital industry’s Chamber of Commerce (called
the "Greater New York Hospital
Association" (GNYHA)) and 1199NY,
a local union of SEIU. Both organizations funnel millions of dollars into the
"Healthcare Education Project," which then finances political
campaigns to get more taxpayer funds for the hospital industry.
A recent
article in the Daily Beast describes the "Healthcare Education
Project" this way:
[Former 1199NY President Dennis] Rivera and the Greater New York Hospital Association (GNYHA)… began working together almost as soon as he became president. The partnership took concrete form with the creation of the joint Healthcare Education Project, which now forms the cornerstone of New York’s “medical industrial complex”…
The article
goes on to describe how Rivera built an "alliance with the state
Republican Party" to pursue political deals for more money for the
hospital industry.
Adams, in a recent
article (Modern Healthcare: "Kirk
Adams Leaving Longtime SEIU Post," September 3, 2015), describes the ‘love
of partnership’ that prevails among SEIU officials:
“We actually think a partnership is the best approach in healthcare, because we think healthcare is a team concept,” Adams said.
The article notes:
During Adams' tenure at SEIU, the organization has embraced partnerships like the Healthcare Education Project and the Labor Management Partnership between Kaiser Permanente and 28 union locals. This collaborative approach has garnered SEIU a less adversarial profile than peers such as National Nurses United and the National Union of Healthcare Workers.
Of course, in
California, SEIU-UHW President Dave
Regan has literally given away the store through his secret partnership
deal with the California Hospital Association, in which Regan agreed to
gag union members from reporting patient care violations to government
oversight agencies.
Stay tuned
for more palace intrigue...
