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| Plaintiff Regan and Defendant Dauner |
In case
there was any doubt about the
implosion
of
Dave Regan's partnership with the
California Hospital Association (CHA),
check out the latest news...
On November
24, SEIU-UHW sued the CHA’s CEO Duane
Dauner in Sacramento County (Calif.) Superior Court for ditching Regan in
favor of his new pals Mary Kay Henry,
Laphonza Butler, Jon Youngdahl, the SEIU California State Council, the California Teachers Association, and the California Medical Association.
The full lawsuit
is available below. Also, here’s a link to
a
Dec. 1 article in "Courthouse News."
Regan’s
lawsuit -- which reads like a jilted lover’s divorce case -- revolves around Mary
Kay Henry’s recent success in outmaneuvering Regan by inking her own secret
deal with the CHA.
Under Henry’s
deal, the CHA agreed to team up with the SEIU California State Council, the
California Teachers Association and the California Medical Association to introduce
a statewide ballot initiative that competes head-to-head with Regan’s
initiative. Regan's ballot initiative was supposed to be the "centerpiece" of SEIU-UHW’s ongoing
partnership and organizing deal with the CHA.
Not anymore. The CHA has pulled its support from Regan's initiative, which is now "certain to fail," according to the lawsuit.
 |
| Mary Kay Henry and Laphonza Butler |
Basically, the
CHA has declared an end to its "partnership" with SEIU-UHW, thereby
jettisoning Wall Street Dave like a pair of old shoes. That means an end to
Regan's plans to unionize 60,000 hospital workers under a sweetheart deal that
gags
healthcare workers, bans them from striking, and forces them into contracts
with substandard wages and benefits… which Regan famously called an "
audacious
new proposal to save the labor movement."
This ain't
good news for Regan.
He’s poured $15-20
million of SEIU-UHW members' dues into his failed partnership with the CHA. And
he’s staked SEIU-UHW's entire future -- including its membership growth and
labor relations strategies -- on a partnership that's been relegated to the trash bin.
No wonder Dave
is coming unhinged.
Last month,
he penned
an angry letter ("The Shame of SEIU") in response to SEIU's secret
deal with the CHA, in which he wrote he's "repulsed and disgusted" by
SEIU officials who are selfishly pursuing "control, internal power and organizational
dominance."
In Dave’s
latest act of vengeance, he filed a 23-page lawsuit against Dauner and three
other CHA officials… including Greg
Adams, a top Kaiser Permanente
executive who also serves as the chair of the CHA's Board of Directors. Mark Laret, the CEO of UCSF Medical Center, is another
defendant.
Regan's attack
on Kaiser's Greg Adams is intriguing and may signal the unraveling of SEIU-UHW’s
partnership with Kaiser. According to Regan's suit, Greg Adams "accepted
and enabled" the CHA's decision to throw SEIU-UHW under the bus. In
addition, Adams "agreed to shut down" the CHA's labor-management cooperation
committee with SEIU-UHW, according to the suit, effectively putting the kibosh
on Regan's partnership with the CHA.
 |
| Defendant Greg Adams, Kaiser Permanente |
Here are
some excerpts from Regan's suit, which predictably contains plenty of
ranting and raving. For example, the lawsuit calls Dauner "corrupt" in
its opening line.
The suit
also makes interesting claims about secret meetings and clandestine maneuvers carried out by Purple Palace officials in their plot against Regan, as well as
the impact of SEIU’s recent decision to strip 80,000 members from SEIU-UHW and
transfer them to "SEIU Local 2015."
The
following excerpts refer to the two groups that have introduced competing
ballot initiatives: the "ABC
Coalition" (i.e., the CHA, SEIU California State Council, the
California Teachers Association, and the California Medical Association) and
the "CFC" (SEIU-UHW).
At or around the same time CFC was
developing its idea of a ballot initiative to fix and fully fund the Medi-Cal
program, a separate coalition that includes the California Teachers Association
("CTA"), the California Medical Association ("CMA"), and
the SEIU State Council ("State Council) (collectively known as the
"ABC Coalition"), began to develop a competing ballot initiative…
Defendant Dauner intentionally opposed the
filing of CFC's initiative prior to the filing of the ABC Coalition's
initiative for a nefarious purpose -- that is, in order to put CFC's initiative
at a disadvantage, while providing both a strategic and procedural advantage to
the ABC Coalition. Defendant Dauner, however, kept to himself the fact that he
had been secretly working with the ABC Coalition to undermine CFC's initiative…
In or around March 2015, Defendant Dauner
had been secretly meeting with members of the ABC Coalition, although the ABC
Coalition had not yet been formally organized…
During this same period, Defendant Dauner
also met with representatives of the SEIU State Council in order to keep them
informed of the business of CFC, including but not limited to CFC's
confidential "Strategic Plan." The SEIU State Council is led by Jon
Youngdahl ("Youngdahl"), who is the Executive Director of the State
Council, and Laphonza Butler ("Butler"), who is the President of the
State Council.
In addition, Butler is the President of the
SEIU, United Long-Term Care Workers ("ULTCW") as well as the provisional
President of SEIU, Local 2015. Local 2015 represents approximately 285,000
home-care and nursing home workers m California… Local 2015 is the result of a
merger of home care and nursing home members from three SEIU-affiliated Unions:
SEIU Local 521, ULTCW, and UHW. As a result of the merger, UHW lost half its
membership to Local 2015.
Prior to the merger, representatives of the
SEIU State Council informed Defendant Dauner that Regan would soon lose half of
UHW's membership and that Defendant Dauner needed to deal with Butler and the
State Council – not Regan and UHW – if he wanted to accomplish any legislative
and policy goals that were important to CHA's members.
Beginning in or around March 2015, Defendant
Dauner decided to work covertly with CMA, the SEIU State Council, and CTA,
while duplicitously pretending to carry out his duties as a Director and
Officer in the interest of CFC.
Defendant Dauner chose to work with the ABC
Coalition for several reasons. First, he feared CTA's political reach in
Sacramento. Second, he no longer wanted to be involved in a "strategic
partnership" with UHW because the partnership was threatening his power
within CHA, and members of CHA were calling for an end to the partnership for
ideological reasons. Third, he believed that he could take advantage of an
internal SEIU disagreement between Butler and Regan regarding the transfer of
UHW members into Local 2015…
On November 2, 2015, Defendant Dauner
requested a conference call with Regan and multiple other persons, including
other Directors of CFC to discuss CFC's initiative and his agreement with the
ABC Coalition.
On the call, Defendant Dauner revealed that
he had been secretly meeting and negotiating with the ABC Coalition regarding
its competing initiative…
Defendant Dauner explained that he had
engaged in these covert actions because the CHA Board of Directors had
instructed him to do so and that a "substantial number of hospitals,"
affiliated with CHA did not want CHA to participate in CFC or to continue its
partnership with UHW. The reason that a substantial number of hospitals wanted
to end the strategic partnership between CHA and UHW is because these hospitals
are philosophically opposed to the unionization of the hospital industry and
seek to remain non-union so that they may continue, without interference, to
provide their employees substandard working conditions, pay, and benefits.
Because the ABC Coalition does not consist of any labor organization that seeks
to organize hospital workers in California, working with the ABC Coalition is
preferred over working with UHW.
During the call, Defendant Dauner revealed
that his discussions with the ABC Coalition had led to a written agreement,
executed by and between CTA, CMA, and the SEIU State Council and Defendant
Dauner and CHA.
According to Dauner, the agreement with the
ABC Coalition provides that Defendants and CHA will jointly sponsor, and
contribute financially to the ABC Coalition's The School Funding and Stability Act of 2016 that is in direct competition
with CFC's initiative, Invest in
California's Children Act.
Defendant Dauner further agreed to "to
veto any expenditure" to support CFC's initiative, and [Kaiser’s Greg] Adams,
[UCSF’s Mark] Laret and Holmes agreed to support Dauner in this cessation of
CFC's activities. Thus, the CHA Directors agreed to terminate all of CFC's
operations by using Defendant Dauner's veto power.
Put otherwise, Defendant Dauner agreed to
use his position of power to quash CFC's initiative and to support the ABC
Coalition's competing initiative, and the other CHA Directors accepted and enabled
this decision. As a result, lacking any financial support, CFC's initiative is certain
to fail and the ABC Coalition's initiative will have no effective opposition…
Adams, Laret and Holmes approved this sale
after the fact and have since agreed to shut down CFC as part of the deal with
the ABC Coalition…
On November 18, 2015, Defendants spoke with
Regan regarding the ABC Coalition's initiative. Defendants pleaded with Regan
to dissolve CFC. Regan, however, refused to agree to dissolution. In accordance
with his agreement with the ABC Coalition, Defendant Dauner stated that he
would exercise his veto power, as Co-Chair, on any and all decisions that came
before CFC regarding expenditures related to CFC's initiative, which CFC had
unanimously voted to file and fund.
The lawsuit alleges
that Dauner, Kaiser's Greg Adams, and CHA officials have committed fraud,
concealment, breach of fiduciary duty, "conversion," "trespass
to chattel," and other "fraudulent or dishonest acts or gross abuse
of authority or discretion." It seeks to force the CHA to pay financial
damages to SEIU-UHW and also seeks the removal of the CHA's Dauner from
his position as a co-chair of the joint labor-management committee set up by
the CHA and SEIU-UHW. Regan is the other co-chair.
More details
are available in the full lawsuit below.
Stay tuned for
more analysis and commentary!
