California Workers Vote to Join NUHW

Congratulations to several hundred workers in Southern California who recently voted to join NUHW in multiple NLRB elections.

On July 13, a group of 125 workers at Kindred Hospital San Diego voted to join NUHW by a margin of…

• 87 (NUHW)
• 2 (No Union)
• 1 (Challenged ballots)

One week later, a unit of 126 workers at 219-bed West Anaheim Medical Center voted by a margin of…

• 65 (NUHW)
• 47 (No Union)
• 6 (Challenged ballots)

And that’s not all.

NUHW has recently won eight elections in a row at outpatient clinics run by Keck Medicine of USC, which operates three acute-care hospitals in Los Angeles.

Keep it up!

SEIU-UHW’s Dave Regan Continues His Losing Streak against California Hospital Association

Dave Regan has apparently lost yet another round of his legal battle against the California Hospital Association (CHA), according to court records.

On June 14, 2017, Regan’s lawyers submitted a formal notice to the Sacramento County (Calif.) Superior Court announcing that Regan is dropping his personal lawsuit against the CHA. A copy of the notice is posted below.

Why is he dropping his lawsuit?

Regan was likely forced to do so by an outside arbitrator, who was ordered by a Superior Court judge to examine whether Regan’s personal lawsuit violates a provision of Regan’s secret deal with the Hospital Association. As part of the deal, Regan signed a far-reaching “gag clause” and arbitration provision that blocks him and SEIU-UHW members from criticizing hospitals execs, supporting legislation contrary to execs’ interests, suing hospital corporations, or even mentioning hospital executives’ gold-plated salaries in public.

Here’s what happened:

In late 2015, Regan’s “partnership” deal with the CHA collapsed in flames.

Under the 2014 partnership deal, Regan agreed to use SEIU’s political power to deliver $6 billion a year in new Medicaid revenues to California’s hospital corporations. In exchange for the cash, hospital CEOs would push 60,000 of their employees into Regan’s union. Regan sweetened the deal for the bosses by agreeing to ban workers from striking and forcing SEIU-UHW members into pre-negotiated labor contracts with stripped down wages and benefits.

Soon after the collapse of his secret deal, Ragin’ Dave Regan angrily sued Duane Dauner and three other top CHA officials. Regan also re-filed a statewide ballot initiative to target CHA’s members.  

The CHA quickly filed a counter-suit against Regan, arguing that his actions were prohibited by the “gag clause” that Regan himself had signed on behalf of SEIU-UHW.

In June of 2016, a judge agreed with the CHA and ordered SEIU-UHW to withdraw the ballot initiative after Regan had spent millions of dollars of SEIU-UHW members’ dues money to collect signatures to qualify the initiative for the ballot.

 

SEIU-UHW's Dave Kieffer

Next, the CHA asked the court to force Regan to drop his lawsuit against Dauner and three other top CHA officials. The CHA argued that the suit also violated Regan’s gag clause. In January 2017, a judge ordered the issue to be resolved by an outside arbitrator.

Last week, Regan’s lawyers informed the court that Regan is dropping his lawsuit against Dauner and three other CHA officials, including Kaiser Permanente’s Greg Adams. Regan likely dropped the suit as a result the arbitrator’s decision, which is not available to the public.

This latest developments represent yet another stinging defeat for Regan and SEIU-UHW. 

When Regan announced his secret deal with the CHA in 2014, Regan borrowed a page from Donald Trump and famously called it an "audacious new proposal to save the labor movement" …even though it violated every value held dear by the labor movement.

Way to go, Dave!

Several important questions remain unresolved:

• Did the arbitrator also order Regan to pay all of the CHA’s legal costs? That could total millions of dollars.

• Who will pay all of millions of dollars of legal bills connected to Regan’s disastrous lawsuit, including the fancy lawyers hired by Regan? Since the suit was filed in Regan’s personal name, shouldn’t he pay for it? Regan will undoubtedly try to push the costs of his bone-headed lawsuit onto SEIU-UHW’s members.

• What about the $34 million that Regan squirreled away inside a secret “partnership” organization? The CHA has demanded that Regan return the money. Their demands are part of legal claims filed with the Superior Court.

Stay tuned.

  SEIU-UHW Dave Regan's request to drop lawsuit against California Hospital Association: June 14, 2017 by tastysternburger on Scribd

Insiders Describe Failures, Mistreatment and Firings inside SEIU-UHW

Dave Regan

Sources have offered more details about Dave Regan’s recent firing of Myriam Escamilla,  who formerly headed SEIU-UHW’s Hospital Division. They also describe a culture of bullying, abuse and mistreatment of SEIU-UHW staff.

One SEIU-UHW staffer writes: "I could write a book about how fucked up Dave Regan and his gang of fascist upper staff [are]."

Why was Escamilla fired?

According to one source, Regan reportedly canned her because she allowed Dignity Health and HCA to eliminate their financial contributions to SEIU-UHW’s Education and Training Fund during negotiations.

Prior to SEIU’s 2009 trusteeship, Sal Rosselli and his team negotiated contract provisions that required the two multi-billion dollar companies to contribute millions of dollars a year to an education and training fund to allow workers to go back to school to train for higher-paid positions inside the healthcare industry.

In a separate report to Tasty, an SEIU-UHW staffer sent along the following note about Escamilla, Regan, Chief of Staff Greg Pullman, and other SEIU-UHW officials, who reportedly “totally mistreat the staff.” (FYI, Paul Matakiewicz is a former supervisor in SEIU-UHW’s Hospital Division.)

Myriam came in and destroyed the whole division. She was a raging, racist bitch. She totally harassed and set up Paul Matakiewicz to be forced out after the years he help build that division. 

…She only had that job because she had once been married to Greg Pullman. I'm glad she was fired. She and other upper staff have tried everything they can to force out a current staffer who is disabled, but had never let it interfere with her work. They've tried to set up up, fuck with her numbers and turn members against her. This really speaks well of a "workers union." I could write a book about how fucked up Dave Regan and his gang of fascist upper staff.

Workers: "Why We Left SEIU"

More details are emerging about why 400 city workers in San Diego last month voted to leave SEIU Local 221 and form an independent union called the Association of Chula Vista Employees.

The details are captured in an article published this week in San Diego’s largest daily newspaper (San Diego Union-Tribune, “Split by Chula Vista employees is the latest rift in local labor unions,” June 5, 2017). Here’s an excerpt from the article:

A group of the city’s employees — librarians, planners, forensic investigators and others — voted last month to leave Service Employees International Union, Local 221, and to represent themselves in a new organization…

Many Chula Vista employees had been long-frustrated with the quality of advocacy SEIU had provided on their behalf, said Nicole Hobson, the president of the newly formed Association of Chula Vista Employees.

“This decision was kind of a long time coming,” she said “Lack of services, high dues, they have high employee turnaround, they give us inexperienced representatives,” she said…

The loss of employees at the county’s second-largest city from the largest public-sector union is the most recent turbulence in the organized labor in the county, as well as for SEIU. Last year nearly 500 Poway Unified School District Employees left SEIU in order to represent themselves, as did at least seven other employee groups in the last decade, including employees at the San Diego Community College District, City of La Mesa, as well as some county workers…

Kim Vander Bie, another officer in the new Chula Vista union, said that SEIU wasn’t good at communicating with its members, and they didn’t learn about plans to leave the Labor Council until a decision had already been made.

“I personally didn’t give it a lot of thought because it wasn’t presented to us,” she said. “They didn’t communicate with us very well. We’d find out after the fact, or too late.”

Employees dues have been cut in half since leaving SEIU, and the new city employee union is about to begin contract negotiations with city management. With more independence, they’re planning to get more involved in local elections as they build their treasury, Vander Bie said.

“I hope that future employees will be very cautious before getting into that type of relationship,” she said. “I’m not against unions, which is why I am very active with our new union, but some unions are better than others. Some have better leadership with others. We just had a bad experience.”

Dave Regan Axes Top Staffer at SEIU-UHW

Myriam Escamilla

Dave Regan has axed one of SEIU-UHW’s top staff directors, according to staffers. Tasty confirmed that Myriam Escamilla, who served as the Director of SEIU-UHW’s Hospital Division, is no longer employed at the union.

Escamilla was so close to Regan that he placed her on the Executive Committee of SEIU-UHW’s Executive Board. Last year, she pocketed $162,415 in pay, according to records filed with the US Department of Labor.

She also has a long relationship with Greg Pullman, Regan’s Chief of Staff. The pair formerly worked together at SEIU Local 521 before teaming up at SEIU-UHW.

Not anymore.

Escamilla was well known for her tantrums, tirades, bullying, and Machiavellian scheming, according to staffers. 

One staffer told Tasty: “Myriam's reputation for abusing staff -- including public humiliation -- is well-deserved.” A former staffer at Local 521 calls her a “primo backstabber.”

After Regan parachuted into California, Escamilla joined with Regan like two peas in a pod.

Bullying? Check.

Arrogant? Check.

Tirades? Check.

Backroom deals with bosses? Check.

Perhaps that’s why staffers reportedly tagged her with nicknames like “Attila the Hun” and “El Diablo.”

In one memorable incident, an SEIU-UHW staffer described how Escamilla fired him during his first week on the job after he expressed reluctance at “donating” part of his paycheck to Regan’s election fund.

Another staffer wrote: “She has caused such divisions in UHW staff by terminating and harassing staff. Many staff are out on stress or in line for termination.”

Oh, and don’t forget Myriam’s other stand-out qualities: dishonesty and incompetence.

In 2012, Escamilla famously negotiated a backroom deal that allowed California’s largest nursing home company to slash SEIU-UHW members’ wages and benefits. After inking the deal, she carefully hid it from workers. And when workers questioned her, she blatantly lied to them. Which explains why workers decided to decertify SEIU-UHW and join NUHW.

In another memorable incident, Escamilla forgot to file a ULP charge in advance of a strike by 160 workers, allowing the boss to lock out 38 workers for months and months.

Escamilla’s reganesque style and her willingness to forfeit workers and principles in order to elevate her position explains her lengthy tenure alongside Regan.

So what caused Regan to axe her?

At this point, it’s not clear. 

Tipsters should drop Tasty a line at tastysternburger@gmail.com