SEIU’s Mary Kay Henry Removes President of SEIU Local 99

In early December, SEIU President Mary Kay Henry removed SEIU Local 99 President Barbara Torres from office and suspended her membership in SEIU for four years, according to notices distributed to union members and also available online. Henry also removed a second officer, Executive Board member Jacqueline Brown, and appointed Eliseo Medina to serve as a “monitor” of Local 99.  

Based in Los Angeles, SEIU Local 99 represents 25,000 public school workers.

According to SEIU, the actions came after “a thorough investigation and hearing by SEIU International” that reportedly was prompted by charges against union officials.

In October, SEIU’s International Executive Board held two days of hearings in Las Vegas to investigate separate charges filed against the top leaders of SEIU Local 1107, according to the Las Vegas Review-Journal. Local 1107 represents approximately 9000 workers in Nevada.

Eliseo Medina’s assignment to Local 99 is his second such gig in a handful of months. In August, Henry appointed Medina as the “trustee” of SEIU Local 73 after she imposed a trusteeship on the Chicago-based union, which represents 25,000 public-sector workers in Illinois and northwestern Indiana.

Medina addressing Local number 73 members in Chicago

Readers may recall that Local 99 has a troubled history of scandals and corruption by its top officials.

In 2004, Andy Stern appointed Bill Lloyd as the trustee of Local 99.

Lloyd, who subsequently took on the job of Local 99's Executive Director, pocketed no fewer than three separate paychecks from SEIU totaling $224,000 a year along with multiple perks including an eight-year-long, SEIU-paid hotel room at the Wilshire Grande Hotel.

Lloyd is also known for his infamous sexual affair with Local 99’s then-president, Janett Humphries, at the same time that she was embezzling tens of thousands of dollars from the union's members. In 2006, Humprhies pleaded guilty in federal court to four counts of embezzlement and one count of conspiracy.

Steve Trossman -- who reportedly covered up Tyrone Freeman’s million-dollar theft from SEIU members for years -- also did damage control for Lloyd. Trossman now works for Dave Regan as SEIU-UHW’s "Communications Director."

In 2012, Lloyd silently disappeared from his job as the Executive Director of Local 99.

Max Arias currently serves as Local 99’s Executive Director. Arias, a former staffer at SEIU Healthcare Illinois-Indiana, parachuted into California in 2009 as part of SEIU’s trusteeship of SEIU-UHW. Arias was initially assigned to nursing homes, where workers reported about his disrespectful attitude towards workers.

Secret Email Reveals Scam at SEIU Local 99

Here’s an interesting story that comes courtesy of a tipster.

Several days ago, SEIU Local 99 triumphantly announced the names of the candidates it’s endorsing for upcoming races for the city council, school district and mayor’s office in Los Angeles.

According to a post on the union’s website, Local 99’s endorsement process was a shining example of bottom-up democracy that featured rank-and-file members questioning the candidates in townhall forums and then making the endorsement decisions through democratic votes.

Sounds wonderful, right?

Well… we’ve all learned that things ain’t what they seem to be in Purple Land. And in this case, an internal email describes what actually happened.

It turns out that Local 99’s top officials -- including Executive Director Courtni Pugh -- secretly made the union’s endorsement decisions BEFORE the membership meetings actually took place on December 4, 5 and 6.

An internal email dated November 30 spells out the SEIU officials’ so-called “recommendations” for each endorsement.  

Our recommendations are listed below--PLEASE keep all of these recommendations confidential.

The email even explains why the SEIU officials endorsed David Vela, a candidate for the community college district:

endorsing over incumbent b/c he is a more reliable vote.

The email goes on to instruct Local 99’s staffers to screen the rank-and-file members who are likely to attend the endorsement meetings so they can pack the room full of “solid members who will be… voting these ways on these races.” 

Quite an exercise in democracy, right? 

Internal email to SEIU Local 99's staffers about secret political endorsement process 11-30-12

Bill Lloyd Disappears from SEIU Local 99

Bill Lloyd has been silently and unceremoniously removed from his job as the Executive Director of SEIU Local 99 in Los Angeles, according to inside sources and online materials.

In 2004, Andy Stern appointed Lloyd as the trustee of Local 99, which represents 25,000 public school workers in Los Angeles. 

For those who don’t know him, Lloyd is the fat-cat SEIU official who’s notoriously ineffective despite pocketing no fewer than three separate paychecks from SEIU totaling $224,000 a year. Lloyd also enjoys multiple perks, including an eight-year-long, SEIU-paid hotel room at the Wilshire Grand Hotel.

Lloyd is also known for his infamous sexual affair with Local 99’s previous president, Janett Humphries, while she was embezzling tens of thousands of dollars from the union's members. In 2006, Humprhies pleaded guilty in federal court to four counts of embezzlement and one count of conspiracy.  Oh yeah… Bill Lloyd is also a member of SEIU’s International Executive Board.

So what happened to Bill Lloyd?

According to a source inside Local 99, Lloyd -- after eight years as Local 99’s top official -- was quietly removed from his position earlier this week. Tasty’s source says that Lloyd’s disappearing act has many people scratching their heads. The source writes:

there wasn’t a ceremony or anything. No announcement really to most of the staff either – one day he was just gone.

Hmmm….   So where’s Lloyd now? 

Well, just like other corrupt SEIU officials such as Rickman Jackson and Annelle Grajeda, Lloyd was given a purple parachute that landed him inside the Purple Palace where he’s now (get this) a “Senior Adviser” to SEIU President Mary Kay Henry!

Huh?? For anyone who knows Lloyd, the only advice he’s capable of delivering is related to expensive clothes and fat paychecks.

So who replaced Lloyd at Local 99? Courtni Pugh, according to this announcement on Local 99’s website. Pugh formerly served as the Executive Director of the SEIU California State Council until she was ousted because she couldn’t do the job. For the past two years, she’s been working as Bill Lloyd’s “Special Assistant.”  Wow!

Pugh also has another interesting connection to Local 99 that brings everything full-circle. At one point, Pugh was hired by Martin Ludlow to work at the Los Angeles County Federation of Labor. Ludlow was Janett Humphries’s partner in crime during the embezzlement scandal at Local 99 that's discussed above. In 2006 Ludlow pleaded guilty to a charge of conspiring to embezzle the union's funds with the help of Humphries. Here’s how the Los Angeles Times described it:

In hopes of avoiding jail, Ludlow agreed to cooperate with authorities in the federal prosecution of Janett Humphries, the former head of Service Employees International Union Local 99, who is accused of working with Ludlow to divert the funds… Ludlow admitted to improperly using union money to pay six people who were put on the union payroll but who actually worked on his City Council election campaign.

A federal judge ordered Ludlow to pay back nearly $40,000 to Local 99’s members and sentenced him to five years’ probation, 2,000 hours of community service and barred him from serving in any leadership position in SEIU for 13 years.

Well, sounds like Pugh has all the experience and connections she'll need  for her new job at Local 99!

SEIU-UHW's Dave Regan Joins Hospital Industry to Roll Back Nurse Staffing Law... and Suffers Smackdown

In a jaw-dropping move that’s producing seismic reactions across California, SEIU’s Dave Regan revealed just how far he’s climbed into bed with California’s hospital corporations. Here’s what’s going on.

On Thursday, Regan teamed up with the California Hospital Association to try to roll back a California law that requires hospitals to meet minimum nurse-to-patient staffing ratios designed to ensure safe care for patients. These safe-staffing ratios have been in place for 40 years in ICUs, Neonatal ICUs and ERs. And in 2004, the California legislature extended staffing ratios to other hospital units like oncology, medical-surgical and pediatric units.  

As caregivers and their unions pushed for the ratios, the California Hospital Association (CHA) aggressively fought them, even spending millions of dollars on an unsuccessful lawsuit to overturn the law. Why?

The CHA is the “chamber of commerce” for California’s hospital industry. It’s run by multi-billion-dollar corporations like Kaiser Permanente, Dignity Health, Sutter Health, HCA and Tenet Healthcare. For these companies, fewer staff means more profits. In 2010, for example, California’s hospital industry earned more than $4.4 billion in profits.

After the industry failed to roll back the ratios through lobbying and lawsuits, they enlisted their new pal, Dave Regan, to engineer a back-door legislative maneuver to achieve the same outcome. On Thursday, Regan and the CHA tried to insert language into a “trailer bill” attached to California’s state budget. The “trailer” would suspend the ratios during any meal and rest breaks. According to SEIU’s “talking points,” this initial rollback of the law would save hospital corporations more than $400 million.  

So… was “Wall Street Dave” successful in his underhanded efforts to roll back the ratio law? Not by a long shot. Instead, Regan suffered a series of head-spinning smackdowns that one source described as “utterly humiliating.” Here’s what happened:

On Thursday, Regan dispatched members of the SEIU California State Council, headed by Bill Lloyd, to the State Capitol in an effort to find a single California legislator who would “sponsor” the trailer to the budget bill. End result? Not a single legislator agreed to put their name on the bill!

Next, Regan called his buddy Art Pulaski at the California Labor Federation, AFL-CIO. Pulaski, who was formerly married to SEIU’s Josie Mooney, agreed to convene an “emergency” phone call of the Federation’s Executive Council, which is made up of union leaders across the state.

During Thursday night’s call, Regan personally pitched his proposal to the Executive Council and then asked the labor leaders to endorse CHA/SEIU's effort to roll back the ratio law. Regan argued that the hospital industry needed relief from the law in order to improve its profitability. (Apparently, $4.1 billion isn’t enough for Dave's buddies at the CHA.) SEIU’s Bill Lloyd also spoke in favor of the proposal.  RoseAnn DeMoro (the Executive Director of the California Nurses Association) spoke against it. 

In the end, the Executive Council voted 60-2 against Regan’s proposal! Regan’s only two votes came from SEIU officials: Bill Lloyd and Mike Garcia of SEIU Local 1877.

In case Regan’s backside wasn’t stinging enough, yesterday the California Labor Federation sent this letter to California’s governor and legislative leaders, stating:

The California Labor Federation opposes any proposal to suspend nurse-to-patient staffing ratios during meal and rest periods. Such proposal would endanger both patient safety and worker health and safety, two core values we support and defend. We ask you to not include this proposal in any budget trailer bill or legislation to come.

And in a press release issued last night, the CNA’s RoseAnn DeMoro delivered this body blow to Regan:

It would be hard to imagine a more immoral and corrupt scenario than for a labor leader to be lobbying other unions to endanger patients on behalf of corporate hospital executives whose only concern is increasing profits.

Meanwhile, a source sent Tasty an email from CNA leaders with this reference to Regan:

Nurses are miracle workers, but grafting testicles on someone is outside of our scope of practice.

Ouch!!!

And earlier today, one of NUHW’s RN leaders sent this email blast to healthcare workers across California, including SEIU’s members. Also, here's news coverage of Regan's debacle.

Tasty hears that Regan will be facing more smackdowns in the days ahead. 

Before launching his harebrained scheme, Regan somehow forgot that five SEIU unions in California happen to represent 16,000 Registered Nurses, including SEIU Locals 1021, 121, 721, 521 and 221. Oh... and these RNs are BIG big fans of the same ratio law that Regan is trying to undermine. Tasty wonders what the RNs think about SEIU just about now…

Second, Regan’s effort on behalf of some of California’s largest companies has further isolated Regan -- and SEIU -- from the rest of California’s labor movement. One person described Regan’s effort this way: “Labor should never put takeaways on the table for labor.” Another said: “What’s next? Will SEIU want to roll back laws on lunch breaks and overtime?” Tasty got other emails calling Regan “the hospital association’s toady” and “a disgrace.”

Lastly, Regan’s apparent role as a CHA lobbyist has focused new attention on his “visionary” partnership deal with the CHA, which Regan and the CHA signed last month. Regan has famously refused to allow SEIU-UHW’s own members to read the “ground-breaking” agreement, as SEIU's Steve Trossman described it. In fact, rank-and-file members of Regan’s own union filed disciplinary charges against Regan for refusing to share a copy of his secret pact with the CHA.

What does the deal say? It’s clear that the Bosses are buttering Regan’s bread. But how much butter? Is the CHA bankrolling Regan’s efforts to undermine caregivers and patients across the state?

It looks like “Wall Street Dave” has tied SEIU into so many knots that it’ll take at least a month to figure things out. That is… if Regan can extract himself from the Bosses’ bed for long enough to attend to such matters.

Tasty especially likes the following homemade graphic, sent by a reader, that captures workers’ attitudes about Dave Regan and his real bosses:

Top Stories of 2011

Here's a look at some of the top stories of 2011:

Crookin' at Kaiser:  In early 2011, two federal judges forced Kaiser Permanente to pay millions of dollars of wages it illegally withheld from 2,500 Southern California workers after they voted to leave SEIU and join NUHW. And in July, an Administrative Law Judge found SEIU guilty of violating federal labor law during the giant election covering 43,000 Kaiser workers. The NLRB ordered a re-run election that hasn’t been scheduled because it's investigating even more violations, including allegations that Kaiser illegally funded dozens of SEIU's election campaign staffers during the election. So, while 2010 was the year of massive law-breaking by Kaiser and SEIU, the year of 2011 will be remembered as pay-back time. As 2011 drew to a close, Kaiser and SEIU were so nervous about the re-run election that they launched a super defensive Wizard-of-Oz themed PR campaign!

Jumping off the Purple Bus:  In 2011, thousands of workers from California, Michigan and Canada voted to leave SEIU and join independent unions. In California, workers at a half-dozen hospitals and nursing homes voted to join NUHW, including workers at San Francisco's largest hospital. SEIU also suffered losses in San Diego and Los Angeles… and is facing a home-grown decertification effort by 1,200 unhappy members of SEIU-UHW in Northern California. In Canada, an independent union has won five elections against SEIU since July. Next? In early January, workers at a Michigan hospital will be voting on whether to leave SEIU and join NUHW.

Crookin’ at SEIU-UHW:  After denying Kaiser workers a fair election in 2010, Dave Regan continued to show his true colors in 2011. Federal records revealed how "Wall Street" Dave nearly tripled his salary to $300,000 after taking over SEIU-UHW… and how he handed out salaries of $150,000-$200,000 to Steve Trossman, Hal Ruddick and other SEIU staffers. Last summer, the U.S. Department of Labor released records revealing how Regan liquidated members' $4.1 million pension fund in March of 2011. And last fall, SEIU-UHW’s internal financial records showed how Regan has turned SEIU-UHW into a profit-making machine, apparently by hiking union dues and cutting representation for SEIU-UHW members.

Concessionary Caravan: SEIU’s concessionary bargaining was another big story in 2011 -- from Children’s Hospital in Oakland, Providence Tarzana Medical Center, University Medical Center (Las Vegas) and Washington Hospital Center (D.C.) to Santa Clara, San Diego and San Joaquin Counties. Perhaps the biggest story was the $217 million pension cut that SEIU-UHW negotiated for 13,000 workers at Catholic Healthcare West (CHW)... along with the campaign of lies that SEIU's Hal Ruddick engineered to implement the cuts.

Ballot Stuffing, Rigged Elections and Un-Representation: Another big story in 2011 was SEIU’s endless effort to rig elections and deny support for its own members – from Walnut Creek, San Francisco and Los Angeles to Saginaw and Muskegon in Michigan. One of the saddest stories involved SEIU staffers sitting on their hands while Kaiser officials fired a worker with 33 years on the job…

Ass-Kicking & Numbers-Taking:  Finally, NUHW members made headlines by launching aggressive bargaining campaigns and strikes at hospitals across California, including Salinas Valley Memorial Hospital and USC University Hospital. At Providence Tarzana Medical Center, NUHW members bargained a contract that’s far superior to SEIU’s contract for 600 RNs at the same facility. And at Kaiser Permanente, NUHW members have sparked a growing multi-union fight against Kaiser Permanente – including the largest strike in the U.S. healthcare industry of 2011 by 21,000 workers!   

P.S. Of course, the year wouldn’t have been complete without the cast of pathetic SEIU officials who added a certain comic relief to 2011:  Josie Mooney, Steve Matthews, Andy Stern, Tyrone Freeman, Michelle Ringuette, Bill Lloyd, Brandi Madewell, Dave Kieffer and JonPaul McClellan.

SEIU's Neneki Lee Joins Toto and the Wizard

Remember SEIU's Neneki Lee? She's the SEIU staffer from D.C. who was hand-picked to take over SEIU Local 99 in Los Angeles but then quit in a huff when Bill "The Hotel" Lloyd refused to give up his overpaid job and massive perks. After Neneki quit, SEIU officials placed her in a new job at the Coalition of Kaiser Permanente Unions.

Well, it looks like Neneki's new job includes pushing "Wizard of Oz"-themed propaganda on Kaiser workers across California. Check out this email from Neneki, who used Kaiser's internal email system to blast out the super-defensive piece that SEIU and Kaiser are hoping will somehow reverse workers’ growing disgust with the Labor-Management Partnership.

To: Tamara K Turner/CA/KAIPERM@Kaiperm, Tammy J Tuey/CA/KAIPERM@KAIPERM, Tamoe A Bloemhof/CA/KAIPERM@KAIPERM, ...

From: Neneki Lee <neneki.lee@unioncoalition.org>
Date: 12/07/2011 09:34AM
Subject: FW: Myths and realities of partnership--see the Fall Hank issue!

From: Tyra.L.Ferlatte@kp.org [mailto:Tyra.L.Ferlatte@kp.org]
Sent: Tuesday, December 06, 2011 3:43 PM
To: OLMP.CKPU.Steer.Cm-KPPO-ORD@kp.org; OLMP.CKPU.Staff-IREG@kp.org
Subject: Fw: Myths and realities of partnership--see the Fall Hank issue!

The Fall 2011 issue of Hank is out! Please do all you can to help bring this issue to people's attention. Below is a brief description and links to the stories, which you can also find (along with the cover image art) at LMPartnership.org/hank.


Partnership? Really? : Is the partnership just a way for unions to grab power? Or is it the opposite--a way for management to co-opt the unions? There's also the thought that partnership is an effective, sustainable way to improve quality and reduce costs. In the 14 years since the LMP was formed, a lot of beliefs have taken hold--myths and realities that the Fall 2011 issue of Hank explores in the cover story. Get a cup of coffee, start reading and wake up to the reality on this side of the rainbow. Features individuals and teams from Colorado; Georgia; Mid-Atlantic States; Fresno, Hayward, Richmond and San Jose medical centers in Northern California; and Woodland Hills in Southern California. (Coming soon: a new LMP video that explores more of these ideas -- watch for an announcement in LMP Flash!)

From the desk of Henrietta: Join the total health revolution

Editor's letter: Whose reality is it, anyway? Be sure to take the quiz and test your LMP savvy! 

All in a Day's Work cartoon: Working in partnership

Back cover poster: Path to Performance online toolkit 

Thanks,
Tyra Ferlatte

~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Tyra Lucile Ferlatte
Communications manager/Hank editor
Labor Management Partnership
Kaiser Permanente
1 Kaiser Plaza, 24 L, Oakland CA 94612
510.271.5943 office
8.423.5943 internal tieline
510.301.1020 mobile

What's next for Neneki? Well... even though she apparently loves promoting Toto and the Wizard, Tasty hears she’s eying a higher-paying job inside the purple partnership with Kaiser. Sources say that SEIU President Mary Kay Henry appears to be positioning Neneki to take over John August's job as the Executive Director of the Coalition of Kaiser Permanente Unions. 

Apparently, MKH has a history of hatin' on John August. In fact, in her earlier days, Mary Kay fired August from his job as Deputy Director when she became the head of SEIU's Healthcare Division. Rumor has it that Mary Kay wants to axe August and appears to be preparing Neneki to take his spot. Looks like things are gonna get violent on the "Other Side of the Rainbow"!