Election Brings Initial Loss for SEIU at Kaiser

SEIU may be on the brink of losing a unit of 343 Registered Nurses at Kaiser Moreno Valley Medical Center in Southern California.

Last Friday, nurses cast their votes in an NLRB election triggered by members of SEIU Local 121 who requested a formal vote so they can leave SEIU because they’re dissatisfied with the union.

On election night, a majority of the ballots supported leaving SEIU. The final vote tally won’t be finalized until three dozen “challenged” ballots are resolved. According to the NLRB, the vote tally at the end of election night was the following:

No Union:  120

SEIU Local 121:  111

Challenged Ballots:  37

SEIU Local 121 appears to be worried it’ll lose the election when the “challenged” ballots are finally counted. After the vote count, it filed a formal appeal with the NLRB in an effort to overturn the entire election.

The hospital’s nurses have been members of SEIU for more than 10 years but have been dissatisfied with SEIU for a long time, according to an RN who called the purple union “fear mongers.”

The vote couldn’t come at a worse time for SEIU. The Coalition of Kaiser Permanente Unions, which includes Local 121 and other SEIU locals, will go back to the bargaining table with Kaiser for the first time on April 17 to negotiate a “national agreement.”

Since 2009, SEIU unions at Kaiser have been led by SEIU-UHW president Dave Regan, who has given away massive cuts in health benefits and retirement plans at hospital chains across California. Kaiser now appears to be angling to win the same cuts for its workers. 

Regan has been a big proponent of “partnership” deals with Kaiser and even colluded with Kaiser executives to fight strikes by other Kaiser workers, including statewide walkouts by the National Union of Healthcare Workers and the California Nurses Association.

Last year, Kaiser’s partnership unions split into two after Regan reportedly attempted to seize more decision-making power inside the Coalition of Kaiser Permanente Unions. The unions fed up with Regan broke away and formed a new coalition called the Alliance of Health Care Unions, which negotiated a national agreement of its own in 2018.

“Pretty much everything he says is completely wrong”

SEIU-UHW's Dave Regan

SEIU-UHW’s Dave Regan suffered an interesting smackdown in a March 30 article featured in “Capital,” a New York publication (Dan Goldberg, "Health Union Split Complicates Nurses' Jobs Push,” Capital New York, March 30, 2015).

Remember how Regan partnered with the California Hospital Association in a failed effort in 2012 to roll back California's nurse-to-patient staffing ratio law?

At the time, RoseAnn DeMoro (Executive Director of the California Nurses Association) said the following about Diamond Dave:

“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.”

Well, this week’s article focuses on a similar split between the New York State Nurses Association and SEIU 1199 New York… but also includes a fiery exchange between the CNA and Regan.

Here's an excerpt from the article. (FYI, the “Greater New York Hospital Association” is the hospital industry's Chamber of Commerce in New York -- equivalent to the California Hospital Association.)

The same tensions that are now developing in New York are present in California where SEIU United Healthworkers West strongly opposes the staffing ratios that [NYSNA Executive Director Jill] Furillo helped put in place, and uses much the same rhetoric as GNYHA [the Greater New York Hospital Association].

“Sadly, California's mandated inflexible nurse staffing ratios have not improved patient care,” Dave Regan, president of SEIU United Healthcare Workers West, said in an email. “…This short-sighted approach is completely at odds with recent innovations in healthcare, which have seen significantly better patient outcomes – at lower costs -- by utilizing a team-based approach."

Charles Idleson, communications director for the California Nurses Association said Regan's statement was “laughable, dishonest and misrepresented life in California."

"Pretty much everything he says is completely wrong,” Idleson said. “He hates nurses. He hates our organization. He has a partnership with the hospital association in California.”

Idleson said Regan's close working relationship with the California Hospital Association blinded him from doing what's right for nurses and patients.

“He has given up trying to engage in typical, traditional labor activity,” Idleson said. “His entire approach is to cut massive deals with employers that benefit the top tier of his union even at the expense of his own members.”

That same charge could be leveled at [SEIU 1199 George] Gresham and [GNYHA President Ken] Raske, who both believe cooperation serves their memberships better than knock-down, drag-out fights.

Rank-and-File Pharmacists Deliver Overwhelming Rejection Vote to Kaiser's Execs

Check this out!

Tasty hears that the pharmacists at Kaiser’s hospitals and clinics in Southern California have overwhelmingly rejected a tentative deal for a three-year labor contract favored by Kaiser Permanente’s fatcat execs.

According to Tasty’s sources, the vote was 72% (“No”) to 28% ("Yes").

The rejection is significant because both Kaiser and the pharmacists’ union leaders were pushing pharmacists to accept the deal.

What union represents the pharmacists?

The “Guild for Professional Pharmacists” is a “non-partnership” union that’s historically been weak at the bargaining table. On May 29th, the Guild announced that it had reached a "tentative agreement" for a deal that would’ve cemented in place a variety of deep cuts to pharmacists’ benefits.

SEIU-UHW and the other "partnership" unions have already accepted one of these cuts (a cut to retiree health benefits). And Dave Regan has reportedly promised to push through the remaining cuts (pension and health benefits) during the Coalition for Kaiser Permanente Union’s next round of bargaining.

Meanwhile, the 23,000 members of NUHW and the CNA are actively fighting these same cuts… by, for example, waging several successful statewide strikes during which SEIU-UHW officials worked hand-in-hand with Kaiser’s execs to try to defeat the strikes.

That's what makes the pharmacists’ vote so interesting. 

Plus, observers say the “no” vote is especially

Kaiser's Ed Ellison

surprising because the Guild's membership has historically been very disengaged and easily swayed by Kaiser.

In recent days, Kaiser's execs made a special push to get pharmacists to vote "yes" on the deal. On June 10th, Kaiser’s Ben Chu (President of Kaiser's Southern California Region) and Ed Ellison (CEO of the Southern California Permanente Medical Group) sent out personalized letters to each and every Guild member that said the following:

…we thank you for your flexibility and responsiveness to help continue meeting the care needs of our members and patients throughout this period. Because of your role as an integral member of our care delivery team, we believe the entire region was very pleased when it was learned that Kaiser Permanente and the Guild for Professional Pharmacists had reached a tentative labor agreement… We hope that you and other Guild-represented Kaiser Permanente pharmacist ratify this offer. Its acceptance will ensure our organization's ability to sustainably meet our mission to provide our members and patients with high-quality, affordable healthcare, as well as make us a best place to work in healthcare.

Kaiser's request for "flexibility" is especially outrageous given that Kaiser is pocketing mega-wads of cash -- it made an unprecedented $1.1 billion in profits during the first three months of 2014 alone. 

Now... both Kaiser's execs and the Guild's leaders have pie in the face as pharmacists celebrate their rank-and-file rebellion. 

What's next? Stay tuned. 

SEIU's Dave Regan Peddles More Purple Lies at Dignity Health

SEIU's Dave Regan

Check out Dave Regan’s latest act of dishonesty.

Earlier this week, SEIU-UHW mailed a leaflet (see below) to thousands of union members employed at more than 30 Dignity Health hospitals in California. 

The leaflet says that Dignity plans to shut down an Education Fund that pays for career-ladder training courses for SEIU-UHW’s members. The fund lets workers to train for higher-paid jobs.

Here’s an excerpt from the leaflet:

Our SEIU-UHW Joint Employer Education Fund has provided training and recertification – helping both employees and Dignity Health. Yet, Dignity isn’t agreeing to continue this program. Unless Dignity management agrees to continue funding, Dignity Health employees will no longer be eligible for Education Fund programs as of January 1, 2014.

Sounds terrible. 

So what’s the real story?

Well, it turns out that SEIU-UHW's leaflet has carefully omitted a few, uh, minor details. Like the fact that Regan and his sidekick Hal Ruddick actually AGREED to let Dignity shut down the Education Fund!

Below, Tasty has posted a copy of the agreement that Regan and Ruddick signed during their sell-out contract negotiations with Dignity in June of 2012 which allows Dignity to shut down the training fund. Here’s an excerpt:

Article 4, Education Fund

The current Education Fund shall continue through December 2013… Thereafter… the Employer shall have no additional funding obligations for either fund... In the event no [alternative funding sources] are available, participation in the Joint Fund shall sunset unless otherwise agreed in the reopener. (emphasis added)

Regan, rather than coming clean about his deal to shutter the training fund, is trying to channel workers' anger away from SEIU-UHW's headquarters.

Quite disgraceful.

The Education Fund, which was set up by Sal Rosselli’s team during the decade before SEIU’s trusteeship, had successfully steered millions of Dignity/CHW’s dollars into training programs for workers.

Not any more.

The elimination of the training fund is just the latest in a string of devastating cuts that Regan has accepted from Dignity’s fatcat bosses since "Wall Street" Dave parachuted into California in 2009. 

In 2010, Regan and Ruddick lied to Dignity’s workers while they eliminated 14,000 workers' defined-benefit pension plan and replaced it with a 401(k)-like plan, thereby saving hundreds of millions of dollars for Dignity's bosses.

And in 2012, Regan allowed Dignity to freeze SEIU-UHW members’ wages and implement more benefit cuts... even though the company was making massive profits. 

The stunning scale of Regan’s sell-out deals now stands in even sharper relief since the California Nurses Association negotiated a recent contract for its 12,000 members at Dignity -- without any of the cuts, wage freezes or concessions that Regan swallows like so many drinks at his favorite bar.

Here are the documents.

   SEIU-UHW's Dishonest Leaflet on Dignity Health and a Training/Education Fund October 2013

   Signed contract agreement between SEIU-UHW and Dignity Health regarding Education Fund (Article 4) 6-22-12

New Contract Confirms It. Dave Regan Sold Out SEIU-UHW's Members at Dignity Health

Recent developments at Dignity Health have thousands of SEIU-UHW's members screaming, "WE GOT SOLD OUT!"

Here’s what's happening.

One year ago, Dave Regan and Hal Ruddick negotiated a pay freeze and massive benefit cuts for SEIU-UHW’s 14,000 members at Dignity Health.

During the negotiations, Regan allowed Dignity’s execs to:

• Freeze SEIU-UHW members’ pay
• Make additional cuts to workers’ stripped-down retirement benefits
• Cut healthcare coverage for workers’ dependents
• Stop making contributions to workers’ training fund
• Create a system of two-tiered retirement benefits at Dignity’s hospitals in San Francisco that’ll force newly hired workers into cheaper benefits, and
• Implement an invasive wellness program.

And get this. Regan accepted these cuts even though Dignity had just pocketed $1.4 billion in profits, For workers, it was clear as day that Duplicitous Dave had once again bedded down with their Boss.

Now, they have proof that's even more convincing than a used condom.

Earlier this month, the California Nurses Association announced it negotiated a new four-year contract covering 12,000 RNs at the same Dignity hospitals where SEIU-UHW’s members work.

No pay freeze for CNA's members! Instead, they won a 9% pay increase on top of the 2-3% increase that RNs got earlier this year.

Plus, the CNA didn’t accept any of Regan’s benefit cuts... and they even created a new benefit to cover on-the-job injuries that the CNA calls “the first in the nation for a major hospital system."

Here's an excerpt from the CNA's announcement, with an apparent dig at SEIU:

Registered nurses at one of the nation’s largest hospital systems, Dignity Health, have reached a major new tentative collective bargaining contract covering some 12,000 RNs at 28 Dignity hospitals in California and Nevada that nurses say is a sharp break from a concessionary spiral so prevalent among many employers in healthcare and other sectors.

At its center, the agreement guarantees no reduction in health coverage, expands guaranteed pensions and retiree health benefits, and establishes a dramatic new “RN Accident Prevention Program” program that NNU says is the first in the nation by a major hospital system that provides unprecedented supplemental insurance protection for nurses injured in workplace violence or by needle stick accidents...

Over the four years of the agreement, RNs will receive additional pay hikes of 9 percent, on top of a 2 or 3 percent pay increase (depending on location) earlier this year that is already in effect.

All the hospitals, including the Las Vegas St. Rose Dominican facilities, will now be a part of one master unit, with local bargaining maintained for individual facilities, with a system-wide RN bargaining council to work to further assure quality patient care and RN standards in all Dignity hospitals.

Tasty would love to be a fly on the wall when Regan makes his next visit to a Dignity hospital. Of course, don't expect that to happen any time soon. After all, Dave is soo busy dining with his buddy Duane Dauner at the California Hospital Association... how could he possibly find time to visit 14,000 Dignity workers who pay a fat portion of Dave's $300,000-a-year salary!

Pics from Kaiser Permanente Election

With the clock quickly running down on the the three-week balloting period, here are some pics from various Kaiser facilities in California.

NUHW supporters in front of Kaiser Walnut Creek Medical Center

Kaiser South Sacramento Medical Center... with Purple People in the Background

This looks like an altar created by one Kaiser worker

Another pic from Kaiser South Sacramento Medical Center

Next, here's a picture of SEIU-UHW organizer Amalia Woods-Drake at Kaiser Baldwin Park Medical Center. Amalia (or "Mali") posted this on her Facebook page. Apparently, Woods-Drake has secret fantasies about becoming a CIA agent... or perhaps a Human Resources official. In recent days, she's reportedly been following NUHW supporters inside the hospital, stalking them outside their departments, and even trying to monitor their computer activity. Here's Woods-Drake as she tries to use purple Wellness treats to entice workers to SEIU's table. Hmm.. don't think the vampire look helps a lot. Just saying...

SEIU-UHW Organizer Amalia Woods Drake at Kaiser Baldwin Park Medical Center

One worker's take on the Purple Palace plutocrats!

Judge Dumps SEIU-UHW’s Dirty Trick in Kaiser Election

As Tasty predicted, SEIU-UHW is employing more dirty tricks in the election at Kaiser Permanente. Today, one of SEIU's tricks was unceremoniously tossed onto the garbage by a judge in Northern California. 

Here’s what happened.

At Kaiser Walnut Creek Medical Center, SEIU-UHW apparently realized it was rapidly losing workers’ support. So SEIU hatched a scheme to try to lock out NUHW’s and CNA’s organizers from the hospital during the entire voting period.

How?

It’s a trick that many workers have seen before. An SEIU-UHW person instigates an aggressive confrontation with you… and then suddenly starts screaming, “Assault! Assault! Did you see that? S/he touched me… Assault, assault!”

It’s ridiculous and pathetic, but hey… it’s SEIU.

In this particular case, Linda Hunter -- an apparently well-known bully at Kaiser Walnut Creek Medical Center -- was the purple fabricator. Hunter is an SEIU-UHW shop steward and a member of SEIU-UHW’s Executive Board. And she’s reportedly super skilled at cutting secret deals with Kaiser’s managers -- like she did when she was recently SEIU-UHW’s Contract Specialist.   

Just before the ballots were mailed out, Hunter went up to a CNA organizer, ripped leaflets out of his hand, tore them up… and then claimed she’d been “assaulted!”

Hunter quickly filed complaints with Kaiser’s H.R. and the police, and even requested a temporary restraining order at the local courthouse. She then asked her partners in Kaiser’s H.R. Department to stop the CNA organizer from stepping foot inside the hospital during the voting period.

Kaiser’s H.R. Department tried to do its best to help Hunter. But there was one fatal flaw to SEIU’s plot -- Hunter’s claims were totally and completely fabricated. The police, the court and even Kaiser’s H.R. dismissed all of her bullsh*t claims.

This morning, a judge hurled Hunter’s bogus request for a restraining order into the judicial garbage can. Sources say Hunter scurried from the courthouse with her tail between her legs.

Hunter could now face trouble for perjuring herself and abusing the court’s limited resources, say sources. And... if she ever actually needs the court to do something for her, she’s gonna have a hard time getting a judge to believe her. All of Hunter’s perjured claims are now part of the public record.

Tasty wonders which of the geniuses over at SEIU-UHW instructed Hunter to put a match to her reputation. It could have been Carolyn Conter, an organizer who’s also part of the $100,000-a-year club at SEIU-UHW. Conter has been camped out at Kaiser Walnut Creek Medical Center for months, say sources.

Or it might’ve been Octavio Velarde, who was recently spotted slithering around on the floor inside the hospital. Here’s a pic. (That's Octavio hiding between the couch and the planter.)

What about SEIU-UHW’s ex-cop Elvis fraudster?  Unlikely, say Tasty’s sources. Apparently, Dave Regan has transferred him to a new assignment... perhaps he's now responsible for revamping SEIU’s Department of Fraud and Dirty Tricks!  

Labor Legend Dolores Huerta and Filipino-American Health Workers Ass'n Endorse NUHW

Dolores Huerta

As ballots arrive at the homes of 45,000 workers at Kaiser Permanente, two voices in the labor movement have thrown their support behind NUHW.

Dolores Huerta -- who co-founded the United Farm Workers Union with Cesar Chavez -- has been spotted at Kaiser hospitals in Southern California wearing a red NUHW t-shirt as she meets with workers. Here’s a statement from Huerta, who last year won a Presidential Medal of Freedom:

Kaiser workers organizing with NUHW-CNA are carrying forward the proud tradition of Cesar Chavez and me with the United Farm Workers, of standing up for their rights. I urge you to be part of Cesar's legacy by voting for NUHW-CNA.

And in a second endorsement, the Filipino-American Health Workers Association (FAHWA) issued a written statement urging Kaiser workers to vote for NUHW and sharply criticizing SEIU-UHW for colluding with the hospital industry to cut workers’ benefits, implement layoffs, and undermine California’s landmark safe-staffing laws. Here’s an excerpt from FAHWA’s statement, with the full version below.

The Filipino-American Health Workers Association (FAHWA) views with deep concern the collusion of California Hospital Association and the management of SEIU-UHW, led by Dave Regan...

FAHWA condemns in equally strong terms the collusion of the healthcare industry and Dave Regan to water down contractual standards... The collusion will enable health corporations to set in place various schemes of labor flexibilization that will ultimately result in unsafe working conditions, loss of job security, unsafe patient care, and the loss of pensions, benefits and jobs. This collusion is already hurting the interests of SEIU-UHW members...

In stark contrast to SEIU-UHW's sell out of its workers, FAHWA commends the efforts of the National Union of Healthcare Workers (NUHW) and the California Nurses Association (CNA) to preserve the gains and standards that its membership and union have won in the past. Both unions have stood their ground against the attacks of the healthcare industry against the health workers and their patients.

FAHWA calls on the general membership of SEIU-UHW, in particular the 15,000 Filipino-American nurses and other healthcare workers in Kaiser Permanente, to repudiate the collusion of California Hospital Association and Dave Regan's SEIU-UHW-led management and to support NUHW-CNA; and join the ranks of health workers and their organizations that genuinely advance the interests to uphold, promote, protect and defend their rights and of their patients.

   The Filipino-American Health Workers' Association's statement of support for NUHW in the NLRB election at K...