NLRB Overturns Illegal Unionization Scheme between SEIU-UHW and SoCal Hospital

The NLRB has found SEIU-UHW officials guilty of rigging an illegal unionization scheme with HCA, the nation’s largest hospital corporation, which forced 200 Southern California hospital workers to join SEIU earlier this year.

The findings -- which are documented in an official NLRB notice posted below -- recall a similar episode at Chapman Medical Center. In August of 2012, the NLRB reversed the results of a union-representation election for 220 of Chapman’s workers after determining that SEIU-UHW had illegally rigged the vote count in collusion with hospital executives.

SEIU-UHW’s track record of fraudulent elections raises obvious concerns as Dave Regan tries to negotiate a sweetheart unionization pact with the California Hospital Association that would allow SEIU-UHW to unionize 100,000 workers without any employer resistance but would force the workers into cheap, pre-negotiated contracts that ban strikes.

So what happened at the HCA hospital?

After HCA purchased Thousands Oaks Surgical Hospital, SEIU-UHW cut a deal with HCA executives that forced the hospital’s 200 Registered Nurses and other staff to join SEIU without a vote and forced them to immediately begin paying dues to SEIU.

In May, the hospital’s workers filed charges with the NLRB alleging that HCA executives and Dave Regan colluded to force the 200 workers into SEIU.

After an investigation, the NLRB overturned the unionization scheme and forced SEIU-UHW to post the following notice informing workers of their right to a democratic vote that allows them to elect the union of their choice.

   SEIU-UHW's NLRB Posting Notice resulting from illegal unionization scheme at an HCA Hospital (Thousand Oaks...

 

California Hospital Workers Vote to Join NUHW!

This just in. On Friday, a group of 300 hospital workers in Central California voted to join NUHW. The workers at Mee Memorial Hospital in King City were previously “non-union” and voted 129 (NUHW) to 126 (No Union) in Friday’s NLRB election. The outcome won’t be final until four challenged ballots are resolved.

Tasty hears there's an interesting 'back story' to the election. Apparently, the hospital’s workers have been watching NUHW’s successful bargaining campaigns at nearby hospitals, including Salinas Valley Memorial Hospital, and decided they wanted to join NUHW. SEIU was not on the ballot and has never represented the hospital’s workers. More on that later.

John De Groot, Buster

Sources say the outcome of the vote was close because the hospital's execs waged a nasty anti-union campaign headed by a union-busting consulting firm called De Groot and Associates. The head of the firm -- John De Groot -- formerly worked for Modern Management, a notorious union-busting firm based in Chicago. That’s the same firm where Martin Levitt, the famous author of “Confessions of a Union Buster,” worked. (For those unfamiliar with Levitt, here’s a five-minute video where he talks about the tactics he used during his 19 years on “the dark side.”)

Interestingly, De Groot is also a member of the board of directors at Sutter Medical Center of Santa Rosa, one of the companies that SEIU-UHW's Dave Regan has climbed into bed with.

At Mee Memorial Hospital, De Groot unleashed an onslaught of union busting. During the weeks leading up to Friday’s election, De Groot personally conducted one-on-one “captive audience” meetings to pressure workers to vote “no.” He also oversaw an illegal strategy whereby the hospital awarded pay increases to workers -- of as much as $3 an hour -- just days before the election in an effort to dissuade them from joining NUHW.

Observers tell Tasty that the election is significant because it shows workers’ attraction to NUHW’s aggressive approach to fighting for its members. Meanwhile, Dave Regan’s SEIU-UHW is systematically giving away the store to the bosses -- destroying workers’ pensions and health insurance benefits, and allowing mega-profitable companies like Kaiser Permanente to lay off large numbers of the union’s members.

That helps explain why SEIU-UHW has had virtually zero success in attracting non-union workers to join the Purple Team. In fact, Regan and Co. couldn’t even convince a majority of the workers at Chapman Medical Center to join SEIU even though SEIU-UHW enjoyed a card-check agreement and neutrality from the employer. 

So, when workers refused to support SEIU-UHW, Regan colluded with the boss to falsify the card-check results and then lied to the hospital's workers. When workers later complained to the NLRB, the agency subpoenaed the card-check results and discovered SEIU’s illegal vote-rigging scheme. Here’s an article from the BNA that describes this notorious episode.  

Once again, congrats to the workers at Mee Memorial Hospital!

Press: SEIU's Dave Regan Is Giving away the Store

Dave Regan's notorious concessionary bargaining at SEIU-UHW is getting increasing press attention across the U.S. Check out the following excerpt from an article that appeared in "In These Times" several days ago:

Bargaining for De-cert Protection

Critics of this non-transparent, concessionary approach now cite United Healthcare Workers-West, SEIU's third largest affiliate, as the latest practitioner of a debased form of Bargain to Organize. Instead of mobilizing its members like SEIU's Illinois Healthcare affiliate did at Help at Home, UHW has bargained to keep its existing dues-payers from escaping to the new National Union of Healthcare Workers (NUHW).

Earlier this year, UHW was faced with the defection of 750 workers at Seton Medical Center to NUHW. So the incumbent union made a side deal with the hospital owner, the Daughters of Charity, which consolidated five separate bargaining units into a single one covering 3,000 employees. This tentative agreement--designed to make decertification more difficult--was made contingent on subsequent union approval of pension and medical plan changes.

When these proposed givebacks were revealed in late April, Daughters of Charity workers discovered that they will now have a 401(k) account rather than be covered by a defined benefit pension plan; they will pay 25 percent of the monthly premiums for previously free PPO medical coverage; their out-of-pocket costs for medical plan utilization (doctor visits, prescriptions, etc.) will double; and workers who fail to meet various "Wellness Program" standards for personal healthiness will pay 20 percent more for the cost of their insurance premiums.

To get these concessions approved, UHW conducted a rushed two-day ratification vote that began less than 12 hours after a settlement was announced. (The SEIU constitution requires 3-days advance notice of such votes; workers at Daughters of Charity got only nine hours.) According to workers who complained to SEIU president Mary Kay Henry, UHW reps refused to provide them with copies of the tentative agreement. Disgruntled Daughters of Charity workers continue to organize for NUHW and expect an NLRB re-run of the election they narrowly lost at Seton Medical Center in March.

Employee Free Choice? 

At Chapman Hospital, a non-union hospital in southern California, UHW/SEIU engaged in organizing misconduct that publicly discredits the very concept of card check--playing into the hands of the rightwing, corporate opponents of Employee Free Choice Act. UHW announced last winter that 220 workers had formed a new bargaining unit after a card-check process agreed to by management. In June, however, the NLRB issued an unfair labor practice complaint against Chapman and UHW, charging that the hospital had recognized the union without real majority support. To avoid a hearing, both parties signed a settlement earlier this month that removed UHW/SEIU as the bargaining representative of the hospital workers.

Here's a link to the full article entitled "Bargain to Organize: From Boon to Embarrassment" by Steve Early.

Press: SEIU-UHW Rigged Card-Check Election with Boss’s Help

Remember Tasty’s earlier post about SEIU-UHW’s rigged election? The NLRB caught Dave Regan red-handed after he rigged a card-check election -- with the Boss's help -- for 220 hospital workers at Chapman Medical Center in Southern California.   

Well, here’s a one-page article from the Bureau of National Affairs that contains additional news about the scandal. 

According to the article, the hospital workers also charged Regan with accepting illegal assistance from hospital executives. And they charged SEIU-UHW with being an “employer-dominated union.” No wonder the Boss wanted SEIU to represent the hospital's workers!

Here’s the article:
BNA-ChapmanNlrbSettlementSEIU-UHW08-09-12

NLRB Exposes Another Election Fraud by SEIU’s Dave Regan

(Fyi - Tasty has added a copy of the settlement language at the bottom.)

In a decision announced several days ago, the NLRB has reportedly reversed the results of a fraudulent union-representation election after determining that Dave Regan’s SEIU-UHW illegally rigged the vote count in collusion with company executives.  

Here’s what happened.

Eight months ago, SEIU-UHW’s website triumphantly announced that a majority of the 220 workers at Chapman Medical Center -- a non-union hospital in Southern California -- had elected to join SEIU-UHW through a card-check process.

Soon afterwards, some of the hospital’s workers filed charges with the NLRB. They said that a majority of the workers hadn’t signed cards and didn’t want to be represented by Regan’s SEIU-UHW.

So who was telling the truth?

Eventually, the NLRB subpoenaed records from the vote count. And guess what? They found that a majority of the workers did not sign cards to join SEIU-UHW. Regan and the hospital bosses had simply fabricated the results and then lied to the workers.

On June 27, the NLRB issued a formal complaint against SEIU-UHW and the hospital’s executives. The complaint alleges that the SEIU and its business partner forced workers to accept an unwanted union, SEIU-UHW, as workers' bargaining representative.

On August 3, Regan and the Boss signed an out-of-court settlement with the NLRB rather than face a full-blown hearing in front of a judge. The settlement removes SEIU-UHW as the bargaining representative for the hospital's workforce. 

So why would the Boss agree to rig the results in favor of SEIU-UHW?

Well, think about it. If you’re a greedy boss, wouldn’t it be quite convenient to install a company union to do all your dirty work? That way, the company union could do things like, umm, slash the pensions for 14,000 workers at Dignity Health and then lie to workers about the cuts? Or gut the pension and health benefits for thousands of workers at the Daughters of Charity Health System and then ram the concessions down workers’ throats through an undemocratic and unconstitutional ratification vote.

With Regan’s most recent fraud (don't forget Fresno and Kaiser Permanante), Duplicitous Dave has accomplished a stunning “two-fer.”

Regan not only defrauded workers and shattered their trust into a thousand tiny pieces, but he also managed to deliver a serious blow to the efforts of the AFL-CIO and unions across the U.S. to advance "card check" or "majority sign-up" as an improved election procedure for workers. Single-handedly, Regan handed a massive P.R. coup to the right wing, who are already using the news of SEIU’s rigged card-check election to campaign against card-check efforts like the Employee Free Choice Act.

Way to go, Dave!

Here's a copy of the out-of-court settlement and "posting notice" that SEIU-UHW is required to sign by the NLRB. The hospital's executives are required to sign a similar agreement.
NLRB Settlement for SEIU-UHW regarding Rigged Election at Chapman Medical Center (California) August 2012