SEIU-UHW’s Dave Regan Withdraws Ballot Initiative Targeting Kaiser Permanente

As Tasty’s internal sources predicted, Dave Regan has withdrawn his California ballot initiative targeting Kaiser Permanente, according to an e-mail distributed today by Kaiser executives to employees.

The e-mail, sent by Kaiser’s Chief Human Resources Officer Chuck Columbus, states:

We wanted to let you know that the leadership of SEIU-UHW has notified Kaiser Permanente that the union has withdrawn its proposed ballot initiative that would have affected Kaiser Permanente if it became law.

We acknowledge the union’s decision to set aside the ballot initiative. There is more work to be done in reaffirming our Labor Management Partnership, and recommitting to our core principles of partnership, and that work is underway.

One day before the announcement, Regan launched a hastily choreographed maneuver aimed at trying to convince SEIU-UHW’s members that he’s not weak and isn’t in fact scurrying away from a fight with Kaiser with his tail between his legs. 

With much chest-pumping, Regan yesterday announced that SEIU-UHW will hold “protests” at 32 Kaiser hospitals between February 14 and March 9. It’s unclear what the “protests” will be.

What’s behind Regan’s “protest” announcement?

Since last summer, Regan has been telling SEIU-UHW members that his ballot initiative is the secret weapon that’ll prevent Kaiser from implementing cuts to SEIU-UHW members’ wage scales for future hires in California’s Central Valley. Now that Regan is dropping the ballot initiative, workers will inevitably ask: “Did Dave just cave into the boss? Did he just throw us under the bus? If we no longer have a ballot initiative, then what’s the plan?”

Will workers actually buy Regan’s damage-control maneuver? It remains to be seen.

Better yet… does Regan actually have a “Plan B” to confront Kaiser’s demand for wage cuts?

Lastly, will Regan ever have a successful ballot initiative... which he's spent tens of millions of union members' dues money on, according to Politico?

What's next?

It appears that Regan wants to rejoin the partnership unions’ 2018 national bargaining process, which is scheduled to begin next month. However, Regan and SEIU-UHW’s members will join the negotiations with a much diminished stature after Regan torched relationships with other partnership unions and burned a bunch of bridges with his former pals at Kaiser. For example, for months Regan has demanded that the other partnership unions allow him to take control of the national bargaining, which was strongly resisted by the unions.

Here’s a copy of the e-mail sent today by Kaiser’s Chuck Columbus:

SEIU-UHW Revises its Ballot Initiative as Kaiser Permanente Fires Back

 Dave Regan and KP's VP of HR Chuck Columbus during friendlier times

Here’s the latest on Dave Regan’s ballot-initiative battle with his erstwhile pals at Kaiser Permanente.

It appears that Regan’s team bungled the writing of the ballot initiative. More than a month after SEIU-UHW filed its initiative with the California Attorney General’s office, Regan’s lawyers notified the Attorney General that, umm, they were changing the initiative’s language.

On December 22, Regan’s lawyers sent a letter (see below) with “amended text” that that includes a bunch of changes and brand-new language that boost the length of the proposed initiative by 50%.

On January 22, the Attorney General’s office issued “title and summary” to SEIU-UHW’s ballot initiative.

The following day, Kaiser attacked the initiative in materials posted on its website.

Kaiser’s materials hint at one of the many obstacles SEIU-UHW will face. 

If Regan is successful in winning a very expensive election campaign to convince California voters to approve the initiative, the initiative could block Kaiser from increasing its monthly insurance premiums – which means no new money for pay increases and pension contributions for Kaiser workers, including SEIU-UHW’s members. Here’s an excerpt from the materials that Kaiser posted earlier this week:

The official analysis by the California Department of Finance and Legislative Analyst Office… confirms the negative effects that the measure would have on Kaiser Permanente. If enacted into law, the measure could… decrease the funds needed to support employee benefits including pensions and post-retirement medical benefits…”

Now... many unions -- including the hotel workers -- have run successful boycott campaigns in which unionized workers threaten the revenue stream of their own companies. But this requires high levels of organization among workers so they’re willing to threaten the so-called hand that feeds them. Are SEIU-UHW’s members well organized?

Another obstacle: Can Regan convince California voters to approve the initiative even as Kaiser (and presumably other insurance companies) mount a well-funded campaign to oppose it?

Finally, here’s one more excerpt from the materials Kaiser published this week:

What Is Really Going On Here?

The backers of this initiative claim their measure is needed because too many health plans are stockpiling cash while continuing to raise rates. But this initiative is written to leave out almost every health plan in California. And the one hit hardest, Kaiser Permanente, is hurt because of its hospital system, not because it has too much cash.

The truth is that this initiative was sponsored by the leadership of SEIU-UHW as retaliation after Kaiser Permanente refused to agree to the union’s inappropriate demands involving an inter-union dispute. In late 2017, SEIU-UHW requested that Kaiser Permanente bargain with them as the sole representative of the Coalition of Kaiser Permanente Unions (“the Coalition”). It would have been inappropriate — and a violation of our agreements with the Coalition — for Kaiser Permanente to negotiate with SEIU-UHW as the sole representative for the Coalition without explicit consent of the other nearly three dozen Coalition unions. When Kaiser Permanente refused SEIU-UHW’s request, SEIU-UHW filed this ballot initiative.

   SEIU-UHW's Revised Ballot Initiative Targeting Kaiser Permanente: December 22, 2017 by tastysternburger on Scribd

Dave Regan’s Ballot Initiative Knocks SEIU-UHW out of Kaiser Partnership

Here’s some interesting news from California.

Kaiser Permanente has blocked SEIU-UHW from participating in upcoming bargaining with its “partnership” unions after SEIU-UHW’s Dave Regan filed a statewide ballot initiative targeting Kaiser, according to an internal memo issued by Kaiser executives last week. A copy of the memo along with the ballot initiative is below.

What’s going on?

Here’s what Tasty has learned so far.

Apparently, Regan has become increasingly marginalized by Kaiser’s execs and by the other “partnership” unions in the Coalition of Kaiser Permanente Unions (the “Coalition”). The Coalition, which is made up of 28 unions representing 100,000 Kaiser workers across the US, bargains a national contract with Kaiser once every three years.

In late 2015, Regan sued Greg Adams, a top Kaiser exec, who served on the board of the California Hospital Association (CHA) and was caught up in Regan’s failed ballot initiative targeting the CHA.

Then, in August of 2017, Regan reportedly pissed off the other partnership unions when he tried to change the Coalition’s bylaws in order to give SEIU-UHW virtually all of the power to call the shots during the next round of national bargaining, which begins early next year. Other unions, including AFSCME, rejected Regan’s proposal, which sparked a shouting match during a three-day meeting of the partnership unions in Portland, Oregon.

Apparently, Regan has burnt turf not only with AFSCME but with SEIU locals in both Oregon and Colorado, including his erstwhile buddy Meg Niemi.

And another source reports that Regan no longer has the support of Hal Ruddick, the Executive Director of the Coalition. Ruddick is a former hack staffer at SEIU-UHW whom Regan got appointed to his position at the Coalition. Later, Regan reportedly attempted to have Ruddick fired, but was unsuccessful -- which hasn’t made Regan super popular at the Coalition’s offices.

After failing to convince the partnership unions to give him more power, Regan asked Kaiser’s execs for their help. In an internal memo issued last week, Kaiser's Senior Vice President and Chief Human Resources Officer Chuck Columbus wrote:

…for months now, SEIU-UHW’s leadership has insisted in private meetings that Kaiser Permanente management negotiate with SEIU-UHW as the sole representative of the Coalition in upcoming National Bargaining. In these meetings, SEIU-UHW’s leadership has threatened that if we refused their demands, they would put an initiative on the California ballot that would adversely affect Kaiser Permanente… We said no to SEIU-UHW leadership’s demand.

Meanwhile, Kaiser reportedly has told Regan it plans to propose cuts to SEIU-UHW members’ wage structure in Northern California.

Currently, SEIU-UHW’s members from San Francisco to Sacramento to Fresno are covered by a single pay scale.

Regan and Kaiser Senior VP Chuck Columbus

Kaiser’s execs told Regan they will propose cuts such that future SEIU-UHW hires in Sacramento would earn 10% less than those in the San Francisco Bay Area, while new hires in Fresno would earn 20% less than the Bay Area.

Regan, seeing takeaways on the table and little power inside the CKPU or with Kaiser’s execs, decided to turn to his old stand-by tactic of a statewide ballot initiative. On November 16, he filed an initiative with the California Attorney General (“Accountability in Managed Health Insurance Act”) which would prohibit Kaiser from raising its monthly insurance rates until Kaiser’s capital reserves drop below a certain level.

Kaiser’s response?

Kaiser removed SEIU-UHW from next year’s partnership bargaining, saying Regan’s ballot initiative violates the terms of its partnership deal with SEIU-UHW. Kaiser’s memo says:

In sponsoring this destructive initiative, SEIU-UHW leadership has violated both the spirit and the actual terms of the agreements that set up our valued Labor Management Partnership. Accordingly, we today have informed the leadership of SEIU-UHW that we are withdrawing certain privileges of Partnership from SEIU-UHW due to the union’s outrageous conduct. Among the privileges we have withdrawn is participation of SEIU-UHW in 2018 National Bargaining. 

Kaiser’s memo then takes a shot at Regan and his ballot initiatives:

Over the past few years, SEIU-UHW leadership has used the initiative process to force concessions from various employers. All these efforts have failed. If SEIU-UHW goes ahead with spending the millions of dollars it will take to get this initiative on the ballot, we are confident that once California voters understand the impact on Kaiser Permanente, they will join us to defeat this measure in November.

These developments are quite a turnaround for Regan, who has prided himself on being Kaiser execs’ lapdog.

For example, in 2012 Regan convinced the partnership unions to adopt an invasive corporate wellness program that allows Kaiser to peer inside workers’ bodies and collect blood samples and other “biometric data” so Kaiser can monitor workers’ weight, blood pressure, smoking rate, cholesterol levels and personal lives.

In another episode, Regan directed SEIU-UHW staffers (including Greg Maron and Jared Mayhugh) to work as strikebreakers alongside Kaiser managers to stop SEIU-UHW members from joining strikes by NUHW and the California Nurses Association (CNA) at Kaiser.

And then there are Regan’s famous “wellness walks.” Instead of picket signs and picket lines, Regan gave purple pedometers to SEIU-UHW members and told them to lose weight so as to reduce Kaiser’s health insurance costs.

Regan quickly became known as Kaiser’s Richard Simmons.

If Regan has been such a loyal lapdog to Kaiser’s execs, why is Kaiser now seeking takeaways from Regan?

One observer put it this way: “Because they can.” This observer points to Regan’s failure to build a rank-and-file organization inside Kaiser facilities that can fight takeaways.

A similar explanation comes from RoseAnn DeMoro, the Executive Director of the CNA. At a rally several years ago when Regan was in the throes of his lovefest with California hospital execs, DeMoro predicted that the execs would eventually kick Regan to the curb. “These corporations will treat Regan like they do every class traitor. They’ll toss him aside once he’s no longer useful to them.” (Tasty is paraphrasing DeMoro here.)

The fact that Kaiser is coming after Regan for wage cuts in Northern California is quite a stunning historical reversal.

In the late 1980s, Kaiser unilaterally imposed a similar multi-tiered wage structure across Northern California, which Kaiser workers tried to overturn by waging a seven-week strike. Afterwards, Sal Rosselli was elected president of the union and, during the next 15 years, he and his team dramatically expanded and strengthened the union and successfully eliminated Kaiser’s multi-tiered wage structure in 2005. In fact, Rosselli went even further, negotiating improvements to Southern California Kaiser workers’ wage structures to help close the wage gap with their Northern California co-workers. (Kaiser’s Southern California workers earn substantially less than those in Northern California.)

Since parachuting into California in 2009, Regan has taken no steps whatsoever to address the lower wage rates paid to SEIU-UHW members at Kaiser’s Southern California facilities. And he’s now facing a push by Kaiser execs to re-impose the multi-tiered wage structure that Rosselli successfully eliminated back in 2005.

                                                     

In other words, Regan is poised to possibly deliver a massive failure to tens of thousands of Kaiser workers.

What’s next?

 

Hal Ruddick, the Coalition's Executive Director

The Coalition unions have been conducting surveys and electing bargaining committees to participate in national bargaining, which begins early next year. SEIU-UHW, of course, will be on the sidelines. It won’t bargain with Kaiser until 2019, when its “local union agreement” with Kaiser expires on September 30, 2019.

As far as Regan’s ballot initiative, once it’s cleared by the California Attorney General, SEIU-UHW will need to spend millions of dollars to collect enough voter signatures to qualify the measure for the November 2018 ballot.

By the way, Regan also has filed at least nine other ballot initiatives for the November 2018 ballot, which target Stanford Health Care, DaVita Inc., Watsonville Community Hospital, and Pomona Valley Hospital Medical Center. Regan’s increasing reliance on ballot initiatives raises an interesting question about whether his corporate targets will band together to try to block his use of ballot initiatives as bargaining leverage, as an earlier piece of California legislation appeared to do.

What do Kaiser workers say about Regan’s ballot initiative?

According to Tasty’s contacts, workers had no idea their union’s president had even filed a ballot initiative until Kaiser officials sent them the memo below.

It’s another symptom of Regan’s so-called “innovative 21^st century unionism,” which relies on hiring lawyers to file ballot initiatives rather than organizing workers to build workplace power.

   Kaiser Permanente's memo to employees on SEIU-UHW's Ballot Initiative:12.12.2017 by tastysternburger on Scribd

   SEIU-UHW's Ballot Initiative against Kaiser Permanente in California by tastysternburger on Scribd

Update on Kaiser Partnership Bargaining

What happened at this week’s "kickoff” of labor negotiations between Kaiser Permanente and the "partnership unions”?

Well… there wasn't any actual "bargaining."

After a three-day weekend of prancing around Disneyland with Kaiser execs, the partnership unions spent Monday and Tuesday in a "bargaining kickoff.” On Monday, Kaiser’s execs and union officials made speeches interspersed with "Instant Recesses” and "Thrive Activities" to keep participants awake.

On Tuesday, the unions were trained on how to do “interest-based bargaining.”

As far as speeches, sources say Chuck Columbus (Senior VP and Chief Human Resources Officer for Kaiser) was the first speaker and offered a gloom-and-doom picture about the vague, but very dangerous, "challenges" lurking in Kaiser’s future.

Don’t trust Chuck.

He formerly served as the VP of Human Resources at Ford Motor Co., where he eliminated the defined-benefit pension plan for new hires and forced them into a 401(k) plan. He also implemented a two-tiered wage system that pays new Ford employees only half as much as regular employees. This pushed Ford’s profits through the roof.

In 2009, Kaiser's then-CEO George Halvorson and COO Bernard Tyson recruited Columbus to do the same thing at Kaiser… with the assistance of SEIU’s newly implanted trustee from the East Coast, Dave Regan.

A year ago, Regan and Columbus gave a joint presentation to the California Public Employees Retirement System where Regan talked about cutting workers’ benefits if they don't meet the requirements of Kaiser's wellness program. You can see a video of Regan's comments on this earlier post.

 

Dave Regan with his buddy, Chuck Columbus, in Jan. 2014

At Monday's meeting, Columbus (who earns $1.5 million a year at Kaiser) told workers about the vague challenges facing Kaiser in the future, but forgot to mention one of the biggest challenges -- where to stash Kaiser's billions of profits. Last year alone, Kaiser pocketed profits of $3.1 billion.

Kaiser's Ray Baxter spoke about Kaiser's corporate wellness program, which has been "re-branded" as "Total Health.” 

Another speech had this intriguing title:  "One KP.”

A bevy of bloviating fatcats took the stage including Dennis Dabney (Senior VP of Labor Relations and Labor Management Partnership for Kaiser), Jim Pruitt (VP of Labor Management Partnership and Labor Relations for The Permanente Federation), Artie Southam (Executive VP of Kaiser’s Health Plan Operations), Hal Ruddick (Executive Director of the Coalition of Kaiser Permanente Unions), and Dave Regan.

Lastly, here's a development that speaks volumes about the partnership bargaining. According to Kaiser workers in Northern California, Kaiser is currently laying off SEIU-UHW members with the assistance of SEIU-UHW officials. 

At Kaiser Vallejo Medical Center in Northern California, SEIU-UHW members with as many as 30 years of seniority are receiving layoff notices. They say workers are getting layoff notices without regard to seniority lists. And workers say SEIU-UHW is totally AWOL... even after workers make phone calls and send e-mails to Union Reps and SEIU-UHW’s headquarters in Oakland.

Again... these layoffs are happening as bargaining is underway. And as Kaiser's profits and membership are booming.

Where’s SEIU-UHW?

In the boss's pocket.

Leaked Document from Kaiser Partnership Bargaining… but Rotated!

After some technical difficulties, Tasty was able to rotate the leaked internal document from Kaiser Permanente’s "partnership" bargaining so it’s more readable.  Here it is.

  Kaiser Permanente’s 2015 National Bargaining with the Coalition of Kaiser Permanente Unions: Labor Manageme... by tastysternburger

SEIU-UHW's Next Steps in Wellness Wonderland?

SEIU-UHW’s Dave Regan and Fortune 500 companies like WalMart have become the nation's leading proponents of corporate wellness programs.

Where are these invasive programs headed?

Check out a recently released "Special Executive Report" entitled "Handling an Aging and Obese Workforce.”

Here’s how the publisher, Executive Business Briefings, describes the special report (see full text below):

Today's workforce is older and more obese than ever before. And wellness programs that are supposed to tackle these issues simply aren't enough. So how do businesses deal with the increased health and safety risks these employees face?

The company’s pitch goes on:

this fast-read executive report gives you actionable tips and techniques you can use today to deal with older, overweight employees.

•           85% of injured workers are overweight: How to help them slim down

•           Why workers don't participate in wellness programs - and how to change it

•           Incentives: What works, what doesn't and how to incorporate them into a program

Executive Business Briefings promises to give fatcat corporate executives a variety of “actionable tactics and proven strategies” to “handle” their “aging and obese workforces.”

Tasty bets you'll soon find these “actionable tactics” at your nearest SEIU office or Kaiser Permanente's Labor Management Partnership.

Last month, Dave Regan sat side-by-side with Chuck Columbus, the Chief of Kaiser Permanente’s Human Resources Department, and announced that SEIU-UHW members will receive benefit cuts unless they lose weight… which was famously tape-recorded by a source.

Here's the description of "Handling an Aging and Obese Workforce."
 

   Promotional materials for a "Special Executive Report" entitled "Handling an Aging and Obese...

Recording: SEIU-UHW's Dave Regan Tells Kaiser Workers -- 'Lose Weight or Lose Benefits'

SEIU's Regan and Kaiser's Columbus

Check this out.

Last week, Dave Regan sat side-by-side with the head of Kaiser Permanente’s Human Resources Department and announced that SEIU-UHW members will receive benefit cuts unless they lose weight.

It happened at a meeting of the California Public Employees Retirement System (CalPERS) in Monterey, California on January 14th. Luckily, a resourceful observer recorded Regan’s comments (see below).

So… why was Regan at the CalPERS meeting?

He and Chuck Columbus (Kaiser’s Senior VP and Chief H.R. Officer) gave a presentation to the organization’s board of directors about wellness programs.

That’s where Regan dropped his bomb:  that SEIU-UHW members will get benefit cuts unless they lose weight.

What's significant about Regan’s comments?

First, pay special attention to the “story” that Regan tells about Kaiser’s so-called need to cut costs. It's the Boss's "story." And Regan is actively pushing it on workers and the public. For example, Regan never mentions Kaiser's unprecedented $10.9 billion in profits. Or the CEO’s $10 million salary. Or the 8 pension plans for Kaiser’s top execs.

Instead, Regan says fat workers are the problem.

Secondly, by making his comments in front of Kaiser's chief negotiator (Chuck Columbus), Regan has laid down a brand-new bargaining position that directly links workers’ benefits to their weight. Hard to walk this one back. And it’s a stunning position, especially when you consider that Regan is talking about eliminating benefits that have been in Kaiser workers’ contract for more than 50 years.

So why did Reagan do this?

In Tasty’s mind, there are two possible explanations.

(1) Regan is an idiotic fool in addition to being in the Boss's pocket. Anyone who has attended "Bargaining 101" would know that a negotiator never concedes ground like this -- especially in front of your adversary (Columbus), who was specifically recruited to Kaiser to slash workers' benefits like he did at Ford Motor Co.

(2) Regan has already secretly agreed to cut workers benefits during the next round of negotiations, and he’s simply looking for a way to blame workers for the cuts by setting them up to fail.

Here's the clip.