SEIU's Coutni Pugh Deploys Purple Parachute, Lands Gig at Consulting Firm

So what happened to Courtni Pugh after she rigged a ramrod contract-ratification vote covering 23,000 staffers at Los Angeles Unified School District… and then promptly resigned as SEIU Local 99’s Executive Director so she could high-tail it out of town before the proverbial sh*t hit the fan?

According to “Politico,” Pugh has taken a job with Hilltop Public Solutions, a DC-based political consulting firm that does tons of business with SEIU.

On July 31st, a “Politico” posting included a blurb that began this way:

FIRST LOOK - Hilltop adds SEIU's Courtni Pugh -- Forthcoming release: "Putting the finishing touches a year of major growth, Hilltop Public Solutions [will announce] today that veteran California organizer and political strategist Courtni Pugh has joined the firm and will oversee Hilltop's new Los Angeles office. Courtni most recently served as Executive Director of the Service Employees International United (SEIU) Local 99.

Hilltop -- which also does business as S&B Public Solutions LLC -- is headed by Nick Baldick and has run multi-million dollar campaigns for SEIU, according to the firm's website.

It's par for the course at the Purple Palace -- yet another soft landing for a top SEIU official.

Next Up at SEIU Local 99? Scott Washburn

SEIU's Scott Washburn

On her way out the back door, Courtni Pugh -- the recently departed Executive Director of SEIU Local 99 -- announced that Scott Washburn would be taking over as the union’s "Interim Executive Director."

So who’s Washburn and what's his track record?

Washburn is a longtime SEIU staffer who in 2006 was appointed as the "Arizona State Director" of SEIU Local 5 and was tasked with boosting SEIU’s membership in the Grand Canyon State. 

Early in 2012, Purple Palace officials created Local 5 out of a top-down merger of three separate SEIU local unions in Texas, Arizona and Virginia. (WTF?)

So, how did Washburn perform in Arizona?

Not so well.

From 2008 until the end of 2012, Local 5's tri-state membership plummeted from 4,069 to 1,010 members. Ouch!

And in Arizona, Washburn did even worse.

For example, in 2011, more than 700 city employees in Tempe, Arizona decertified SEIU Local 5 to join an independent union called the United Arizona Employee Association.

By 2012, things had gotten so bad that the Purple Palace pulled the plug on the multi-state merger by splitting Local 5 back into its three original local unions (Local 5 in Texas, Local 512 in Virginia, and Local 48 in Arizona).

In Arizona, Washburn performed like a...

Washburn’s "growth strategies" had left SEIU with just 425 members in Arizona, according to records from the U.S. Department of Labor.

So what happened to Washburn?

In typical fashion, he pulled the purple ripcord and landed a comfortable job on SEIU International’s payroll pocketing than $150,000 per year.

And there's more.

In addition to Washburn’s underwhelming track record, Scott has also cultivated many enemies by helping Andy Stern and Dave Regan carry out SEIU’s heavy-handed raids against rank-and-file workers.

In 2009, Washburn famously deployed himself and many of his Arizona staff to California to impose SEIU’s trusteeship on healthcare workers inside SEIU-UHW. 

Later that year, Washburn directed Local 5’s staff to conduct an unsuccessful raid against UNITE HERE at Phoenix’s Sheraton Convention Center Hotel. That won't win Washburn any friends at UNITE HERE Local 11 in Los Angeles.

In 2010, Washburn and his staff spent many more months in California working on SEIU’s law-breaking Kaiser campaign, where SEIU’s illegal threats ultimately overturned the election results.

Meanwhile, Washburn has carefully used Andy Stern's trusteeship as an opportunity to secure full employment for his children. Last year, no fewer than three of Washburn’s kids were employed by SEIU-UHW’s Dave Regan, including Simon Washburn, Ira Washburn and Hannah Washburn.

Hey Local 99 members -- looks like you got a real winner on your hands!

SEIU's Courtni Pugh Deploys Purple Parachute in L.A.

SEIU's Courtni Pugh

Check this out.

Remember the article in the Los Angeles Daily News about the rigged ratification vote affecting 33,000 SEIU members who work for the Los Angeles Unified School District?

In a remarkable turn of events, SEIU Local 99's Executive Director Courtni Pugh presided over this epic vote-rigging operation. And then… she left town. For good!

No kidding.

On Local 99's website, Pugh posted an announcement that begins this way:

Dear SEIU Local 99 Members and Friends, 

This has been by far one of the toughest decisions I have ever had to make. But after much thought I have decided to leave my position as Executive Director of SEIU Local 99 to immediately work to elect pro-worker legislators in the state senate.

According to the announcement, an "Interim Executive Director” will take over Pugh’s job on July 19.

Quite a trick, right? Rig the vote. Plunge the union into internal conflict, negative press stories, and pledges of lawsuits to be filed by the union's own members. And then hightail it out of town!

Courtni Pugh: Profile in courage.

SEIU Local 99 "did us dirty,” say workers

In Los Angeles, SEIU is making headlines over allegations of vote-rigging during a contract-ratification vote affecting 33,000 school employees.

Here's what's happening:

SEIU Local 99 has been negotiating with the Los Angeles Unified School District on behalf of 33,000 employees who work as teacher assistants, cafeteria workers, custodians and other positions. At the end of June, SEIU officials reached a tentative contract settlement and, according to workers, promptly deployed a bag of purple tricks aimed at winning a membership ratification vote at any cost.

First, Local 99's Executive Director, Courtni Pugh, ordered a rapid-fire ratification vote in which fewer than 8% of the workers actually cast ballots. Workers say SEIU failed to notify many union members about the vote. One writes: “The majority of Unit B was not notified, emailed, called or texted about the voting.”

Here's another piece of the story from a different Local 99 member:

Currently, many school employees are on Summer Recess with a majority of school sites closed until mid August, so lots of people that would have received their information at their worksite, may never have gotten word of a vote for contract ratification.

Next, SEIU lied about the pay hikes under the tentative agreement. 

The scene inside an SEIU polling place

According to the Los Angeles Daily News, “Union officials misrepresented that wage hike, passing out fliers and making statements that a 6.64 percent pay raise was ‘guaranteed.’ A close inspection of the contract, however,” revealed that more than 10,000 workers will receive increases of only 2%, according to the Daily News.

Next, SEIU officials changed the rules for the vote count. Here's how the Daily News describes it:

But the vote counting and contract ratification process was changed at the last minute.

 Prior to the three-day election that started Monday — and for as long as anyone can remember — each of Local 99’s four bargaining units had the individual right to accept or reject contracts by vote. The ballots for individual bargaining units — B, C, F and G — were labeled and printed on different colored paper and listed by the name of each unit. If a unit rejected the deal, that unit would go back to the bargaining table.

 But as union workers prepared to tally this contract’s ballots Wednesday night, staff announced a departure from standard voting procedure: All the ballots would be tossed into a single pool and tallied together.

 The tactic, Local 99 member and former political action committee chair Kathryn Torres said, was the latest in a series of dishonest and legally questionable plays union staff has employed.

 A faction of members, Torres said, will be looking to the courts and labor relations board for help.

“We are willing to take it as far as we have to, because right is right and wrong is wrong,” Torres said.

After the vote was finished, SEIU officials did backflips and exchanged high-fives while sending triumphant announcements to the membership. Here's a message posted by SEIU officials on Local 99’s Facebook page: 

We did it! The votes are counted and we ratified the agreement with LAUSD. 82% VOTED YES!

Meanwhile, here's how one union member responded:

Yes, you did it alright. You alienated members by blocking them from your Facebook page when they dared to disagree with you. You rushed a vote through while many of your members were out of town. You lied to the media about how much of a raise we were being offered. You instructed our own union reps to not talk to anyone who disagreed with the contract. You got us nothing for a raise and yet you charge us higher union dues than administrators pay. You did it alright. You got me wondering if there is a way to opt out of the union. I have been told that there is.

Another member put it this way: “They misled us. That’s why a lot of us members are upset and angry, because our own union did us dirty…”

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!