A Union in Wolf's Clothing

This week, SEIU-UHW officials have catapulted to new heights of pathetic behavior at public hearings held by the California Attorney General to evaluate the proposed sale of Daughters of Charity Health System, a chain of six hospitals in Los Angeles and the San Francisco Bay Area.

At the hearings, SEIU-UHW is shamelessly pimping for Blue Wolf Capital Partners, a New York private-equity firm that just happened to ink a secret backroom deal with Dave Regan. 

If Blue Wolf wins the bidding process, Regan's deal would allow it to boost its profits by slashing the pay and benefits of SEIU-UHW’s 2,700 members by more than $100 million a year, according to a deal signed by Regan and posted on this blog site earlier in the week.

From every indication, Regan is highly motivated to convince the A.G. to support his newfound private-equity "partner.” How else can you explain the fact that SEIU-UHW’s staffers and members have turned up at the hearings wearing "Blue Wolf" T-shirts? No joke. Check out these pictures. Pathetic.

As they say, a picture is worth 1,000 words.

And there's more.

SEIU-UHW’s rank-and-file members at the Daughters hospitals are apparently in open rebellion against Regan's sellout deal. In fact, Regan has so little support from Daughters workers that he's been forced to bus public-sector homecare workers from 150 miles away wearing "Blue Wolf" shirts in a pathetically lame effort to convince the AG that somehow "workers" support Blue Wolf.

Unfortunately for Regan, SEIU-UHW’s own members have dropped a host of proverbial turds into Regan's purple punch bowl.

Yesterday, an SEIU-UHW member from Daughters O'Connor Hospital in San Jose testified that a majority of SEIU-UHW’s members at his hospital oppose SEIU-UHW’s support for Blue Wolf. To back up his point, he then presented the Attorney General with petitions signed by half of SEIU-UHW’s members at the hospital… which he says were gathered in 48 hours!

SEIU-UHW's Dave Regan

Today, the AG held a hearing for St. Louise Regional Hospital in Gilroy. One of SEIU-UHW’s stewards at the hospital testified in opposition to SEIU-UHW and presented handfuls of petitions signed by her co-workers. 

During her testimony, the worker reportedly broke down and cried, saying she had once supported SEIU-UHW “but they’re wrong about this and we employees are very disappointed in them. Because of this, I believe the union no longer has the support of employees.”

After the steward left the hearing to go back to work, one of Regan's hack staffers went to the mic and tried to convince the Attorney General that the steward had been bullied by hospital officials into testifying as she did. This reportedly prompted an AG official to say, "You gotta be kidding me.” I guess the same hospital officials bullied hundreds of workers to sign petitions, too. 

They apparently don't understand, but SEIU-UHW’s members should be overflowing with joy and gratitude that their union's president, Dave Regan, cut a backroom deal with New York fatcats to slash and burn their pay and benefits.

Later, when news of the SEIU-UHW staffer's deceitful testimony to the AG reached the hospital, the steward and her co-workers reacted with righteous outrage. Needless to say, Wall Street Dave doesn't have many supporters left at the hospital.

A picture from Northern Pulp, one of Blue Wolf's acquisitions. It
performs "whole tree harvesting," which local residents describe as "ecocide."
Blue Wolf: Bringing a bright future to a community near you!

All in all, then, it's been quite a week so far. 

SEIU staffers in Blue Wolf T-shirts.  Fake hospital workers bused in from 150 miles away. SEIU-UHW’s members in open rebellion against Regan's backroom deal.  And Regan forced to publicly deploy his weapons of treachery and deceit against the union's own members… even as the Attorney General looks on.

SEIU-UHW's Dave Regan Is Caught Making Backroom Deal with New York Company to Slash Hospital Workers' Pay

SEIU-UHW's Dave Regan

SEIU-UHW's Dave Regan has been caught red-handed after secretly signing a deal to slash the pay and benefits of 2,700 of the union's members in California.

That's not all.

Proof of the backroom deal is printed in black-and-white in documents submitted to the California Attorney General, which Tasty has posted below!  

Here's what happened:

In California, a chain of six hospitals called the “Daughters of Charity Health System” is up for sale.

One of the companies trying to buy the chain is Blue Wolf Capital Partners, a private-equity firm based in New York City that has personal connections to SEIU-UHW officials.

Not surprisingly, SEIU-UHW is aggressively backing Blue Wolf's bid to buy the hospital chain.

In September, Blue Wolf’s executives presented their final bid to the Daughters of Charity’s Board of Directors… and announced they'd gotten a signed commitment from SEIU-UHW’s Dave Regan to slash workers’ pay and benefits by 15%.

 

Workers, of course, know nothing about the deal.

A second union -- the United Nurses Association of California (UNAC) -- also signed the backroom deal. UNAC is a "partnership union" that represents RNs at Daughters of Charity and Kaiser Permanente in Southern California.

So how bad are the cuts specified in the secret deal?

According to Blue Wolf, Regan's cuts would reduce workers' current annual $700 million in pay and benefits by 15%.

Here’s an excerpt from a presentation that Blue Wolf made to SEIU-UHW’s Dave Regan and UNAC officials back in June of 2014. Check out the title on the first page: “SEIU/UNAC Briefing Materials – Collective Bargaining.” The following page details hundreds of millions of dollars of cuts to workers' health benefits, retirement, staffing levels, paid time-off, and premium pay. It starts this way:

A critical part of the operational turn-around includes reducing the current $700 million cost of labor and benefits by 15%.

  Blue Wolf Capital Partner's Presentation to SEIU-UHW and UNAC Officials on a Secret Plan to Make Massi...

Ron Bloom, Lazard Freres

In September, when Blue Wolf presented this jaw-dropping news to the Daughters of Charity, the hospital chain's Board of Directors were so taken aback they questioned Blue Wolf's ability to actually carry out the massive cuts.

Nine days later, Ron Bloom -- a former Obama Administration official and a Vice Chairman at Lazard Freres, the investment banking firm that's representing Blue Wolf -- wrote a letter to the Daughters of Charity saying the following: (The full letter is available on the Attorney General's website at this link):

You expressed a concern regarding the likelihood of ratification of collective bargaining agreements along the lines we have discussed. We believe that the materials submitted with our bid reflects the strong support of the leadership of UNAC and the SEIU for our proposal and we are completely confident that upon your acceptance of our offer we will be able to obtain ratification of new collective bargaining agreements. These agreements would be effective at closing and would allow us to realize the labor cost savings for employees represented by these two unions of the magnitude we have prior discussed. We have provided you with letters from the Presidents of those two organizations confirming our belief.

How confident is Blue Wolf it’ll slash and burn workers' pay and benefits if it wins the bidding process?

Adam Blumenthal, Blue Wolf Man

"Completely Confident."

And what about Regan's letter?

Fortunately, Tasty found a copy of it on the Attorney General's website. 

In his letter to Adam Blumenthal (Managing Partner of Blue Wolf), Regan writes the following (see the full letter below):

On behalf of the SEIU and all bargaining unit members we represent at the DOCHS facility, we are pleased to have successfully completed labor contract negotiations with Blue Wolf Capital Partners LLC and its related entities, to create a new collective bargaining agreement… The Union hereby agrees, to the extent that the New CBA is regarded as a modification of the existing CBA, to all such modifications. Further the Union pledges that it will promptly take all necessary, reasonable, and legal steps to secure approval, ratification, acceptance of the New CBA. We commit that all such approvals will take place in advance of "Final Approval."

How dirty can you possibly get? Remember, Regan did all of this behind the backs of SEIU-UHW’s rank-and-file members. (Who actually pay his f*ckin' salary.)

Regan says he'll take "all necessary steps… to secure approval, ratification, acceptance of the New CBA.”  

Hmm... what does that mean?

Unfortunately, Daughters of Charity workers are all too familiar with Regan's top-down, undemocratic, and authoritarian tactics. In 2012, Regan used an unconstitutional ramrod "ratification vote" to force massive cuts down the throats of Daughters workers… including the elimination of their defined-benefit pension plan. 

In one particularly memorable episode, Regan reached a settlement with company officials at 9:35 PM on a Saturday night and then held a membership ratification vote just nine hours later at 7:00 AM the following morning (a Sunday).

Later, when workers formally challenged the unconstitutional vote, SEIU President Mary Kay Henry simply turned her back on the workers.

So, Dave, whatta you got to say?

  Letters Signed by SEIU-UHW President Dave Regan and UNAC President Ken Deitz with Blue Wolf Capital Accepti...

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

Next Stop for SEIU-UHW's Concessionary Caravan?

Sutter Health CEO Pat Fry & Dave Regan

Tasty hears that Dave Regan’s concessionary caravan is making its next stop at Sutter Health, the largest hospital chain in Northern California. 

And guess what? An SEIU-UHW staffer -- who’s now working as one of Sutter’s “Human Resources Partners” -- is actually helping to implement the company’s cuts.

Here’s what’s happening.

Soon, union contracts covering thousands of SEIU-UHW members will be expiring at nearly a dozen of Sutter’s hospitals. In recent months, Sutter’s executives have drooled in sheer delight as Dave Regan gave away hundreds of millions of dollars of concessions to Catholic Healthcare West/Dignity Health, the Daughters of Charity Health System, Kaiser Permanente and other companies. Regan's concessions include wage freezes, health insurance cuts, elimination of pension plans, and cuts to workers’ retiree health benefits.

Now... Regan plans to give up the same concessions to Sutter Health even though the company has pocketed $1.6 billion in profits during the past two years, according to the company’s audited financial statements.

At one of Sutter’s largest hospitals -- Alta Bates Summit Medical Center in Oakland and Berkeley -- the CEO recently announced plans to “restructure” the hospital’s operations by slashing workers’ wages and benefits, and axing 10 percent of the hospital’s staff. Here’s what CEO Chuck Prosper said in a June 26th letter to 1,100 SEIU-UHW members at the hospital:

We must ask our labor partners to recognize this situation and cooperate with us as we ask for significant, but realistic, changes in our wage and benefit structure... After taking a hard look at the future, the administrative team has concluded we must restructure and reduce our staffing by approximately 10 percent... This reduction will affect employees and departments throughout our organization.

And in another letter, Sutter executives told workers that their former SEIU-UHW Field Representative -- Dominic Mitchell -- will be one of the company's “Human Resources Partners” who will implement the cuts and layoffs. Here’s the letter:

 Letter from Sutter Health's Alta Bates Summit Medical Center to SEIU-UHW Members regarding Layoffs facilita...

So is Alta Bates Summit Medical Center losing money? 

Not by a long shot. In fact, the hospital made more than $200 million in profits during the past two years, according to reports filed by the company.

So what's going on?

Sources tell Tasty that Dave Regan has become best buddies with Patrick Fry, the CEO of Sutter Health. Fry happens to sit on the Board of Directors of the California Hospital Association, which recently signed a secret “partnership” deal with Regan.

Last week, when Sutter delivered layoff letters to workers, SEIU-UHW didn’t even mount a protest against the job cuts… and instead held a barbeque for employees!  Incredible. SEIU literally threw bones to workers while their fat-cat employer announced the destruction of their livelihoods.

And to add insult to injury, Regan sent an SEIU-UHW Field Representative named Fola Afariogun to try to sweet-talk the angry and soon-to-be-jobless workers. Afariogun, who last year took home $109,091 in pay from SEIU-UHW's members, displayed Regan’s keen sensitivity towards "the 99%" by driving up to the “layoff BBQ” in his shiny Mercedes sports coup. Here’s Afariogun’s pay from 2011 (click on the image to enlarge it):

Source: U.S. Dep't of Labor Form LM-2 for SEIU-UHW, 2011

Finally, sources report that Regan’s backroom deal with Sutter has left the California Nurses Association in a difficult spot. Sutter is trying to force SEIU’s concessions down the throats of the hospitals' Registered Nurses, which has caused the nurses to respond with strikes. Regan, however, has worked hand-in-hand with Sutter to oppose the strikes, even instructing SEIU-UHW’s members to scab against their fellow nurses. Sound familiar, Kaiser workers?

 Stay tuned for more reports from Sutter's hospitals.