SEIU-UHW’s Dave Regan Turns to Ballot Initiatives... Again

Dave Regan

SEIU-UHW’s Dave Regan has returned to his ballot-initiative habit once again.

This week, Regan announced two ballot initiatives targeting the kidney dialysis industry in California, where he’s trying to squeeze some kinda deal out of one of the state’s the largest dialysis companies, DaVita Inc.

The two measures -- tentatively titled the “Kidney Dialysis Patient Protection Act” and the “Fair Pricing for Dialysis Act” -- must be approved by the California Attorney General before Regan can begin collecting signatures from more than 700,000 California voters to qualify the initiatives for the statewide ballot in November 2018.

Regan has been super un-successful at using ballot initiatives to ink sweetheart deals with hospital CEOs in both California and Arizona. Tasty estimates he’s spent more than $25 million of union members’ dues money on his failed ballot initiatives... and hasn't produced a single organizing victory.

Now… he appears to be turning his ballot-initiative phaser on the kidney dialysis industry.

What’s going on?

Since 2016, Regan has been attempting to organize DaVita workers at kidney dialysis clinics. But he’s been unsuccessful. So he’s now trying his ballot-initiative thang to see if DaVita’s CEO might be open to giving him a special deal... at a really good price!

Of course, that’s the problem with Regan. Once he disappears into a hotel suite with the CEOs, workers will never get to know what kind of deal he makes with his pin-striped pals.

In 2014, he negotiated a secret deal with the California Hospital Association… which Regan then refused to show to the union’s Executive Board, let alone the rank-and-file workers. 

Two years later, a copy of the deal became public as a result of a lawsuit. It turned out that when Regan was alone with the bosses in the hotel suite, he agreed to ban SEIU-UHW members from striking, force workers into pre-negotiated contracts with substandard wages and benefits, and gag union members from filing patient-care complaints against hospitals or even criticizing their CEO’s gold-plated salaries.

So the kidney dialysis workers need to beware. If Wall Street Dave actually succeeds in getting a meeting with DaVita’s CEO, workers better be damned sure they force themselves into the meeting.

Other things to watch:

Will the kidney dialysis industry attempt to enforce a California law that makes it illegal to use ballot initiatives as a bargaining chip?

Will Regan raid SEIU-UHW members' strike fund for the millions of dollars it will cost to pay signature-gatherers to collect the more than 700,000 signatures for the two kidney dialysis ballot measures?

Stay tuned.

SEIU-UHW’s Dave Regan Continues His Losing Streak against California Hospital Association

Dave Regan has apparently lost yet another round of his legal battle against the California Hospital Association (CHA), according to court records.

On June 14, 2017, Regan’s lawyers submitted a formal notice to the Sacramento County (Calif.) Superior Court announcing that Regan is dropping his personal lawsuit against the CHA. A copy of the notice is posted below.

Why is he dropping his lawsuit?

Regan was likely forced to do so by an outside arbitrator, who was ordered by a Superior Court judge to examine whether Regan’s personal lawsuit violates a provision of Regan’s secret deal with the Hospital Association. As part of the deal, Regan signed a far-reaching “gag clause” and arbitration provision that blocks him and SEIU-UHW members from criticizing hospitals execs, supporting legislation contrary to execs’ interests, suing hospital corporations, or even mentioning hospital executives’ gold-plated salaries in public.

Here’s what happened:

In late 2015, Regan’s “partnership” deal with the CHA collapsed in flames.

Under the 2014 partnership deal, Regan agreed to use SEIU’s political power to deliver $6 billion a year in new Medicaid revenues to California’s hospital corporations. In exchange for the cash, hospital CEOs would push 60,000 of their employees into Regan’s union. Regan sweetened the deal for the bosses by agreeing to ban workers from striking and forcing SEIU-UHW members into pre-negotiated labor contracts with stripped down wages and benefits.

Soon after the collapse of his secret deal, Ragin’ Dave Regan angrily sued Duane Dauner and three other top CHA officials. Regan also re-filed a statewide ballot initiative to target CHA’s members.  

The CHA quickly filed a counter-suit against Regan, arguing that his actions were prohibited by the “gag clause” that Regan himself had signed on behalf of SEIU-UHW.

In June of 2016, a judge agreed with the CHA and ordered SEIU-UHW to withdraw the ballot initiative after Regan had spent millions of dollars of SEIU-UHW members’ dues money to collect signatures to qualify the initiative for the ballot.

 

SEIU-UHW's Dave Kieffer

Next, the CHA asked the court to force Regan to drop his lawsuit against Dauner and three other top CHA officials. The CHA argued that the suit also violated Regan’s gag clause. In January 2017, a judge ordered the issue to be resolved by an outside arbitrator.

Last week, Regan’s lawyers informed the court that Regan is dropping his lawsuit against Dauner and three other CHA officials, including Kaiser Permanente’s Greg Adams. Regan likely dropped the suit as a result the arbitrator’s decision, which is not available to the public.

This latest developments represent yet another stinging defeat for Regan and SEIU-UHW. 

When Regan announced his secret deal with the CHA in 2014, Regan borrowed a page from Donald Trump and famously called it an "audacious new proposal to save the labor movement" …even though it violated every value held dear by the labor movement.

Way to go, Dave!

Several important questions remain unresolved:

• Did the arbitrator also order Regan to pay all of the CHA’s legal costs? That could total millions of dollars.

• Who will pay all of millions of dollars of legal bills connected to Regan’s disastrous lawsuit, including the fancy lawyers hired by Regan? Since the suit was filed in Regan’s personal name, shouldn’t he pay for it? Regan will undoubtedly try to push the costs of his bone-headed lawsuit onto SEIU-UHW’s members.

• What about the $34 million that Regan squirreled away inside a secret “partnership” organization? The CHA has demanded that Regan return the money. Their demands are part of legal claims filed with the Superior Court.

Stay tuned.

  SEIU-UHW Dave Regan's request to drop lawsuit against California Hospital Association: June 14, 2017 by tastysternburger on Scribd

Dave Regan: "I want a higher salary than the presidents of the Steelworkers and UAW"

SEIU-UHW's Dave Regan

Should SEIU-UHW President Dave Regan earn more than the international presidents of the United Auto Workers at the United Steel Workers?

Doesn’t make sense, right?

After all, Leo Gerard (USW) and Dennis Williams (UAW) lead international unions with four to six times as many members as Regan’s local union in California. In 2016, the UAW had 415,963 members while the USW had 548,033.

Nonetheless, that didn’t stop “Wall Street” Dave Regan from pocketing a higher salary in 2016, according to the unions’ DOL Forms LM-2.

In fact, SEIU-UHW’s second-highest paid official, Dave Kieffer, also earned more than the USW’s Gerard and the UAW’s Williams.

Here’s a rundown of their pay, according to Forms LM-2:

Dave Regan, SEIU-UHW President:  $224,706

Dave Kieffer, SEIU-UHW Director of Governmental Relations:  $210,909

Leo Gerard, International President of United Steelworkers:  $207,289

Dennis Williams, International President of United Auto Workers:  $184,159

SEIU-UHW's David Kieffer

A quick glance through SEIU-UHW’s recently filed disclosure report reveals that ten SEIU-UHW officials pocketed more than $150,000 during 2016. The list is below.

And take a look at their job descriptions.

Is it really necessary for one local union to have a Director of Governmental Relations, a Director of Public Affairs, a Director of Healthcare Policy and Advocacy, and a Political Director -- all earning more than $150K a year?

• Dave Regan, President:  $224,706
• Dave Kieffer, Director of Governmental Relations:  $210,909
• Kathy Ochoa, Director of Healthcare Policy and Advocacy:  $179,572
• Stan Lyles, Vice President:  $176,230
• Steve Trossman, Director of Public Affairs:  $170,494
• David Miller, Assistant to the President for Strategic Campaigns:   $168,974
• Myriam Escamilla, Hospital Division Director:   $162,415
• Greg Pullman, Chief of Staff:  $153,980
• Chokri Bensaid, Kaiser Division Director:  $152,860
• Cass Gualvez, Organizing Director:   $152,521
• Arianna Jimenez, Political Director:   $152,227

Glad there are unions like NUHW, whose constitution speaks volumes about the union's democratic values by prohibiting the union's president from earning more than the highest-paid rank-and-file member.

SEIU’s Dave Regan Loses Another Court Battle to California Hospital Association

SEIU-UHW’s Dave Regan lost yet another legal battle to the California Hospital Association (CHA) over his secretive, sweetheart deal with hospital CEOs.

On January 13, 2017, a Sacramento County (Calif.) Superior Court judge effectively tossed out Regan’s personal lawsuit against CHA’s CEO, Duane Dauner, and three other CHA officials. Instead, the judge ordered Regan’s allegations to be sent to binding arbitration, as required by Regan’s secret 2014 “partnership” deal with the CHA.

A copy of the judge’s decision is below.

Regan’s suit, initially filed on November 24, 2015, alleges that four top leaders of the CHA violated their “fiduciary duties,” committed “dishonest acts and gross abuses of authority and discretion,” and carried out “unlawful conduct” by “undermining” Regan’s scheme to secure billions more dollars of Medicaid funding for California’s hospital corporations.

Why was Regan trying to put more taxpayer money in hospital corporations’ pockets?

It was one of the requirements of his secret deal with the CHA. Specifically, hospital CEOs required Regan to deliver $6 billion a year in additional revenues to California hospital corporations as the price for “buying” special treatment from CEOs during SEIU unionization campaigns.

And that’s not the only concession Regan gave to hospital CEOs.

 

Dave Regan and Duane Dauner

He also agreed to force any newly organized workers into cheap, pre-negotiated SEIU-UHW labor contracts that included a ban on strikes and a far-reaching gag clause barring SEIU-UHW from criticizing hospital companies and their gold-plated executives.

Regan’s lawsuit is yet another piece of the paper trail documenting “Wall Street” Dave’s backroom deals with hospital CEOs.

The suit also offers a window into the internal battles raging between SEIU’s officials. For example, Regan’s lawsuit says Dauner met “secretly” with officials from SEIU to “undermine” Regan’s Medicaid funding scheme.

Which SEIU officials?

LaPhonza Butler (President of SEIU Local 2015) and Jon Youngdahl (former Executive Director of SEIU California State Council), says Regan.

According to Regan’s suit, SEIU officials undercut him by telling Dauner that “UHW and its president, Plaintiff Regan, would soon lose half its membership and that Defendant Dauner needed to deal with Butler and the SEIU State Council – not Regan and UHW – if he wanted to accomplish any legislative and policy goals that were important to CHA’s members.”

Jon Youngdahl

Last spring, Tasty published a leaked 30-page document containing the questions that SEIU-UHW attorneys posed to Dauner during a closed-door legal proceeding, including grilling him about Dauner’s meetings with SEIU’s LaPhonza Butler and Jon Youngdahl.

Elsewhere in the suit, Regan alleges that Dauner “sabotaged” him and “hid” his activities from Regan and others.

Regan’s suit seeks Dauner’s removal from the board of directors of “Caring for Californians,” a partnership organization jointly established by CHA and SEIU-UHW following their 2014 deal. The organization was funded with $50 million that Regan and Dauner diverted from their organizations’ coffers.

Regan and Dauner are the Co-Chairs of “Caring for Californians.” The remaining seats on its Board of Directors are split evenly between CHA and SEIU-UHW. That’s why Regan also sued Greg Adams (Group President at Kaiser Permanente), Mark Laret (CEO of UCSF Medical Center), and James Holmes (CEO of Redlands Community Hospital). They’re CHA’s appointees to the “Caring for Californians” board, and Regan alleges they, too, committed “unlawful conduct” and violations of their fiduciary duties.

So who did Regan appoint to fill SEIU-UHW’s seats on the board?

Three SEIU-UHW staffers: Dave Kieffer, Cass Gualvez, and Arianna Jimenez.

With last month’s ruling in Sacramento Superior Court, Regan has maintained a perfect winless record in the multiple lawsuits that followed the collapse of his secret deal with the CHA.

In June of 2016, for example, a Superior Court judge ordered SEIU-UHW to withdraw a statewide initiative from the California ballot or face millions of dollars in penalties. In November 2016, the court ordered SEIU-UHW to submit to binding arbitration over Regan’s refusal to return $34 million to CHA and SEIU-UHW.

 

LaPhonza Butler

What’s next for Dave?

Regan, who is rumored to be stepping down from his position as SEIU-UHW’s president, apparently will be wrapped up in lawsuits for the foreseeable future.  

At least one question remains unclear. 

Who will fund Regan’s lawsuits after he steps down? In the suit discussed in this post, Regan sued as an individual, not as SEIU-UHW. Should SEIU-UHW’s members continue to pay tens of thousands of dollars to litigate Regan’s personal lawsuit? 

  Judge Orders Arbitration in Lawsuit by Dave Regan (SEIU-UHW) vs. California Hospital Association: 01-13-201... by tastysternburger on Scribd

Judge: SEIU-UHW's Dave Regan Must Submit to Binding Arbitration over Missing $34 Million

SEIU-UHW’s Dave Regan has lost another court battle against the California Hospital Association (CHA).  

Last Friday, a judge ordered SEIU-UHW to submit to binding arbitration over $34 million that Regan squirreled away inside a secret “partnership” organization. A copy of the judge’s order, issued November 18, 2016, is pasted below. In September, Tasty described the CHA’s lawsuit to recover the millions that Regan is sitting on.

Where does the money come from?

In 2014, Regan and CHA’s Duane Dauner signed their secret partnership deal and also agreed to create a secret new organization to carry out joint projects. 

How was the organization funded? 

Regan and Dauner diverted a combined $50 million from their respective organizations’ treasuries and steered the massive haul of cash into the secret group, named “Caring for Californians.”

In late 2015, Regan’s partnership with the CHA collapsed. Under the terms of the secret deal (detailed in the so-called “Code of Conduct”), the remaining unspent portion of the $50 million was supposed to be returned to SEIU-UHW and CHA. That was supposed to happen on January 1, 2016.

However, Regan -- in an apparent fit of vindictiveness -- refused to return the money to either organization. Instead, he has allowed the money (including SEIU-UHW’s portion, totaling $6.9 million) to be frittered away on no-show jobs, unused offices in Sacramento, an expensive Executive Director, etc. 

So, CHA sued to get its money back.

On Friday, November 18, a judge issued a five-page ruling (see below) siding with CHA and ordering SEIU-UHW and Regan to submit to binding arbitration over the $34 million. Here’s an excerpt from the judge’s decision. The term “CFC” refers to “Caring for Californians,” the secret partnership organization holding the $34 million.

In December 2015, the [Code of Conduct] Agreement terminated pursuant to its terms, and CFC has had no ongoing work. The CFC continues to spend approximately $40,000 per month on operating expenses. CHA has requested that UHW agree to redistribute the unencumbered CFC funds, but UHW has refused. As of September 2016, CFC has approximately $34 million in its accounts that is not currently encumbered, thus $27.2 million would be returned to CHA and $6.87 million would be returned to UHW.

CHA's arbitration complaint alleges that UHW breached the Agreement by refusing to agree to the return of the unencumbered funds. CHA's complaint apparently seeks an "order compelling UHW to agree to the redistribution of funds, or, in lieu of UHW's agreement, an order directing the redistribution of the funds."

…the petition to compel arbitration is GRANTED.

If Regan loses the arbitration, SEIU-UHW will be forced to return the money and pay expensive legal fees to CHA.

This latest lawsuit offers yet another window onto Regan's collusive, backroom deals with employers that represent Dollar Dave's primary mode of operation. The lawsuit once again raises questions like these: 

• Why is SEIU-UHW, one of California's largest healthcare workers' unions, pooling $50 million with the hospital industry's Chamber of Commerce? 
• Why is one of SEIU's main leaders signing secret deals that are hidden from SEIU's own members?
• What other deals has SEIU-UHW signed with employers that have not yet been revealed?

Stay tuned 

  Judge Orders SEIU-UHW to Submit to Arbitration under secret agreement with California Hospital Association:... by tastysternburger on Scribd

SEIU-UHW’s Dave Regan Misfires (AGAIN) on Ballot Initiative

Dave Regan, president of SEIU-UHW, has committed another embarrassing ballot-initiative blunder.

In February of 2016, soon after his secret partnership with the California Hospital Association (CHA) exploded in flames, Regan filed a ballot initiative in Arizona designed to cap hospital executives’ salaries. Regan hoped the initiative would pressure several large multi-state hospital companies to convince CHA's Duane Dauner to ink another deal with him.

The Arizona initiative, “The Hospital Executive Compensation Act,” is virtually identical to a ballot measure Regan has filed repeatedly and unsuccessfully in California.

Beginning early in 2016, Regan spent massive amounts of SEIU-UHW members’ dues money to hire paid circulators to collect 281,000 signatures from Arizona voters to qualify the measure for the ballot.

However, Regan apparently forgot to make sure the signature-gatherers were actually legally qualified to collect signatures. D’OH!!

Under Arizona law, paid signature-gatherers must register with the Secretary of State’s office and provide an Arizona address.

This summer, when Regan triumphantly filed his 281,000 signatures with state officials, the ballot measure’s opponents quickly noticed that many signature-gatherers had not complied with state law. They sued SEIU-UHW in Maricopa County Superior Court to disqualify the signatures and thereby invalidate the initiative.

In August, just one day before a judge was set to hear the lawsuit, Regan threw in the towel and withdrew his initiative.

In news articles, including this one in the Arizona Capitol Times (“Backers of Hospital Exec Pay Cap Initiative Dropping Effort,” August 15, 2016), opponents celebrated Regan’s formidable f*ck-up. They said SEIU-UHW’s decision to withdraw the initiative “proves that the concerns about the validity of petition signatures were valid.”

 

Dave "Signature Man" Regan

This, of course, is not Regan’s first multi-million dollar mistake.

In June, a Sacramento Superior Court Judge ordered Regan to withdraw a nearly identical initiative from next Tuesday’s California ballot because it violated a gag clause that Regan himself secretly signed with the California Hospital Association. 

Regan's gag clause -- which he refused to show to SEIU-UHW's Executive Board -- prohibited the union from “raising concerns about… executive compensation in health care” and blocked SEIU-UHW from supporting any legislation, initiative, or regulatory action "adverse to the California hospital industry."

In late June, Regan was forced to dump his California initiative after having spent at least $5 million of SEIU-UHW members’ dues to collect voters’ signatures.

In 2012, Regan was forced to withdraw yet another ballot initiative after the Los Angeles Times discovered that Regan had inserted hidden loopholes in the initiative’s legal language designed to exempt two giant hospital corporations -- which control 25% of California’s hospitals -- from the new requirements.

And earlier this year, Dishonest Dave snatched TV headlines by allegedly assaulting a process server trying to deliver legal records to Regan’s home on behalf of the California Hospital Association.

How does the saying go about the gang that can’t shoot straight?

Maybe SEIU-UHW members should ask Dave to refund all the money he’s pissed down the drain via his f*ck-ups, sell-outs and failures, which now tallies more than $30 million by Tasty’s count.

Here’s another question. Why is Regan still collecting a paycheck? After all, would your boss keep you on the job if you repeatedly screwed up at a cost of millions and millions of dollars?

Dave Regan’s Pal at Dignity Health Is a Pioneer in the Gig Economy

Lloyd Dean -- the CEO of Dignity Health and a close ally of SEIU-UHW’s Dave Regan -- is courageously forging new ground in the gold-plated gig economy.

Earlier this week, Tasty described how Dean works full-time as the CEO of the US’s third-largest health system, Dignity Health… but finds enuf time to pocket $350,000 a year for sitting on Wells Fargo’s board of directors.

Well… it turns out Dean holds down a number of other side-gigs, too.

He happens to sit on the board of directors of McDonald’s Corporation, which is one of the targets of SEIU’s Fight for $15 campaign.

Wonder if Regan’s infamous gag clause, which "Wall Street" Dave signed with Dean and other CEOs, prohibits SEIU from discussing Dean’s sky-high salary?

How much does McDonald's pay Dean?

Approximately quarter million dollars a year in cash and stocks for attending board meetings. Thus far, he’s assembled thousands of shares of McDonald’s stock for himself and the “Dean Family Trust,” according to SEC records.

Dean also sits on the board of Navigant Consulting, Inc., a Chicago-based management consulting firm, which pays Dean $200,000 a year in cash and stock.

Recently, Dean gave up his seat on two other corporations’ board of directors. Those companies happen to pay far less than Wells Fargo, McDonald’s, and Navigant.

 

Fight for $15

Last year, he resigned his board seat at Premier, Inc., which paid him only $50,000 a year in cash. 

Chump change, right? 

Premier, based in Charlotte, NC, provides performance-improvement consulting and group purchasing to hospitals and nursing homes across the US.

He also ditched his seat at Cytori Therapeutics, Inc., a San Diego-based biotechnology company where Dean was the Chairman of the Board. During Dean’s last year at the company, he pocketed 16,030 stock options, 10,550 shares of restricted stock, and $33,625 in cash, according to the company’s SEC filings.  

Tough gigging for the 1%.

Back in Court: California Hospital Association Sues SEIU-UHW for Millions Locked up in Covert Partnership Organization

The California Hospital Association (CHA) has taken SEIU-UHW to court… again.

This time, CHA is trying to recover tens of millions of dollars that SEIU-UHW has locked away inside a secret “partnership” organization, according to records obtained from Sacramento County Superior Court. (Below is a full copy.)

On October 14, CHA’s and SEIU-UHW’s attorneys will face off in a Sacramento courthouse.

Here’s what’s happening.

When SEIU-UHW’s Dave Regan and CHA’s Duane Dauner signed their secret partnership deal in 2014, they also agreed to set up and finance a secret new organization to carry out their joint projects.

The new organization’s first priority was to help SEIU-UHW convince politicians to steer $6 billion a year in new Medicaid funds to California’s giant hospital corporations.

 

Dave Regan and Duane Dauner

If SEIU-UHW had succeeded in this task (they didn’t), then the hospital CEOs would have allowed SEIU-UHW to unionize 30,000 of their employees… but only as long as the workers were banned from striking, forced into cheap labor contracts, and silenced by a massive gag clause.

The covert partnership organization -- ironically named “Caring for Californians” by its founders -- was funded with $50 million that Regan and Dauner diverted from their treasuries in 2014.

With millions in its bank count, “Caring for Californians” leased office space in Sacramento, hired Peter Ragone as its Executive Director, hired attorneys and staff, etc. The organization was soon spending $40,000 a month in operating expenses, according to court filings by the CHA.

For a time, things were going swimmingly for Wall Street Dave. Fantasies of his class-collaborationist partnership danced through his head as he performed late-night lap dances for some of California’s wealthiest corporate CEOs.

Peter Ragone, CFC's Executive Director

By November of 2015, however, Dave’s partnership had exploded in a fiery display that lit up California’s skies. The partnership was dead!  

At the time of the partnership’s demise, “Caring for Californians” still had $34 million in unspent cash sitting in its bank account.

And that’s what the latest lawsuit is all about. The $34 million.

Under the terms of Regan and Dauner’s secret partnership deal, the $34 was supposed to be returned to CHA and SEIU-UHW on January 1, 2016. However, Regan -- in an apparent fit of vindictiveness against his former pin-striped pals -- is refusing to return the money to either organization.

According to CHA’s lawsuit, Regan has vetoed any return of the money to both CHA and SEIU-UHW.

How?

“Caring for Californians” is run by an eight-person Board of Directors, with equal numbers of seats filled by CHA and SEIU-UHW. Regan and Dauner are co-chairs of the board. Since January of 2016, says CHA, Regan has used his four votes (one of them is SEIU-UHW staffer Arianna Jimenez) to block every proposal to return the $34 million.

So what’s happening to the money?

It’s simply swirling down the drain, says CHA. 

Here’s an excerpt from a recent CHA legal filing, which refers to “Caring for Californians” by its initials “CFC.” The term "Code of Conduct" refers to the secret partnership deal signed in 2014.

“On December 31, 2015, the Code of Conduct terminated pursuant to its terms. Since that time, CFC has had no ongoing work, and neither CHA, UHW, nor any CFC Director has made any efforts to initiate new endeavors. Nonetheless, CFC has continued to spend approximately $40,000 each month on operating expenses for resources and services it has not been using. These are not only unnecessary expenditures, but they also decrease the amount available for redistribution to both CHA and UHW as provided by the Code of Conduct.” (p. 3)

Interesting, right?

 

SEIU-UHW's Arianna Jimenez

Regan is so vindictive he’s willing to piss millions of dollars of SEIU-UHW members’ money down the drain to get back at CHA.

How much money do SEIU-UHW members stand to lose? According to the CHA:

“As of September 1, 2016, the CFC has approximately $34 million in its accounts that is not currently encumbered. Pursuant to the terms of the Code of Conduct, approximately $27.2 million would be returned to CHA and approximately $6.8 million would be returned to UHW.” (p. 4)

What’s CHA asking the judge to do?

CHA’s lawsuit asks the judge to force SEIU-UHW into binding arbitration so it can recover its $27.2 million. Plus, it wants SEIU-UHW to pay all of CHA’s attorneys fees.

If history is a judge, it looks like SEIU-UHW’s members will be footing the bill for yet another idiotic blunder by Regan.

Here’s a copy of CHA’s suit filed on September 6, 2016:

  California Hospital Association's lawsuit versus SEIU-UHW over $34 Million Locked in Secret Partnershi...

SEIU’s Mary Kay Henry to Fight for $15 Staff: “No union for you!”

Remember those 100 “Fight for $15” organizers who requested to join the “Union of Union Representatives” (UUR), a staff union that already represents SEIU’s organizers across the nation?

Four months ago, they formally submitted their request to SEIU President Mary Kay Henry.

Since then, Henry has rejected their request despite announcing in May that SEIU will spend millions on a new “Fight for $15 Organizing Campaign Center.”

That set the scene for last weekend’s action in Richmond, Virginia, where nearly 100 “Fight for $15” organizers and supporters confronted SEIU President Mary Kay Henry during her speech to SEIU’s first national “Fight for $15” convention.

As Henry spoke to the crowd, the Fight for $15 organizers and their supporters began walking towards the stage to present her with a letter, according to an article published in in Raw Story:

[Jodi Lynn] Fennell [an organizer with the Child Care Fight for $15 campaign in Las Vegas] says, “Nearly 100 organizers and supporters gathered, moving up toward the stage peacefully. Our plan was simply to deliver a letter to Mary Kay Henry because she doesn’t make herself available to speak with us.”

…But they never got to hand the letter to Henry. Inside sources at SEIU say the union was prepared for such an incident, and sprang into action. Fennell says, “Security prevented us from getting to the stage.” Meanwhile, on the speakers’ platform, Henry stepped back and a group of African-Americans and Latino/as who sit on the national organizing committee for Fight for $15 stepped up.

One woman on stage with Henry grabbed the mic. She berated the staff organizers and their supporters below as cameras broadcast the convention…

As Henry stood smiling faintly behind the human wall, the speaker continued…

Barajas-Ames says the UUR organizers stood before Henry for 15 minutes. As the

Mary Kay Henry speaking at the Fight for $15 convention

speakers on stage led the crowd in chants of “$15 and a union,” Barajas-Ames says, “The security guards became hostile and aggressive, physically pushing us back. We stepped back and stood peacefully. Our signs were grabbed and torn up.”

…But that was just the beginning of the troubles for the members of the UUR organizing committee. Shortly afterward, Barajas-Ames and Fennell were personally called by the national director of the Child Care Fight for $15. The two organizers were told they would not be attending the events and protests on Saturday they had been organizing toward for months. Instead, they were to pack their bags as they were being flown out at 6 a.m. back to Las Vegas. Fennell claims the national director also told them, “We will be expecting you to pay for the cost of the hotel.”

… A total of five Fight for $15 organizers who support UUR were shipped home for trying to bring attention to their cause.

Fennell says, “This represents the exact same type of retaliation that corporations do to low-wage workers.”

So how does Mary Kay Henry justify her refusal to allow the organizers to unionize?

According to an article authored by David Moberg in In These Times:

At first, Calderon says, SEIU maintained their employer was the payroll processing firm that handles their paychecks. Now, he says, the international insists they’re employed by the individual organizing committees that direct each city’s Fight for $15 campaign.

According to Calderon, nearly 99 percent of funding for Fight for $15 organizers, as well as vehicles and supplies, comes from SEIU.

Raw Story reports that “Fight for $15” organizers in Las Vegas are paid by an SEIU subcontractor called the “Ardleigh Group.” It describes the company this way:

One former employee calls it a “faceless, shadowy” corporation that acts as a pass-through to hide employer responsibility. SEIU documents appear to show it using paper outfits to funnel money to the Ardleigh Group, which then pays workers on SEIU projects who say they are being denied their legal union rights.

"Fight for $15" organizers

The Ardleigh Group describes itself as a “political consulting and classic door-to-door campaigning” firm that’s been hired by a variety of candidates and organizations across the nation. Its name appears in SEIU's online job announcements for “Fight for $15” organizer positions.

Interestingly, some of these job announcements were posted by SEIU’s Recruitment Director Pamela Kieffer, the wife of SEIU-UHW’s Dave Kieffer.

Headquartered in Washington DC, the Ardleigh Group is headed by Bernard “Blair” Talmadge and Bryan L. Stewart. 

Talmadge, who grew up in Philadelphia, was an unsuccessful candidate for the Philadelphia City Commissioners in 2011. From 1997-2000, he served as a “Deputy Commissioner” to his brother, City Commissioner Alex Talmadge, Jr. 

According to Blair Talmadge, he has managed campaigns for multiple candidates for state and federal offices.

FYI, The London Guardian also covered last weekend’s action in Richmond (“Fight for $15 organizers demand employee status from SEIU,” August 12, 2016).