Governors Debate Showcases Opposing Fortunes of Two California Unions

Here’s an interesting development that underscores the declining political power of SEIU-UHW and the rising strength of NUHW.

Readers may recall that SEIU-UHW and its president, Dave Regan, have been repeatedly criticized for using California’s ballot system to cut sweetheart deals with the California Hospital Association that sell out consumers and workers. 

In local elections, Regan has joined hands with the Chamber of Commerce to attack progressive candidates.

Well... check out the latest chapter in this story.

Next year, the Golden State will elect a new governor to replace Jerry Brown, who will be termed out of office. Candidates for the governor’s office -- including the state’s Lieutenant Governor, Treasurer, Superintendent of Public Instruction, and the former mayor of Los Angeles -- are criss-crossing the nation’s most populous state to build support for their campaigns.

In October, SEIU-UHW and NUHW each held their annual “Leadership Conferences” of stewards and rank-and-file leaders. 

NUHW pulled off a coup by organizing the four leading gubernatorial candidates to conduct their first-ever debate at NUHW’s leadership conference in Anaheim. Here's a link to a video of the debate.

NUHW’s debate drew reporters from across the state and got more than 100 new stories in the state’s largest newspapers, TV stations, etc. NUHW also live-streamed the debate to voters across the state, which featured questions about the candidates' support for a single-payer health system.

What about SEIU-UHW?  

Nada.

Stay tuned!

California Governor: I refuse to meet with SEIU-UHW's Dave Regan

California Gov. Jerry Brown

What do California’s top political and union leaders think about SEIU-UHW President Dave Regan?

Not much.

That’s one of the intriguing findings in a 42-page decision issued last month by the arbitrator who investigated the dispute between SEIU-UHW and the California Hospital Association.

According to the arbitrator’s report, California Gov. Jerry Brown -- who is scheduled to speak at next week’s Democratic National Convention -- refused to be in the same room with Regan. Ditto for the California Teachers Association and the SEIU California State Council.

Why do they dislike Regan so much?

It turns out that Regan betrayed them by attempting to raid billions of dollars set aside for California’s chronically underfunded schools.

Here’s what happened.

In 2012, the governor joined the teachers union and many other civic organizations in successfully passing a ballot initiative that established a “Millionaire’s Tax” to improve funding for California’s schools. The tax, also called “Proposition 30,” will expire in 2018.

Last year, the California Teachers Association began openly preparing to file a new ballot initiative to extend California’s “Millionaire’s Tax” and its funding for schools.

Dave Regan

As the teachers began their efforts, Regan eyed an opportunity. 

Under the terms of his secret partnership with the California Hospital Association, Regan was under the gun to deliver billions of dollars of new government funding to hospital CEOs in order to buy their consent to unionize 30,000 of the hospitals’ non-union employees.

Regan, rather than supporting the schools, introduced a separate ballot initiative to snatch $2.5 billion a year from the schools and put it into the pockets of the hospital CEOs with whom he’d secretly been conspiring.

In June of 2015, Regan asked the California Hospital Association (CHA) to join him in filing the competing ballot initiative. Here’s what happened next, according to the arbitrator’s report:

"CHA representatives expressed surprise and raised a number of concerns about the Union's proposal, including the likelihood that the California Teachers Association (CTA), the so-called "ABC Coalition" and the Governor would be angry and unhappy if the LMC [SEIU-UHW and the CHA] were to file a competing statewide tax increase initiative. In particular, CHA expressed concern that competing Proposition 30 initiatives would undermine each other, decreasing the opportunity of either passing." (pp. 11-12)

SEIU-UHW nonetheless filed its competing ballot initiative.

Next, Regan tried to engage Gov. Brown and the teachers union in negotiations over a compromise ballot initiative that would steer billion to his hospital CEO pals. 

Regan asked CHA CEO Duane Dauner to reach out to the Governor’s office. He also called on Peter Ragone and former California Senate President Darrell Steinberg to reach out to the California Teachers Association (CTA) and the SEIU California State Council, which was working with the CTA.

How did they respond to Regan’s plea?

Here’s what the arbitrator wrote in his decision:

"Despite efforts by CHA to have UHW and the LMC included in the discussions, both the Governor's office and the other stakeholders, including CTA and the SEIU State Council, continued to insist that they would not meet with UHW or the LMC, but only with CHA separately." (p. 13)

Ouch. (The term “LMC” refers to the “Labor-Management Committee” that SEIU-UHW and the CHA set up to carry out their secret partnership deal. Duane Dauner and Dave Regan were the co-chairs of the LMC.)

Gov. Brown campaigning for Prop 30

Several months later, Regan begged the Governor, the CTA, and other “stakeholders” to allow SEIU-UHW to join them in a single ballot initiative. But they again refused. The arbitrator says it was “clear that the other stakeholders would not modify their position of opposition to UHW’s involvement.” (p. 13)

In November, the CHA announced its support for the teachers’ ballot initiative. According to the arbitrator, the CHA’s Duane Dauner phoned Regan on November 3, 2015 and “explained to representatives of UHW that the new coalition was not willing to work with UHW and that they, therefore, could not be part of the coalition.” (p. 19)

The arbitrator’s decision makes multiple other references to statewide leaders’ apparently extreme dislike for Regan:

“...it was the stakeholders that insisted UHW was not welcome.” (p. 22)

“UHW was generally aware that.. the Governor's office, CTA and other stakeholders were unwilling to meet with UHW or to allow UHW to join their coalition.” (pp. 23-24)

Elsewhere, the arbitrator refers to “UHW's apparently strained relationship with the governor and the SEIU State Council.”

We all know what happened next. When Regan failed to deliver the billions of dollars he’d promised to his CEO pals, his secret partnership deal with the Hospital Association exploded in flames.

Dave Regan and the gang that can't shoot straight

In an angry response to his former CEO pals, Regan filed a new ballot initiative designed to cap their salaries at $450,000 a year. 

Unfortunately, Regan forgot to read the gag clause that he’d signed as part of his secret partnership deal, which legally blocked SEIU-UHW from taking any action "adverse" to the interests of the hospital industry.

Last month, after Regan had already wasted $5 million of SEIU-UHW members’ dues money to collect signatures for his doomed executive-compensation ballot initiative, a Superior Court judge ordered Regan to withdraw the initiative or face tens of millions of dollars of penalties.

Altogether, it was quite a remarkable series of failures and f*ck-ups by Regan and his chief political strategist, Dave Kieffer.

As one observer remarked: “It looks like Dave Regan is chief gunner for the gang that can’t shoot straight.”

SEIU-UHW’s Dave Regan is Interrogated by California Hospital Association in Court-Ordered Arbitration Hearing

Dave Regan and Duane Dauner

SEIU-UHW’s Dave Regan is in the midst of a three-day arbitration hearing in Emeryville, Calif., where attorneys from the California Hospital Association (CHA) are questioning him over SEIU-UHW’s alleged violations of their secret partnership deal and a gag clause.

The hearing, which is taking place at the Courtyard Marriott Hotel in Emeryville, began May 5 and is scheduled to conclude tomorrow afternoon, May 7. Both Regan and CHA CEO Duane Dauner are testifying at the hearing, which is close to the public.

According to Tasty's sources, the testimony is offering jaw-dropping details about SEIU-UHW’s intimate relationship with hospital CEOs. For example…

• Regan met secretly with hospital CEOs at fancy hotels across California including a July 10, 2015 meeting at the Fairmont Grand Del Mar in San Diego, Calif., where the cheapest room costs $545 a night … and the Villa Brisa Suite will set you back $5,000 a night. 

• During the summer of 2015, Dauner began discussions with Regan’s opponents, which ultimately led him to dump Regan so he could ink an alternative deal. Testimony described Dauner’s contacts with Jon Youngdahl (Executive Director of the SEIU California State Council), Laphonza Butler (President of SEIU California State Council), Dustin Corcoran (CEO of the California Medical Association), and leaders of the California Teachers Association. Butler is a close ally of SEIU President Mary Kay Henry.

• During the summer and fall of 2015, Dauner had multiple phone conversations with California Gov. Jerry Brown about plans for ballot initiatives to pour billions more dollars into hospital industry coffers.

The arbitration hearing, now under way in Emeryville, was ordered by a Superior Court judge. After

Regan met with hospital CEOs at the Fairmont Grand del Mar

the CHA first requested arbitration to deal with SEIU-UHW’s multiple alleged violations of their secret partnership deal, Regan simply refused to show up.

The CHA then sued SEIU-UHW in Sacramento Superior Court. 

In March, a judge ordered Regan to submit to binding arbitration. 

And just three weeks ago, SEIU-UHW lost a last-ditch appeal to escape the arbitration hearings, thereby landing him in the Emeryville hotel to be questioned by CHA attorneys.

Stay tuned! 

SEIU-UHW's Dave Regan Takes His Ballot Initiative Bamboozle to Arizona

Dave Regan has begun circulating a copycat ballot initiative in Arizona as part of his latest attempt to pressure the California Hospital Association (CHA) into signing another secret sweetheart deal with SEIU-UHW.

According to internal SEIU-UHW documents, Regan hopes the threat of an Arizona ballot initiative will leverage several large multi-state hospital corporations to convince CHA’s Duane Dauner into inking another deal with Regan in California.

Regan's Arizona initiative -- called the "Hospital Executive Compensation Act" -- would cap hospital executives' pay at $450,000 per year. It’s identical to the initiatives that Regan filed -- and has twice withdrawn -- in California.

According to records from the Arizona Secretary of State (see below), SEIU-UHW staffers Arianna Jimenez and Cass Gualvez filed the initiative on February 12. By July 7, SEIU-UHW must collect more than 150,000 valid signatures in order to qualify the measure for the state's November 2016 ballot.

An internal SEIU-UHW document discusses Regan’s filing of a California measure (the "Hospital Executive Compensation Act of 2016"), for which SEIU-UHW is now circulating petitions among voters.

The document goes on to state that SEIU-UHW filed "a similar Executive Compensation initiative…in Arizona where several of our employers such as Dignity [Healthcare], Tenet [Healthcare] and CHS [Community Health Systems] are big players in the market." (See full document below.)

Apparently, Regan hopes that CEOs from the three companies will be willing to do some horse-trading in order to get SEIU-UHW to drop its ballot initiative.

In California, legislators enacted a law that criminalizes using ballot initiatives to extort "any thing of value… for the purpose of withdrawing an initiative petition." (Senate Bill 1253, authored by former Sen. Darrell Steinberg). The law was enacted after two rounds of Regan's ballot initiative bamboozle.

For four years, now, Regan’s ballot initiative strategy has been an utter (and massively expensive) failure in California. Regan has poured more than $25 million of SEIU-UHW members' dues into the initiatives. Nonetheless, Regan's "partnership" dreams have exploded in flames as California hospital executives abandoned and then sued SEIU-UHW in response to Regan's violation of an embarrassing "gag clause" penned by Regan.

Today, Regan is even the subject of a criminal investigation after allegedly breaking the arm of a CHA process server. The criminal probe is reportedly in the hands of the Contra Costa County District Attorney.

What's next?

SEIU-UHW's members should get ready to see millions more of their dues dollars disappear down the purple toilet.

 

Regan selling snake oil to the California public

And Arizonans should be prepared to see Regan deliver his best impersonation of a traveling snake oil salesman. As he did in California, Regan will shower the public with lies about how SEIU-UHW will use the ballot initiative to fight the Good Fight for the Little Man against fatcat CEOs.

But make no mistake, Arizonans. Wall Street Dave has twice "played" Californians like so many pawns on a board game. After promising populist-sounding reforms, Regan will sell you out at the drop of a hat so he can seal his own deal with hospital CEOs. 

In fact, in California, Regan not only dumped SEIU-UHW's ballot initiative in exchange for a secret deal with CEOs, he also signed a gag clause that blocked SEIU-UHW, its members, and allies from even uttering a peep about CEOs’ multi-million-dollar paychecks for a multi-year period. So much for the public interest!

This, my friends, apparently is Regan's "innovative" strategy for "rebuilding" the labor movement… by, umm, destroying the public's trust in unions that should be fighting against the billionaire class rather than secretly colluding with them.

  SEIU-UHW's Arizona Ballot Initiative: "Hospital Executive Compensation Act of 2016"

  SEIU-UHW Internal Document on Ballot Initiatives: 2016

SEIU-UHW's Dave Regan Launches New Attacks against SEIU Leaders: "The Shame of SEIU"

A source has leaked two letters penned by SEIU-UHW's Dave Regan that describe his deepening war with SEIU leaders. (The letters are viewable below.) 

In June, Regan leaked an earlier attack memo to the press that targeted SEIU President Mary Kay Henry ("Who’s Gonna Bell the Cat?").

In his latest letters, Regan says he is "repulsed and disgusted" by SEIU’s leaders who are selfishly pursuing "control, internal power and organizational dominance."

And that's just the beginning of Regan's rant.

In an "Open Letter to Leaders in SEIU" entitled "What Has Become of Us? The Shame of SEIU," Regan accuses SEIU’s leaders of being "consumed with power and domination in the service of nothing but appetite."

In case Regan's phrasing seems a bit whacky ("in the service of nothing but appetite"), Dave's letter also includes a quote from William Shakespeare.

So, uh… what prompted Dave's latest poison pen attack against SEIU President Mary Kay Henry and SEIU officials?

 

SEIU-UHW's Dave Regan

It appears that Purple Palace officials have stepped up their war against Regan following their earlier successful effort to slash SEIU-UHW’s membership by 60,000 members.

In recent weeks, SEIU officials outmaneuvered Regan by inking their own secret deal with the California Hospital Association (CHA), thereby driving another nail into the coffin of Regan's secret pact with the CHA… which, by the way, has been languishing on its deathbed for months.

How did the SEIU officials do it?

According to the terms of Regan's CHA deal, Dave is required to secure billions of dollars of new government revenues for California hospital companies in order to win the right to unionize 100,000 hospital workers. In recent weeks, however, Purple Palace officials teamed up with the California Teachers Association, California Governor Jerry Brown, and the CHA to sponsor an initiative that undercuts Regan's scheme for delivering billions of dollars to the hospital bosses.

This "chess move" has Regan spitting mad.

SEIU's Henry and Butler

In his two letters, Dave personally attacks Gov. Jerry Brown, the California Teachers Association, the Hospital Association, Laphonza Butler (President of the SEIU California State Council), Jon Youngdahl (Executive Director of the SEIU California State Council), and other SEIU leaders.

Oh, and Regan also attacks his former bunkmate, Duane Dauner (the CEO of the California Hospital Association), for inking a backroom deal with his SEIU rivals. 

Regan is so angry that he sent a letter to the CHA's membership trashing Dauner for being weak and ineffective, for selling out his members' interests, committing "monumental failures," and (more generally) for "the failure of Duane Dauner." 

Nice.

Talk about burning bridges. Regan's hate mail appears to signal that his "visionary," 21st century deal with the CHA is as dead as a doornail.

In SEIU's second attack on Regan, SEIU recently announced it’s sponsoring a statewide ballot initiative in California that competes directly with one that SEIU-UHW has been pursuing for months. Essentially, the SEIU California State Council and various SEIU local unions across the state are waging a head-to-head ballot fight against SEIU-UHW, which the Los Angeles Times describes this way in a recent article:

The fractious internal politics of one of California’s most powerful unions spilled into the movement to raise the statewide minimum wage Tuesday, as one wing of the Service Employees International Union announced a proposed ballot initiative that would compete with a measure backed by another branch of the labor group.

In his recently leaked letters, Regan attacks SEIU officials for conducting secret talks with the CHA:

SEIU's Jon Youngdahl

"These meetings with the Association representing all of UHW's hospital employers were never disclosed by either Butler or Youngdahl to UHW and clearly were intended to undermine and destabilize the hospital organizing work UHW was told to 'focus' on."

He goes on to attack SEIU's national leadership for being "insecure and weak" and also accuses them of "sabotage," "threats," "retaliation," and "impunity."

Here's more from Dave:

What are the implications for SEIU as a whole when the elected leader of the State Council takes it upon herself to secretly communicate with another local's employers and the employer Association for the sole purpose of sabotaging both the organizing and political work of that local?

What are the implications for the health and future of SEIU when UHW is forced to pay $2.5 million per year -- or be threatened with all manner of retaliation -- to a State Council that has license from the national leadership of SEIU to sabotage with impunity the legitimate work of UHW?

What does it mean when the national leadership of our union, and the state leadership of our Council, is so insecure and weak that they could even contemplate, let alone act upon, the sort of destructive behavior have recently been subjected to?

CHA's Duane Dauner

Cry me a river, right? 

It's always quite entertaining to see Backroom Dave -- whose snake-like qualities have never been mistaken for moral righteousness -- try to portray himself as the innocent victim of unscrupulous evildoers. 

Yo Dave, what goes around comes around. Ain't karma a b*tch.

Stay tuned for the next act of Dave’s Shakespearean drama.

Meanwhile, here are Regan's two letters.

  Dave Regan's Open Letter to SEIU: "The Shame of SEIU" (Nov. 2015)

  SEIU-UHW Dave Regan's letter to Members of the California Hospital Association on Duane Dauner (Novemb...

Internal Recording #3: The California Hospital Association Describes a Possible "Nuclear War" with SEIU-UHW over Secret Partnership Deal

Here's a third excerpt from an internal conference call conducted by the California Hospital Association (CHA) in June of 2015 regarding its secret partnership deal with SEIU-UHW.

In this excerpt, Duane Dauner (the CHA’s CEO) tells hospital executives that serious problems are brewing inside his newlywed relationship with SEIU-UHW, forged last year with Dave Regan.

In fact, the problems are so severe they threaten to blow up the entire deal and ignite what Dauner calls a "nuclear war."

What's going on?

First, Dauner says SEIU-UHW will not be successful in delivering the billions of taxpayer dollars required by the deal in order for SEIU-UHW to secure "organizing rights" covering 30,000 hospital workers in 2017.

In the deal, Regan pledged to use SEIU's political influence and $20 million of workers' dues dollars to deliver up to $6 billion a year in new Medicaid ("Medi-Cal") revenues to California hospital corporations by the end of 2016.

According to Dauner, Regan will fail.

Secondly, SEIU-UHW is apparently aware of its impending failure and is once again threatening to use ballot initiatives to pressure the hospital industry to allow it to unionize tens of thousands of hospital workers.

According to Dauner, SEIU-UHW may launch a third round of ballot initiatives as soon as the fall of 2015.

If so, says Dauner, SEIU-UHW will trigger a "nuclear war" that will "blow up" its relationship with the CHA. Dauner says the industry will go "all out" to defeat a new round of SEIU-UHW ballot initiatives.

Here's what Dauner says (you can hear the following statement at the 15:35 minute mark in the video below):

"UHW has threatened to introduce initiatives for 2016 by filing them in 2015 with the Attorney General for title and summary… We will be engaged in a nuclear war and we will be prepared. And we will go ‘all out’ to defeat those initiatives." (15:35)

Thirdly, Dauner reveals that the hospital industry is already maneuvering behind the scenes to mount legal challenges against SEIU-UHW. He mentions one lawsuit that's already underway and says California law prohibits Regan from using the state's ballot initiative system to extract demands from the hospital industry.

Fourthly, Dauner reveals that hospital workers are, at best, an invisible footnote in SEIU-UHW's top-down deal with hospital bosses. For example, SEIU-UHW's deal gives hospital CEOs -- not workers -- the right to choose which workers can actually form unions, according to Dauner. In another aspect of the deal, Regan agreed to a "gag clause" that blocks workers from reporting patient-care violations to government oversight agencies.

It’s no great surprise that the wheels are coming off Regan's so-called "audacious new proposal to save the labor movement." Regan's scheme violates every value of the labor movement and requires workers and their union, SEIU-UHW, to become errand boys for profit-hungry hospital corporations.

Furthermore, it's clear as day that Regan was out-maneuvered by the CHA during the negotiation of the partnership deal. Regan -- and SEIU-UHW's members -- are now stuck with a horrible deal that’s forced SEIU-UHW members to cough up tens of millions of dollars to hospital corporations, has failed to produce a single new union member for SEIU-UHW, and appears headed towards a nuclear conflagration.

Don't be surprised when Regan signs onto an even bigger sellout deal with industry bosses in a desperate attempt to dig his ass out of a hole that's growing deeper by the day.

Here's the audio file, along with PowerPoint slides that the CHA presented to hospital executives during the presentation:

Internal Recording #2: The California Hospital Association Discusses its Secret ‘Money-for-Workers’ Deal with SEIU-UHW

Check this out.

A source has sent a second excerpt from an internal conference call held recently by the California Hospital Association regarding its secret deal with SEIU-UHW, which is the subject of a complaint submitted to California Attorney General Kamala Harris.

The new recording is quite revealing.

We hear a description -- direct from top execs inside the hospital industry's Chamber of Commerce -- of the basic terms of the secret deal between hospital CEOs and SEIU-UHW’s Dave Regan.

According to the recording, the SEIU-CHA deal is basically a 'money-for-workers' transaction.

SEIU-UHW must deliver $4.4 billion a year in new taxpayer-funded Medicaid revenues to California’s hospital corporations… which are already enjoying big profits. (Last week, Kaiser Permanente reported $2 billion in profits during the first six months of 2015.)

And in return for delivering this enormous sum to the bosses ($4.4 billion), SEIU-UHW can basically purchase the right to unionize tens of thousands of California hospital workers. The workers would then be subject to stripped-down wages and benefits, a gag clause, and limited workplace rights.

(Note: In California, Medicaid is referred to as "Medi-Cal.")

The recording below also offers hints about the apparent troubles brewing between the CHA and SEIU-UHW. Note: The beginning of the video is silent while background information is presented to viewers. The audio begins at 45 seconds.

Internal Recording: California Hospital Association's CEO Says SEIU-UHW's Dave Regan Has Failed to Unionize Workers under Sweetheart Deal

A source sent a recording from an internal conference call held recently by the California Hospital Association about its secret deal with SEIU-UHW.

The two-minute recording (see below) highlights growing tensions inside SEIU-UHW about whether Dave Regan’s deal with the CHA is living up to his grandiose promises.

When Regan inked the deal in May of 2014, he triumphantly described it as a "breakthrough agreement" that would allow SEIU-UHW to unionize as many as 60,000 hospital workers across California.

The agreement allows SEIU-UHW to organize 30,000 hospital workers during “Phase 1” of the deal (from May 2014 to December 2016).

In Phase 2 (December 2016 to December 2017), SEIU-UHW can ‘purchase’ the right to unionize an additional 30,000 hospital workers if the union can successfully convince California legislators and Governor Jerry Brown to allocate an additional $6 billion a year of taxpayer funds to California hospital corporations. 

Regan famously secured SEIU-UHW’s so-called "organizing rights deal" by forfeiting workers' rights -- workers’ right to strike, workers’ right to report patient-careviolations to government oversight agencies, workers’ right to negotiate their own wages and benefits, etc.

Regan also agreed to prohibit SEIU-UHW from taking any positions on legislative, regulatory, and ballot issues that are "adverse to the interests" of the hospital industry. In addition, Regan's deal essentially converts SEIU into a lobbying arm for hospital corporations that's dedicated to boosting hospital profits. 

Immediately after signing his deal, Regan jetted to a meeting of SEIU's International Executive Board in Washington, DC and boasted that the deal would literally "save" the labor movement. Days later, Diamond Dave published an article trumpeting his backroom deal ("Live Better Together") and also got journalist Josh Israel to pen a puff piece entitled "The Audacious New Proposal to Save the Labor Movement."

So… now that 15 months have passed since Regan signed the deal, what's happened? Has SEIU-UHW successfully unionized tens of thousands of hospital workers?

Not quite.

As of today, Regan has unionized a grand total of zero workers under the deal. That's right, the big goose egg.

Check out the recording below.

During last month’s conference call with California hospital executives, CEO Duane Dauner reported that so far SEIU-UHW has attempted only two elections under the deal.

In February 2015, SEIU-UHW lost (by a landslide) an election at 552-bed Mission Hospital (Mission Viejo, Calif.) covering approximately 1,000 workers.

In December 2014, SEIU-UHW narrowly won an election for fewer than 100 workers at 158-bed Verdugo Hills Hospital (Glendale, Calif.). However, SEIU-UHW allegedly violated federal labor law by using threats and "acts of physical intimidation" against workers during the election, according to NLRB records.

Earlier this spring, a judge held a trial to investigate SEIU-UHW's alleged violations, but has not yet issued a final ruling. The allegations -- which were filed by the hospital despite its sweetheart deal with SEIU-UHW -- identify Cass Gualvez (an SEIU-UHW staffer and Executive Committee member) who apparently headed the campaign at the Southern California hospital.

So... what does a quick cost-benefit analysis say about Regan's "visionary" deal with the CHA?

So far, Regan has spent approximately $35 million of SEIU-UHW members' dues money on the deal. In exchange, SEIU-UHW has unionized a total of zero workers.

Where did the $35 million go?

First, Regan flushed $10-$15 million down the toilet during two rounds of statewide ballot initiatives, which SEIU-UHW never filed. Next, the CHA agreement requires SEIU-UHW to deposit $20 million into a political fund jointly controlled by the CHA that's used to lobby politicians for billions of additional taxpayer monies for hospital corporations.

Even if you accept Regan's horribly cynical "money-for-members" approach, the current results are nothing less than an unmitigated failure.

It's no wonder, then, that voices inside SEIU-UHW are saying, "$35 million of our monthly dues money for WHAT? Dave sold us a lemon!"

Worker: "SEIU Said They'd Fight for Us... But They Didn't Even Throw a Punch"

In California, SEIU is making more headlines as a result of another stunningly pathetic performance at the bargaining table. 

Last week, the leaders of SEIU Local 1000, which represents 95,000 state employees, signed a tentative agreement with California officials for a three-year labor contract.

Here’s some background.

Local 1000’s members haven’t had a pay increase since 2007. In fact, the local’s leaders have bargained only three raises since 2001. Meanwhile, SEIU has accepted contract language that forces workers to contribute more of their wages to their pensions. And in the recent difficult years of the recession, workers got hit with furloughs that cut workers’ take-home pay by between 5%-14%.

This year, however, the state's coffers are overflowing with tax revenues. A recent article in the New York Times put it this way: “California Faces a New Quandary, Too Much Money.” On Friday, California’s legislature approved an annual budget that’ll produce a surplus estimated at somewhere between $1.2 billion to $4.4 billion. 

So… this should be a perfect opportunity for SEIU to finally win some justice for its members, right? Plus, the Democratic Party controls both houses of the state legislature and the governor’s office.

Did SEIU actually win something for its members?

Here’s how one SEIU member put it to the Sacramento Bee:

The SEIU agreement left state worker Ernie Medina disappointed, especially in light of [SEIU Local 1000 President Yvonne] Walker's tough talk.

"She said she would fight for us," said Medina, "but I don't see where she even threw a punch."

Under SEIU’s deal, workers will get another year of wage freezes during the first year of the contract; a 2 percent increase on July 1, 2014 if – and only if -- the state “achieves certain revenue targets;” and a 2.5 percent raise in 2015.

Observers are especially stunned by SEIU’s willingness to tie its members’ future wage increase to mysterious budget “triggers” that are entirely controlled by the Boss. According to the Sacramento Bee:

It remains unclear exactly how the fiscal triggers in the new contract work.

Here’s what the state’s H.R. Department told the newspaper:

"Revenues have to be consistent with meeting the state's obligations" for the 2014 raise to take effect, said Pat McConahay, spokeswoman for [Gov. Jerry] Brown's Department of Human Resources. "And that's determined by the Department of Finance."

Sounds like workers will be getting a wage freeze in 2014. 

So what’s SEIU saying about the so-called “triggers” that it negotiated?

The union's announcement, meanwhile, didn't explain what factors would trigger the earlier raise. The local didn't respond to The Bee's texts and messages requesting comment.

Meanwhile, the head of another union of state employees says that in the past, state negotiators proposed this sort of arrangement to the unions, but none of the unions actually ever accepted the idea of tying their wage increases to “triggers:”

Bruce Blanning, the longtime executive director of the state engineers' union, said he has seen state labor proposals contingent on certain economic factors in the past, but that they weren't put into contracts.

"They were too difficult to measure," Blanning said.

Way to go, SEIU!