Another Former SEIU Official Is on Uber’s Payroll

LaPhonza Butler and Mary Kay Henry

It turns out that SEIU President Emeritus Andy Stern isn’t the only SEIU official on the payroll of gig companies.

Laphonza Butler, the former President of SEIU Local 2015 and the SEIU California State Council, is advising and representing Uber in secret talks with SEIU, according to an article in Bloomberg. (Josh Eidelson, “Teamsters Union Splits From Uber and Lyft on California Worker Rights Law,” Bloomberg, July 25, 2019).

Butler, a close ally of SEIU President Mary Kay Henry, also served until on the SEIU International Executive Board. Last December, she resigned her position at Local 2015 to take a job as a consultant and partner at SCRB Strategies, a California-based business and political consulting firm.

During the secret talks, covered in this earlier post, SEIU discussed plans to support Uber’s request for an exemption from a groundbreaking new California bill (Assembly Bill 5) that would force Uber to hire drivers as employees rather than exploit them as independent contractors.

On the good news front, Bloomberg reports that leaders of the Teamsters union in California are now saying they oppose exemptions for gig companies following a public backlash.

According to Eidelson:

… If the [gig] industry can’t win over the Teamsters, firms could still hope to find compromise with other prominent unions that companies have met with, which include the Service Employees International Union and the United Food & Commercial Workers.

One asset for Uber is Laphonza Butler. She was president of one of the SEIU’s largest local unions until last year and is now a partner at SCRB Strategies, a California-based business and political consulting firm. There, Butler has advised and represented Uber in its dealings with organized labor on employment issues and also serves as an adviser to the presidential campaign of Kamala Harris, the Democratic senator from California. An Uber spokesman said Butler brings a valuable perspective to the company’s efforts to improve work for drivers, and a spokesman for Harris declined to comment. Butler and her firm didn’t respond to requests for comment…

More recently, SEIU California circulated a summary of potential alternative legislation. The proposal would provide “flexibility to platform companies and platform workers,” according to the memo. It would create systems for collective bargaining, “portable benefits” accounts and minimum pay guarantees but would allow companies that meet certain criteria to seek “flexible alternative standards” in place of those covering other employers in areas such as overtime, breaks and worker’s compensation.

Such an approach alarms some drivers. Cutting a deal that deprives app-based workers of full employee rights “will absolutely damage the future for workers,” said Nicole Moore, a Lyft driver and organizer with the advocacy group Rideshare Drivers United in Los Angeles. She said any kind of special arrangement would reverberate far beyond ride-hailing and food delivery. “Workers can be deployed from apps in any industry,” Moore said.

In public, union leaders have taken a hard line. Mary Kay Henry, international president of the SEIU, said in February that the union intends to “reach an agreement that’s not a concession.” Henry discussed the issue in a recent meeting with Newsom’s chief of staff.

Bob Schoonover, president of the SEIU’s California State Council, said Thursday that the group “has not and would not support any third classification or interpretation of employee classification that would undermine employee status and protections” granted by last year’s court ruling and the proposed law. SEIU intends to help workers “maintain and expand upon” those protections instead, he said in an emailed statement. Schoonover described the memos exploring potential compromises on employment rights as “ideas and concepts” that “should not be construed” as something more significant.

What kind of deal is SEIU discussing with Uber?

It goes something like this:  In exchange for SEIU backing the gig companies’ exemption from the California bill, the gig companies would designate SEIU as their official “association” representing independent-contractor workers, according to articles in the Los Angeles Times, New York Times and other publications.

This would allow SEIU to collect dues money. But it would deprive the workers of the right to strike. And… it would deny gig workers basic legal protections that come with regular employment status: minimum wage, sick leave, overtime pay, meal and rest breaks, unemployment insurance, disability insurance, workers’ compensation, parental leave, family leave, and contributions to Social Security and Medicare.

If Andy Stern and LaPhonza Butler are on gig companies’ payroll, are there others?

Most likely.  Tasty wouldn’t be surprised if David Rolf is pocketing gig company cash.

SEIU’s David Rolf Joins Andy Stern in Pimping for Uber

Andy Stern and Andy's "Mini-Me" David Rolf

Remember when SEIU President Emeritus Andy Stern began working as a consultant for Airbnb, Handy, and other tech firms to help them try to undermine gig-economy workers’ right to be treated as regular employees?

Well, another SEIU official is now following “Handy” Andy’s lead.

Last month, SEIU Local 775 President David Rolf (a.k.a. Andy Stern’s “Mini-Me”) signed an open letter with Uber CEO Dara Khosrowshahi and venture capitalist Nick Hanauer. 

The letter calls on “business, labor and government in Washington state to join us” in an effort to push state legislation that reportedly would consign gig workers to a second-class status as independent contractors without the right to overtime pay, unemployment insurance, disability insurance, Social Security, meal and rest breaks, etc.

For years, Uber drivers and other gig-economy workers have been fighting to force tech companies to treat them as regular employees. They’ve filed class-action action lawsuits seeking millions of dollars in back pay. And in Seattle, Uber drivers and Teamsters Local 117 successfully passed a law allowing Uber drivers to unionize.

Uber executives have been aggressively fighting workers’ organizing efforts in the courts as well as by launching an anti-union campaign in Seattle consisting of TV ads, online ads, text and e-mail blasts to drivers, anti-union meetings, and even an anti-union podcast.

And, in case workers are successful, Uber is also trying to do an end-run around workers’ efforts by trying to pass state laws that would permanently legislate gig workers into “independent contractor” status and create a second tier of so-called “portable benefits” for them.

That’s where Stern and Rolf come into the story.

In 2016, the tech companies hired Andy Stern as a lobbyist to help them try to pass such a bill in the New York legislature. Fortunately, that effort stalled due to opposition.

Following their failure in New York, the tech companies are now trying their luck in Washington State… with the help of David Rolf and Andy Stern. According to Uber’s website:

Last year, Uber approached David Rolf with SEIU 775 and entrepreneur Nick Hanauer about working together on the creation of a portable benefits system in Washington state… Following several productive discussions, we developed a joint letter calling on business, labor, and government to work together to address this important problem.

On January 23, 2018, Uber published a letter signed by Uber’s CEO, SEIU’s Rolf, and the venture capitalist. At the top of the letter is Uber’s logo alongside SEIU’s.

So, how are people responding to Rolf’s so-called “innovative” deal with Uber?

Here’s a sample, according to Bloomberg. (Josh Eidelson, “Uber-Union Proposal on Benefits Met With Skepticism From Labor,” Bloomberg, January 25, 2018).

New York Taxi Workers Alliance Director Bhairavi Desai told Bloomberg: “Selling out to the bosses is not innovative—it’s as old as capitalism."

Desai continued: “This type of bogus agreement only gives them [tech companies] cover for exploitation.”

Damn right!

In fact, Rolf has even been criticized by an official inside his own union, according to Bloomberg:

“This is just a facelift by Uber to be able to look like they actually care about the people who they hire for the services they provide,” said Hector Figueroa, who is president of SEIU’s East Coast property services affiliate and serves with Rolf on the international union’s executive board. “I just cannot comprehend how today, as a labor leader, I would be encouraging the spread of ‘independent’ work.”

Interesting, right?

Why is Rolf’s help so important to Uber?

First, Rolf’s union is one of the largest in Washington state and he's developed lots of relationships with politicians. If Uber is successful in passing its legislation in one state, it can then push similar legislation nationally, says Bloomberg’s Eidelson.

Uber hopes working with Rolf and Hanauer to pass legislation in Washington will change the national conversation on these issues, showing how benefits can be decoupled from traditional employee-employer status, and opening a less adversarial phase in the debate over how laws should treat gig-economy workers, a spokesperson said.

The trio, and whichever additional allies they can muster, will try to get a first-of-its-kind system passed into law in Washington state, which is Rolf and Hanauer’s home as well as one of the few places where Democrats have unified control of government and legislation on the issue is already being debated.

While the letter is light on details, the spokesperson said Uber wants to gather additional stakeholders and formulate a proposal that could be introduced in next year’s legislative session. Among the things a bill should do, the spokesperson said, is make clear that workers like Uber drivers are not employees.

Uber drivers protesting low pay

Meanwhile, Stern is working other channels to help Uber and tech companies permanently relegate their workers to independent-contractor status.

In December 2016, Stern co-authored a proposal with Eli Lehrer (President of the right-wing “R Street Institute” in Washington DC) calling on the Republican-controlled U.S. Congress and White House to grant “waivers” to states to allow them to escape the requirements of federal labor laws. The waivers would be a boon to tech companies, which Stern calls “sharing-economy companies” with “innovative business models.”

Stern, a master of deception and disinformation, entitled his proposal: “How to Modernize Labor Law.”

Does SEIU have no shame?

Scott Courtney resigns from SEIU

Scott Courtney

Scott Courtney, an SEIU Executive Vice President and leader of the union’s “Fight for $15” campaign, has resigned his position at the union, according to BuzzFeed News and Bloomberg News. In addition, another staffer was fired and a third was placed on administrative leave. Here are links to the news coverage:

Cora Lewis, “A Top Labor Executive Has Resigned After Complaints About His Relationships With Female Staffers,” BuzzFeed News

Josh Eidelson, “Union Leader in $15 Wage Effort Resigns During Sexual Misconduct Investigation,” Bloomberg News

And here’s an excerpt from the BuzzFeed article:

"This morning, President Mary Kay Henry accepted Scott Courtney’s resignation as an elected officer and member of SEIU," wrote Sahar Wali, spokesperson for the Service Employees International Union, in an email to BuzzFeed News.

"This comes a week after she suspended him from his assigned duties based on preliminary information that surfaced through an internal investigation launched to look into questions about to potential violations of our union’s anti-nepotism policy, efforts to evade our Code of Ethics and subsequent complaints related to sexual misconduct and abusive behavior towards union staff," Wali added.

Bloomberg News reports that SEIU President Mary Kay Henry sent an e-mail today to SEIU’s International Executive Board informing them she accepted Courtney’s resignation and took action against two other staffers. The article includes this detail:

Current and former SEIU employees had told Bloomberg News last week that Courtney had a pattern of dating subordinates, and some said they believed people working for him had been rewarded or reassigned based on those romantic relationships.

On October 19, UltraViolet -- a national women’s rights organization founded in 2012 -- issued a press release calling on SEIU to fire Courtney. The release stated:

The SEIU must immediately move to fire Courtney, and conduct a review of the organization’s sexual harassment policies. This is wholly unacceptable, and the SEIU leadership must act quickly to ensure that it never happens again.

Courtney is one of the highest officers inside SEIU, serving as one of seven "Executive Vice Presidents" and a member of the union's International Executive Board.

More details on sexual harassment allegations inside Purple Palace

Scott Courtney

More coverage of the details emerging around Mary Kay Henry’s suspension of SEIU EVP Scott Courtney…

In an article published this afternoon, Josh Eidelson (the reporter who initially broke the story) describes more allegations from unnamed current and former SEIU staffers about Courtney’s romantic relationships with multiple women staffers. (Josh Eidelson, “‘Fight for 15’ Leader Suspended While Union Investigates Office Dating,” Bloomberg BNA.)

Here’s an excerpt:

Beyond his relationship with his new wife, multiple current and former SEIU employees who spoke to Bloomberg said that [Scott] Courtney had a pattern of dating subordinates. His conduct, these people say, has been a source of tension and concern within the union and has spurred an internal ethics complaint that preceded this week’s suspension. Some co-workers said that they believed people working for Courtney had been rewarded or reassigned based on romantic relationships with him.

… One woman recounted a time when she felt pressured by him into agreeing to have dinner together and had to scramble to find a way to back out. “The climate he created was hostile to women, and ultimately it didn’t stop with him,” said the woman, who now works elsewhere in the labor movement.

The full article is below.

The article mentions Courtney’s marriage in recent days to an SEIU staffer after they apparently eloped in Europe. The article notes that Courtney has publicized their marriage in photos on Twitter and Facebook. Here’s one of the photos posted by Courtney.

The sexual harassment inside SEIU that’s grabbing headlines is more widespread than the current case, according to Tasty’s sources. For example, sources say SEIU President Emeritus Andy Stern was known to sleep with women staffers when he was SEIU’s Organizing Director.

Tasty, in earlier coverage, described multiple allegations surrounding a former SEIU staff leader, John August, who reportedly was notorious for sexual harassment inside both SEIU and the Coalition of Kaiser Permanente Unions. In 2013, he was ousted from his job atop the Coalition of Kaiser Permanente Unions after months of investigations regarding sexual harassment and abusive behavior against staffers. His removal apparently took place after he sexually harassed a staffer at Kaiser Permanente.

 

SEIU's Dave Regan

Courtney, prior to becoming a top officer at SEIU International, served as the Organizing Director at SEIU 1199 Ohio, which was headed by Dave Regan. 

Regan, who currently serves as the president of SEIU-UHW and is a member of SEIU's International Executive Board, has been the subject of a number of allegations of sexual misconduct targeting both staff and union members.

According to Tasty’s sources, the harassment of women staffers has existed for many years inside SEIU but the union’s leaders have largely turned a blind eye and failed to hold high-level SEIU officials accountable.

Bloomberg BNA

‘Fight for 15’ Leader Suspended While Union Investigates Office Dating

Current and former SEIU staff describe a union leader’s pattern of relationships with subordinates.

By Josh Eidelson

October 19, 2017, 12:34 PM PDT

An architect of the high-profile union campaign to raise U.S. fast-food wages has been suspended from his duties at the Service Employees International Union this week over a relationship with a subordinate whom he married, and multiple current and former colleagues say his conduct is part of a pattern of previous romantic relationships with women working for him.

Scott Courtney, an executive vice president at SEIU who played a key role in creating and leading the union’s “Fight for 15” campaign, was suspended from his job on Monday by SEIU President Mary Kay Henry. A staff email sent by Henry on Wednesday said that there had been questions about Courtney “relating to a romantic relationship between a staff person and a supervisor.”

Courtney, reached via Twitter earlier this week, said he was on his honeymoon and “in no position to respond at this time.” His new wife, an SEIU organizer who now goes by Ashley Courtney, seemed to address the controversy by posting to Twitter and Facebook a photo of the couple in wedding attire with the caption, “No matter what you do to us, I will not apologize for getting married. #LoveAlwaysWins.” Mr. Courtney did not respond to further questions, and it not clear if the couple still work together at SEIU.

Beyond his relationship with his new wife, multiple current and former SEIU employees who spoke to Bloomberg said that Courtney had a pattern of dating subordinates. His conduct, these people say, has been a source of tension and concern within the union and has spurred an internal ethics complaint that preceded this week’s suspension. Some co-workers said that they believed people working for Courtney had been rewarded or reassigned based on romantic relationships with him.

SEIU spokeswoman Sahar Wali said the union is investigating “the situation that gave rise to” allegations about Courtney’s relationship with the staffer and the union’s “ethical code and anti-nepotism policy.” She declined to comment on the details. It is unclear from SEIU’s statements if Courtney’s suspension and the ongoing investigation are limited to his relationship with his now-wife.

With nearly 2 million members, SEIU is the nation’s second-largest union and arguably its most politically influential. Courtney is a major figure in the leadership, previously serving as organizing director of the health-care division and national organizing director. Courtney has been central to the “Fight for 15,” which has successfully pulled Democratic Party politicians to the left while raising minimum wages through state and local legislation. The campaign has combined strikes against some low-wage employers with political and legal pressure tactics. The goal is to enact a $15 minimum wage across the country and organize low-wage industries.

The campaign’s chief target has been the fast-food industry, which SEIU has so far failed to unionize. “Holding McDonald's accountable is our air traffic controllers moment—our chance to reverse a steady decline for workers that started when President Reagan fired 11,000 striking air traffic controllers, undermining the bargaining power of workers for decades," Courtney said in 2015. As part of the union’s effort against McDonald’s, the Fight for 15 sought to highlight claims of sexual harassment filed against the company with the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission.

This month’s sexual harassment scandal involving Hollywood mega-producer Harvey Weinstein may have spurred SEIU employees to be more outspoken about alleged impropriety within the union. "Without Harvey Weinstein, there may have been an ethics complaint filed, but I don’t know that there would be the scale of conversation that’s happening now," said one current SEIU employee. "There are some very clear parallels—that there is a man with an outsize amount of power in a certain dynamic and a whole system that has enabled that behavior.”

In her internal email, SEIU’s Henry acknowledged that the investigation into Courtney would cause a big stir in the union. “I know that this situation has profound impacts on our staff family,” she wrote. “Just as we fight to make change in our society, we know that our organization should reflect the kind of just society that we fight for across the country.”

Some women who had left SEIU said they felt Courtney’s alleged relationships with subordinates would cast into doubt any recognition or advancement bestowed on women working below him in the union, since co-workers might assume the promotion came from a sexual relationship with him. One woman recounted a time when she felt pressured by him into agreeing to have dinner together and had to scramble to find a way to back out. “The climate he created was hostile to women, and ultimately it didn’t stop with him,” said the woman, who now works elsewhere in the labor movement.

Janice Fine, a labor studies professor at Rutgers University and a former union organizer, said the macho culture that has historically prevailed in organized labor remains a widespread issue. “This generation of young women in the labor movement, they’ve just come up in a time where they are so much better at calling that stuff out,” she said.

—With assistance by Ben Penn (Bloomberg BNA).

Article on Mary Kay Henry’s suspension of SEIU EVP Scott Courtney

Scott Coutney

Here’s the text of Josh Eidelson’s article about Mary Kay Henry’s suspension of Scott Courtney, one of seven Executive Vice Presidents at SEIU.

Bloomberg Law, Labor & Employment

Fight For 15 Architect Suspended by Service Employees Union

October 16, 2017

By Josh Eidelson

The Service Employees International Union has suspended a key creator of its “Fight For 15.”

In a Oct. 16 e-mail obtained by Bloomberg News, SEIU President Mary Kay Henry informed colleagues that she was suspending Executive Vice President Scott Courtney, “from all of his duties as an officer of the International Union,” effective immediately. “During this time I will be handling all duties previously assigned to him with my officer team.”

Henry’s e-mail did not reveal the reason for the suspension. Courtney, a Henry ally, was an architect of her signature initiative, the “Fight For 15,” as well as a predecessor effort called the Fight For a Fair Economy and a more recent campaign to transform the politics of the Midwest. The Fight For 15, a blend of high-profile strikes and legal, media, and political pressure on low-wage employers, has so far fallen short in its efforts to unionize the fast food industry but succeeded in forcing a $15 minimum wage into the mainstream of Democratic politics, and onto the books in states and cities around the country.

“If you think about what the No. 1 job of an elected official ought to be, it’s raising the standard of living of citizens they’re elected to represent,” Courtney told the New York Times in August. “But if you look at what has been happening in battle ground states in the Midwest, it’s just the opposite.”

SEIU, the second-largest U.S. union and arguably the most politically significant one, represents nearly 2 million workers in building services, healthcare, and government. Many of those workers are likely to get the chance next year to stop funding the union, if the Supreme Court rules as expected in a First Amendment case that could outlaw mandatory fees for the entire public sector.

Donald Trump’s surprise victory last year revived the threat the justices would make government employment all “right-to-work.” Henry responded by informing staff that the international union would plan for a thirty percent reduction in its budget by the end of 2017, raising questions about which programs SEIU would prioritize with its limited funds.

SEIU spokeswoman Sahar Wali confirmed the suspension. “SEIU takes all questions related to conduct of elected officers very seriously,” she told Bloomberg News in an e-mail. “This decision was made as part of an on-going inquiry that was called for by President Henry. As this inquiry is ongoing, no conclusions have been reached as yet and we continue to gather information.”

Reached via Twitter late Oct. 16, Courtney said he was on his honeymoon and “in no position to respond at this time.”

To contact the reporter on this story: Josh Eidelson in Washington atjeidelson@bloomberg.net

Mary Kay Henry suspends SEIU Exec. VP Scott Courtney

More palace intrigue from inside SEIU’s DC headquarters.

Yesterday, SEIU President Mary Kay Henry suspended Scott Courtney, an SEIU Executive Vice President who leads SEIU’s “Fight for 15” campaign.

The news comes from Bloomberg BNA reporter Josh Eidelson, who cites an internal e-mail sent yesterday by Mary Kay Henry (Josh Eidelson, “Fight for 15 architects suspended by Service Employees Union,” Bloomberg BNA).

According to Eidelson, Henry yesterday informed SEIU executive board members that she was suspending Courtney “from all of his duties as an officer of the international union.” “During that time I will be handling all duties previously assigned to him with my officer team.”

Here’s a tweet about Eidelson’s article:

Just 13 days before his suspension, Courtney was in Ireland where he spoke at a biennial conference of the Services, Industrial, Professional and Technical Union (SIPTU), which represents over 200,000 workers in Ireland. Here’s a tweet from SIPTU with a pic of Courtney on the stage:

More to come.

SEIU Announces 30% Budget Cuts in 2017 with AFSCME Merger on the Way

According to multiple press outlets, SEIU President Mary Kay Henry issued an internal memo on December 14 announcing plans for a 30% cut to SEIU International’s budget in 2017. Tasty’s sources say the plan calls for cuts of 10% in January 2017 and another 20% in July 2017.

News of the memo was first publicly reported by Josh Eidelson at Bloomberg Businessweek (Eidelson, “Fear of Trump Triggers Deep Spending Cuts by Nation's Second-Largest Union,” Bloomberg Businessweek, December 27, 2016).

In the memo, Henry says the cuts are necessary due to the Republican Party’s imminent control of all three branches of the federal government. Here’s an excerpt from her December 14 memo, according to Bloomberg:

Because the far right will control all three branches of the federal government, we will face serious threats to the ability of working people to join together in unions. These threats require us to make tough decisions that allow us to resist these attacks and to fight forward despite dramatically reduced resources.

Tasty believes the story behind the cuts is more complex than what SEIU describes in its memo.

Why?

There’s another reason for the cuts that so far hasn’t been mentioned – namely, SEIU’s planned merger with AFSCME.

More than 18 months ago, SEIU and AFSCME began merger talks spurred by concerns about Friedrichs v. California Teachers Association, the U.S. Supreme Court case that could weaken public-sector unions by challenging their right to collect fair share fees from nonmembers to cover the costs of representation, such as negotiating contracts. In February 2016, the sudden death of Justice Antonin Scalia left the court deadlocked on the Friedrichs case and apparently slowed the two unions’ merger plans.

In May 2016, SEIU approved a resolution leaving open the possibility of a full-blown merger while immediately calling for joint planning, organizing, bargaining, and political work between the two unions. In July 2016, AFSCME approved a nearly identical resolution.

With the election of Trump in November, both unions are likely speeding up their merger plans -- which undoubtedly will require the elimination of duplicate functions, departments, etc at the two unions. Tasty guesses this helps explain SEIU’s announcement of rapid budget cuts.

It also helps explain why other unions with large public-sector memberships haven’t also announced deep budget cuts.

SEIU's Mary Kay Henry

So why doesn’t Henry’s budget-cut memo mention the AFSCME merger? It’s easier to win the staff’s support for layoffs based on Trump.

If Tasty’s theory is correct, we’ll likely see evidence of expedited merger activity in the months ahead… and perhaps budget cuts at AFSCME as well.

As far as eliminating waste, SEIU should start by axing some of its highly paid officials inhabiting the top floors of the Purple Palace. For example, over a number of years, SEIU has almost doubled the number of its full-time “Executive Vice Presidents” (from four to seven EVPs). 

The latest increase came in May of 2016 when SEIU boosted the number of EVPs from six to seven-- at the same time that it passed the AFSCME merger resolution to prepare for SEIU's declining membership. Makes total sense, right?

Each EVP earns more than $200,000 a year, according to financial records. If you eliminate four of them, that’s more than $1 million in savings a year when you factor in benefits, etc.

Stay tuned.