Verity Health Workers: “Why did SEIU-UHW give away our health insurance, sick pay, and retirement benefits and freeze our pay scales?”

Nearly 2,000 workers at a chain of California hospitals are asking why SEIU-UHW officials agreed to freeze their pay scale and give away health insurance, vacation, sick pay, retirement benefits, and other benefits during contract negotiations with the company’s top executives.

Workers are angry, say Tasty’s sources, after NUHW recently negotiated a contract with the same company, Verity Health System, but didn’t accept any of the cuts negotiated by SEIU-UHW officials.

NUHW’s contract, ratified in December, covers workers at two of the company’s six hospitals. SEIU-UHW represents workers at the company’s remaining four hospitals.

Here’s what happened.

In November 2015, Dave Regan and other SEIU-UHW officials negotiated massive cuts for SEIU-UHW’s approximately 2,000 members at Verity Health System, formerly known as the Daughters of Charity Health System. SEIU-UHW represents workers at O’Connor Hospital, St. Louise Regional Hospital, St. Francis Medical Center, and St. Vincent Medical Center.

During negotiations, Regan agreed to freeze workers’ wage scales and to eliminate a whole range of benefits -- including health insurance, vacation pay, sick pay, and retirement benefits -- for hundreds of SEIU-UHW’s members who work part time at the hospitals.

As far as the benefit cuts, Regan agreed to change the contract’s so-called “benefit eligibility standard” so that part-time workers must now work at least 30 hours a week, instead of 20 hours a week, to be eligible for health insurance, sick pay, vacation pay, etc.

Regan also agreed to eliminate float differentials and short-call pay, cut Paid Time Off (PTO) accruals, eliminate “Jury Duty Leave” and “Education Leave,” eliminate future Extended Sick Leave accruals, as well as multiple other cuts. Regan also accepted the elimination of retiree health benefits for all employees at St. Louise Regional Hospital and O'Connor Hospital, according to a copy of the deal.

SEIU-UHW members called Regan’s contract “the worst contract in our history.”

To add insult to injury, Regan jammed the wage freeze and benefit cuts down workers’ throats by using ramrod ratification votes.

 

Dave Regan, SEIU-UHW

Two months later, approximately 650 workers at two Verity hospitals (Seton Medical Center and Seton Coastside Hospital) began their own negotiations with Verity officials after decertifying SEIU-UHW and voting to join NUHW.

With NUHW, workers successfully fought off all of management’s benefit cuts and won increases of 3% per year to workers’ wage scales during each year of the three-year contract. In addition, NUHW members won one-time “equity” pay increases of up to 12%.

Across California, Regan and SEIU-UHW have a well-documented history of cutting backroom deals with hospital CEOs to gut workers’ pay, benefits, and working conditions. Now, at the Verity hospitals, Regan’s dirty deeds have produced a lopsided outcome for employees who do the same work just miles apart. SEIU-UHW members, working 40 miles away from their NUHW counterparts, now receive vastly inferior benefits from the same company.  

Regan’s cuts offer another jarring contradiction.

SEIU officials have rightfully criticized Trump’s effort to cut health coverage under the Medicaid Program and the Affordable Care Act. So, ummm, why did one of SEIU’s top officials – Dave Regan – agree to eliminate health coverage for hundreds of SEIU’s own members without any kind of fight?

And while we’re on the topic of contradictions, why did Regan ink his sell-out deal with Verity, a company controlled by New York hedge fund BlueMountain Capital?

So much for SEIU’s fight against the 1% and the billionaire class, who are pocketing unprecedented profits while US workers struggle to pay rent and put food on the table.

SEIU-UHW Officials Accepted Wage Freeze and Deep Benefit Cuts for 2,000 Workers at Daughters of Charity Health System

Here's the latest on SEIU-UHW's ramrod ratification votes at the Daughters of Charity Health System, where SEIU-UHW officials have once again forced massive wage and benefit cuts down the throats of 2,000 workers employed at four California hospitals.

As expected, a closer reading of the agreement negotiated by SEIU-UHW's Dave Regan has revealed a lengthy list of cuts in addition to Regan's blockbuster concession that strips hundreds of workers of health insurance, sick leave, retirement, and other benefits.

Here's a fuller list of the cuts. Below, Tasty has posted a copy of the full agreement as well as a two-page summary that SEIU-UHW staffers handed out to workers. 

• Wage scales are frozen. SEIU-UHW members will no longer receive "step increases" according to their years of service on the job.

• Part-time employees who work between 20-30 hours per week are no longer eligible for any benefits, including health insurance, vacation, holidays, sick pay, retirement, etc.

• "Education Leave" and "Jury Duty Leave" are eliminated.

• Retiree Health Benefits are eliminated for workers at St. Louise Regional Hospital and O'Connor Hospital.  In the prior contract ("Article 23: Retirement" on page 112-113), the company was required to pay up to 75% of the cost of monthly health premiums for employees who leave their jobs after attaining age 55 and completing at least 10 years of service.

SEIU-UHW's Dave Regan

• Short Call Pay is eliminated.

• "Float Differentials" are eliminated.

• Paid Time Off (PTO) accruals will be reduced by 16 hours every year of the agreement.

• "Extended Sick Leave accruals will be reduced by 1/2 of the amount in year 1 and 2 of the agreement."

• SEIU-UHW accepted a new management rights clause.

• Contract provisions on Holidays, Call Offs, Daily Cancellation, Seniority, Job Vacancies, PTO, and Union Membership were reduced to the lowest standard across the four SEIU-UHW hospitals, meaning that workers at three of the four hospitals will experience reductions.

Despite these cuts and reports of overwhelming "no" votes at the ramrod ratification votes, SEIU-UHW says its sellout agreement was somehow approved by the membership. As reported earlier, SEIU-UHW's lengthy delay in reporting the outcome of the votes has led to widespread discussion of ballot staffing and vote fraud.

For Dave Regan, however, the sellout contract is a "Victory!" Here's a post from SEIU-UHW's twitter page:

Meanwhile, here's a report from an SEIU-UHW member at one hospital:

I work at O’Connor Hospital and am an SEIU member.  The dealings re. this “tentative agreement” of two weeks ago were so secretive that many of us didn’t even know about the vote until  after it had taken place.    My own shop steward (who was a member of the negotiating team) failed to tell me about the vote, nor the fact that they had agreed to the clause “all past practices will be eliminated with the exception of prior arbitration decisions,” which is a loophole wide enough to drive a truck through.   Apparently that would supersede previous agreements not to outsource work, which would majorly impact my job security due to the nature of my job.  

Apparently the new “buyer” of the hospital, Blue Mountain, has learned from some of the mistakes of their predecessor of last year, Prime Healthcare, and instead of trying to fight the SEIU management they have made some sort of quid pro quo with them, thus the alacrity with which SEIU reps have soiled their credibility for all eternity, caught with both hands in the cookie jar and their pants down simultaneously.

People need to go to jail here.  This is a clear conspiracy to commit major fraud.

And here's a report from a second worker:

It kinda feels like battered wife syndrome here. Some are angry and lots are in some sort of a state of denial. SEIU has announced a "membership" meeting where I guess they will try to convince us what a great deal they got us. It's funny but here SEIU said we neeed these cuts because off the shape the Daughters were in. Forget that the new Boss has a war chest of $20 Billion at hand. The funny part is the Boss has referred to what got taken away as "waste". Our pay is "waste" but the 4 clowns who make up Verity Health have no waste whatsoever in their collective $58 million dollars a year in pay. I wonder what logic SEIU used in previous takeaways from Kaiser and Dignity who both were making record profits at the time of the cuts.

  SEIU-UHW's summary of its tentative collective bargaining agreement with the Daughters of Charity Heal...

  SEIU-UHW's tentative collective bargaining agreement with Daughters of Charity Health System, November...

SEIU-UHW Deploys More Dirty Tricks against Daughters of Charity Workers

Here's the latest from SEIU-UHW's ramrod ratification vote for approximately 2,000 workers at the Daughters of Charity Health System in California.

Early last week, SEIU-UHW officials held rushed votes in an effort to "ratify" a tentative agreement for a three-year contract that’s filled with cuts to workers’ benefits.

For example, SEIU-UHW’s Dave Regan agreed to eliminate benefits for hundreds of workers by gutting the "benefit-eligibility standards" for part-time workers. This concession alone will save the company millions of dollars a year and will leave hundreds of workers without health insurance for themselves and their children... not to mention sick leave, vacation pay, retirement benefits, etc.

Regan also agreed to eliminate retiree health benefits for all employees at St. Louise Regional Hospital and O'Connor Hospital, according to a copy of the deal.

Despite SEIU-UHW's rush-job votes, on November 17th workers at St. Louise and O'Connor voted by large margins to reject the tentative agreement, according to workers.

In the days after the votes, however, SEIU-UHW was mysteriously silent. Here's a report from one worker:

Typically, the union makes an announcement almost immediately the evening after the vote finishes. There has been a deathly silence from them since the vote. But, apparently the union feels more aligned with the Boss because an email was just sent out by Julie Hatcher (head of HR at O'Connor) to all Managers announcing that the CBA has been ratified, but, employees have heard nothing from SEIU. Despite reports from all hospitals that there was an overwheming no vote, the yes votes appeared by magic in the ballot boxes and the deed was done.

Workers say SEIU-UHW's crooked ratification vote is just one of many dirty tricks it deployed against workers during contract negotiations.

At O'Connor Hospital, workers report that the union's bargaining committee was hand-picked by SEIU-UHW staffer Val Tagawa, instead of being elected by members. 

In addition, SEIU-UHW refused to provide members with the dates and times of bargaining sessions, and it kept secret the location of negotiating sessions, say workers. A second SEIU-UHW staffer named Jackie flat out refused union members' request to attend the negotiations, according to workers. 

These actions kept workers in the dark about the deep cuts that SEIU-UHW was accepting at the bargaining table.

In recent days, workers reportedly filed legal charges against SEIU-UHW over its crooked ratification vote.

Stuffing the ballot boxes is not out of the question for Dave Regan. In 2012, the NLRB reversed the results of a fraudulent SEIU-UHW vote count at Chapman Medical Center after federal investigators concluded that SEIU-UHW falsified the vote count in collusion with the hospital management.

Stay tuned.

SEIU-UHW Resorts to More Ramrod Ratification Votes at Daughters of Charity Health System

SEIU-UHW's Dave Regan is once again trying to shove massive takeaways down the throats of several thousand workers at the Daughters of Charity Health System, according to workers at the chain's hospitals. 

As in 2012, Regan has launched a series of ramrod ratification votes aimed at pushing a sell-out contract through the union's membership.

Yesterday, SEIU-UHW staffers conducted "ratification votes" at O'Connor Hospital in San Jose, Calif. and St. Louise Regional Hospital in Gilroy, Calif. for a tentative agreement that’s "the worst contract in our history," according to a worker and SEIU-UHW member.

Among the contract's givebacks is a mega-whopper.  

According to contract language leaked to Tasty, Regan has agreed to slash and burn eligibility standards for workers' benefits (e.g., health insurance, vacation pay, sick pay, retirement, etc) so that hundreds of SEIU-UHW members would be stripped of their benefits, including the health insurance for their children.

What did Regan do?

Under the current contract, workers are eligible for benefits as long as they work half time or more – that is, at least 20 hours per week. This is a decades-old, industry-wide eligibility standard established by Local 250 and Sal Rosselli's union. Here's the actual language from the current contract between SEIU-UHW and the Daughters of Charity will (see the language for "Regular Part-time" employees):

Next, here's the NEW language that Regan inked during secret negotiations with company executives. This is the new standard that Regan is trying to ram down workers’ throats. Workers would be required to work at least three-quarters time (30 hours per week) to qualify for health insurance and other benefits. A source leaked the following excerpt from Regan’s tentative contract language:

Regan's sharp benefit cuts represent a concession of massive proportions, according to knowledgeable industry observers. 

If SEIU-UHW establishes this standard with the six-hospital Daughters of Charity chain, other large hospital chains like Kaiser Permanente, Dignity Health, and Sutter Health will inevitably demand the same concession.

Of course, Regan has already gutted healthcare workers' retirement benefits by helping one hospital chain after another to eliminate workers' decades-old defined-benefit pension plans and replace them with cheap 401(k) plans. 

"The same thing will happen here," says a knowledgeable observer whom Tasty consulted about Regan's massive concession on benefit eligibility standards.

So how are SEIU-UHW's members at the Daughters of Charity responding?

At yesterday's ratification vote at St. Louise Regional Medical Center, only 16 workers voted in favor of SEIU-UHW's sell-out contract, according to workers at the facility. SEIU-UHW reportedly provided so little advance notice to workers that only one-third of the eligible workers were able to cast ballot.

One worker reported the following:

Most members were not even aware that bargaining was happening… SEIU came in a few days ago and announced that it was a done deal! We have been unable to see the full contract, yet they are holding the vote as I write this!  When we found out last week that bargaining was going on, several members asked to attend and were told it was being held in a secret place… It turns out no representative came to the hospital to inform us there was a vote, but one rep came and said, "The contract is settled, it's a done deal."

Another Daughters of Charity worker offered this comment about SEIU-UHW:

It is obvious that we have a union that is simply an extension of the employer who we have to pay dues to for the privelidge of hearing the same arguments made by the employer against worker's best interests. It's a sad day for Labor.

Meanwhile, Tasty hears that workers at nearby Seton Medical Center -- a Daughters of Charity hospital where approximately 700 workers successfully decertified SEIU-UHW and joined NUHW -- are jumping for joy now that they’re finally out of SEIU-UHW. 

Talk about dodging the purple bullet…

SEIU-UHW’s Private Equity Partnership Produces Rebellion from Workers

Dave Regan’s partnership with Blue Wolf Capital Partners isn’t quite producing "dividends," according to observers.

SEIU-UHW officials famously backed the New York private equity fund in its attempt to take over a chain of six California hospitals called the Daughters of Charity Health System. But even as SEIU-UHW staffers parade around in blue shirts bearing the private equity firm’s name, workers are running the other way.   

Here's what's happening.

SEIU-UHW’s 1,600 members at the six hospitals have reportedly responded with outrage that Regan signed a secret deal with Blue Wolf to cut their pay by 15% and is putting their jobs at risk by pushing the hospital chain towards a possible bankruptcy.

At O'Connor Hospital, a majority of SEIU-UHW members signed petitions opposing SEIU-UHW’s stance on the hospital sale.

And nearly half of SEIU-UHW’s shop stewards at O'Connor Hospital have resigned their positions to protest Regan's actions. Other workers have decided to stop paying dues to SEIU-UHW.

SEIU-UHW responded by dispatching Val Tagawa and other purple staffers to the hospital. One worker writes:

Since the [Attorney General's] hearing at OCH, we have had a concerted effort from SEIU (Val Tagawa and others) to harass folks about the issue. They have been generally met with "Don't bother me" type responses from workers, and on one occasion security was called and ended up escorting the SEIU stooges from the Cafeteria after employees complained to security.

Tagawa has reportedly been busy scouting for the best local bar and is well known around the hospital for the not-so-fragrant bouquet of her breath.

Meanwhile, the Los Angeles Times and San Francisco Chronicle have editorialized against SEIU-UHW’s position. The California Attorney General, who's responsible for approving or rejecting the proposed sale of the six hospitals, is supposed to make a decision by February 20.

One more note: Tasty earlier mentioned that SEIU-UHW officials have connections to Blue Wolf Capital. It turns out that the connections are multiple.

 

Mike Musuraca, Blue Wolf Man

First, Mike Musuraca (the Managing Director of Blue Wolf Capital) reportedly has connections to Gerry Hudson and Tom Woodruff (Vice Presidents of SEIU International) as well as other top SEIU officials. Musuraca has worked as an advisor for SEIU’s Change to Win. He formerly served as an Assistant Director in the Department of Research and Negotiations at AFSCME District Council 37 in New York City and was a trustee of the New York City Employees Retirement System.

In addition, it appears that David Miller, a staffer at SEIU-UHW, played a role in SEIU-UHW’s nefarious backdoor deal with Blue Wolf. Miller also comes from New York, where he formerly served as the Research Director at SEIU’s 1199 New York. After parachuting into California, he has assumed the over-inflated job title of “Assistant to the President for Strategic Campaigns” at SEIU-UHW ...presumably with an over-inflated salary. 

More Info on SEIU-UHW's Cuts at Daughters of Charity

A source gave Tasty more details about two of the cuts that SEIU-UHW officials accepted at the Daughters of Charity Health System. Of course, these are the same cuts that SEIU then tried to ram down workers' throats through an unconstitutional 'ramrod' ratification vote.

First, SEIU-UHW allowed the company to implement a "Wellness Program" for the SEIU's 3,000 members. Under this program, workers will be forced to pay penalties of more than $5,000 a year if they don't comply with the company's "wellness assessments."

Check out the following chart, prepared by SEIU-UHW officials, that describes the "Wellness penalties" now facing workers at O'Connor Hospital in San Jose, CA. Note that "Fam" refers to "family health coverage," "EE" refers to "employee-only health coverage," etc.

In addition, Regan and Co. let company officials freeze workers' defined-benefit pension plan and replace it with a cheap 401(k) plan. Pasted below is the exact contract language that SEIU's Julie Kwiek approved. Note that the "RPA Plan" is the new 401(k) plan. The "Daughters of Charity Retirement Plan" and the "RPHE" are the defined-benefit pension plans that have covered employees at the various hospitals for many years.

And that's not all. Tasty has learned that Dave Regan and Co. also approved a two-tiered system of retirement benefits under the new 401(k) plan. Basically, employees hired after January 1, 2013 will receive even lower 401(k) benefits than those hired before that date.

What's even more disgusting? These massive pension and health insurance cuts are the reductions that Dave Regan handed over to the company in order to impose a scheme to prevent workers from leaving SEIU-UHW.