Election Brings Initial Loss for SEIU at Kaiser

SEIU may be on the brink of losing a unit of 343 Registered Nurses at Kaiser Moreno Valley Medical Center in Southern California.

Last Friday, nurses cast their votes in an NLRB election triggered by members of SEIU Local 121 who requested a formal vote so they can leave SEIU because they’re dissatisfied with the union.

On election night, a majority of the ballots supported leaving SEIU. The final vote tally won’t be finalized until three dozen “challenged” ballots are resolved. According to the NLRB, the vote tally at the end of election night was the following:

No Union:  120

SEIU Local 121:  111

Challenged Ballots:  37

SEIU Local 121 appears to be worried it’ll lose the election when the “challenged” ballots are finally counted. After the vote count, it filed a formal appeal with the NLRB in an effort to overturn the entire election.

The hospital’s nurses have been members of SEIU for more than 10 years but have been dissatisfied with SEIU for a long time, according to an RN who called the purple union “fear mongers.”

The vote couldn’t come at a worse time for SEIU. The Coalition of Kaiser Permanente Unions, which includes Local 121 and other SEIU locals, will go back to the bargaining table with Kaiser for the first time on April 17 to negotiate a “national agreement.”

Since 2009, SEIU unions at Kaiser have been led by SEIU-UHW president Dave Regan, who has given away massive cuts in health benefits and retirement plans at hospital chains across California. Kaiser now appears to be angling to win the same cuts for its workers. 

Regan has been a big proponent of “partnership” deals with Kaiser and even colluded with Kaiser executives to fight strikes by other Kaiser workers, including statewide walkouts by the National Union of Healthcare Workers and the California Nurses Association.

Last year, Kaiser’s partnership unions split into two after Regan reportedly attempted to seize more decision-making power inside the Coalition of Kaiser Permanente Unions. The unions fed up with Regan broke away and formed a new coalition called the Alliance of Health Care Unions, which negotiated a national agreement of its own in 2018.

SEIU-UHW’s Dave Regan Suffers Defeat as Union Members, Attorney General, and SEIU Locals Run the Other Way

Today, SEIU-UHW’s Dave Regan suffered a thumping defeat when the California Attorney General approved the sale of six hospitals owned by the Daughters of Charity Health System to Prime Healthcare. The AG rejected SEIU-UHW’s bid to transfer the hospitals to Blue Wolf Capital Partners, a private equity firm in New York City.

For many months, Regan has waged an all-out effort to block the sale to Prime after that company refused to sign Regan's sweetheart unionization deal with the California Hospital Association. During a tape-recorded SEIU conference call last May, Regan famously announced he would wage a campaign to bring Prime "to heel,” according to the Los Angeles Times.

Last fall, Regan launched an expensive political, PR, and "Astroturf” campaign to block Prime from buying the hospitals. The campaign included buying TV ads and busing hundreds of purple-shirted homecare workers from three counties away to fill the chairs in the Attorney General's public hearings that were intended to gather input from the local community.

Regan was forced to bus in the homecare workers because his position was wildly unpopular among SEIU-UHW’s 1,600 members at the six hospitals. Without the sale, the hospitals would likely go bankrupt and put the 1,600 workers’ jobs and pensions in jeopardy. 

Midway through the process, workers also learned that Regan had secretly signed a backroom deal with Blue Wolf Capital to cut workers' pay and benefits by 15% if Blue Wolf got ahold of the hospitals.

When the Attorney General finally conducted hearings on the proposed sale, SEIU-UHW’s own members stood at the microphone and voiced their opposition to Regan. They also delivered petitions signed by more than half of SEIU-UHW’s members opposing Regan's position. 

At O'Connor Hospital in San Jose, Calif. nearly half of SEIU-UHW’s shop stewards resigned their positions to protest Regan's decision to ignore the membership and their livelihoods.

Below, check out a 30-second video of a former SEIU-UHW Chief Shop Steward who describes how SEIU used its members as "pawns" in its own political game. He says: “I'm ashamed to say that I'm an SEIU member because they're not looking out for their own members.”

That's not all. 

After losing the support of his own members, Regan also lost the support of other SEIU unions in California. For example, both SEIU Local 121 and SEIU Local 87 publicly supported the sale of the hospitals to Prime, and formally opposed Regan's position.

Here's the video:

SEIU’s Neal Bisno: “No idea what Dave was thinking”

SEIU-UHW’s Dave Regan is facing mounting waves of backlash after teaming up with hospital corporations to undermine California’s law on nurse-to-patient staffing ratios. In fact, Tasty hears that SEIU RNs in California are so angry they’ve begun contacting other unions for help.

And that’s not all. SEIU RNs from other states are also up in arms. Why? They’re trying to pass their own versions of nurse-to-patient ratio legislation that’s patterned after California’s first-in-the-nation law.

Confronted by the blowback, SEIU officials are back-pedalling away from Regan as quickly as they can. And as they beat their hasty retreat, they’re repeatedly tossing Regan under the bus.

Check out this statement by SEIU Local 121’s Executive Director Sue Weinstein, who discusses the “vocal and passionate reaction by our Registered Nurse members” against Regan’s ratio-busting efforts. The statement says:

We are calling on UHW to declare nurse-to-patient staffing ratios “off limits” in its ongoing work with the California Hospital Association as they explore cost savings and revenue-generating initiatives.

Despite her criticism, Weinstein says she LOVES Regan’s “visionary agreement with the California Hospital Association,” which “holds exciting promise for SEIU and the labor movement.” Hmmm. It sounds like Weinstein actually supported Regan’s deal with the CHA… until she was against it. Nothing like some late-onset cold feet to send Weinstein running for the hills.

Meanwhile, a source sent Tasty an interesting email from Neal Bisno, the president of SEIU Healthcare Pennsylvania and a member of SEIU’s International Executive Board. Here’s an excerpt:

No idea what Dave was thinking - you can rest assured that our local and SEIU are strongly opposed to any suspension or other dimunition of any aspect of the hard-won CA RN to patient ratios law.  We have every intention of continuing to fight for identical legislation. This is a patient safety and patient lives issue, a valuing of nurses issue, a nurses union issue. Unfortunate incident, and rest assured a subject of intense reaction from SEIU Nurse Alliance leaders and members, including myself, inside our union.

Thud!!    That, my friends, is the sound of bus tires rolling over Regan like a well-worn speed bump.

Finally, here’s more news coverage about Regan’s collusion with industry CEOs. The article from “Beyond Chron” features quotes from RoseAnn DeMoro (the Executive Director of the California Nurses Association). She calls Regan “an embarrassment to the labor movement,” “overtly disgraceful,” and describes his arguments as “idiotic” and “drivel.”

She also recounts details from the “emergency” conference call convened by the California Labor Federation’s Art Pulaski during which Regan “made an impassioned speech on behalf of the CA hospital association…"

The article issues this challenge to SEIU President Mary Kay Henry:

Dave Regan is the proverbial “5th Column” in California labor. He has battled UNITE HERE, SEIU Local 1021, NUHW and now CNA on behalf of a vision that the rest of the labor movement rejects...

National SEIU President Mary Kay Henry’s passivity in response to Regan’s shenanigans is remarkable. If she believes silence is the best way to get him to change course, she's been proven wrong time and again. Henry's passivity empowers Regan and is undermining SEIU in California.

Well, Mary Kay?

NUHW Settlement at Providence Tarzana Medical Center Shows Contrast with SEIU

Congrats to 550 NUHW members for ratifying a new three-year contract with Providence Tarzana Medical Center in Los Angeles! The settlement boosts workers’ pay and benefits… and offers a razor-sharp contrast with SEIU’s style of concessionary bargaining. Here are the details:

Last week, NUHW’s members ratified a contract that provides 2% wage increases during each of the next three years, improvements in their retirement plan and a ban on subcontracting. Quite an accomplishment, especially considering that the hospital lost $80 million during the past three years.

What about SEIU? It represents 600 RNs at the same hospital.  In July, SEIU negotiated a two-year wage-freeze for the RNs without even letting the membership vote on the issue, according to this SEIU leaflet. SEIU also gave up its members’ job security and subcontracting protections.

So how cozy is SEIU with the company’s executives? SEIU’s leaflet to Tarzana RNs actually quoted management’s lead negotiator, allowing him to explain to SEIU members why they should accept a 6% cut to their wage scales.

Tasty hears that news of NUHW members’ settlement at Providence Tarzana is flying through Kaiser. Here’s an email that Kaiser workers sent out last week:

-----Original Message-----

From: honestmembers@yahoo.com

Date: Tue, 20 Dec 2011

To:

Subject: As NUHW grows STRONGER, SEIU officials are having a panic attack....

Congratulations NUHW,

What a resilient display of member to member strength coupled with the best negotiating experience in the healthcare industry.  Your progressive actions moved more than 550 members interests at the Providence Tarzana Medical Center to settlement despite the current lackluster contract bargained by the so called powerful SEIU union that is currently in place for its members at the "same facility".

In Unity,

VOTE SEIU OUT

Concessions in Cali -- SEIU-style

It’s been quite a couple of weeks! About 1,000 Canadian healthcare workers won three stunning election victories after a two-year struggle against SEIU. And California workers scored a giant legal victory to re-run two elections for 44,000 Kaiser workers.

To top it off, check out this late-breaking story that helps explain why workers are struggling so hard to leave SEIU.

In Southern California, SEIU represents 6,800 Registered Nurses and professionals through SEIU Local 121. At Providence Tarzana Medical Center, SEIU just accepted a two-year wage freeze for its 600 members without even letting its members vote on the issue… and without organizing any kind of fightback against the hospital.

SEIU – led by SEIU staffer Judy Serlin – has spent the last year trying to negotiate a successor contract with the hospital.

What’s up next for the RNs and professionals at Providence Tarzana? SEIU is considering a 6% cut to its members’ wage scales. Check out this leaflet that SEIU is distributing to its members. It contains crazy clip art (see above) and jewels like these:

Our team has already agreed to freeze wages for two years.

What this means is that Tarzana RNs and Professionals won’t receive any raises – no wage increases and no step increases. It also means that our wage scale that we fought so hard for over the years will be reduced by a total of 6 percent by 2012.

So, in a couple of years when you’re sitting down to lunch with your nursing school buddies who work at other hospitals, make sure it’s their treat because they’ll be making a lot more than you will.

And if that’s not pathetic enough, SEIU’s leaflet actually quotes the BOSS, allowing him to explain to SEIU members why they should accept a 6% wage cut. (Tasty is not kidding.)

“The realities are, the nurses are very well paid here,” said Providence Attorney and Lead Negotiator Doug Hart during Thursday’s bargaining.

WTF!!

After SEIU distributed the leaflet to its members, someone ran into SEIU Negotiator Judy Serlin and asked: “Judy, what’s going on?” Judy’s response: “I don’t know. I was in the Alps…”

In the Alps? Was Judy on a juicy junket to Davos with SEIU President Emeritus Andy Stern? Is Judy simply trying to dodge the blame for SEIU’s total ineffectiveness at fighting for its members? Or did Judy simply stop taking her meds? Tasty wants to know… Tarzana workers??