Is SEIU-UHW’s Dave Regan On the Take from his Billionaire Buddies?

Here’s the latest from San Francisco, where SEIU-UHW’s Dave Regan has joined forces with tech billionaires, real estate titans, and the billionaire CEO of a cryptocurrency company in an effort to defeat pro-worker candidates running for the San Francisco Board of Supervisors.

Last month, Regan dumped a quarter million dollars of SEIU-UHW members’ money into a Super PAC associated with tech billionaire Ron Conway. In the past, Conway’s Super PAC has “netted five-figure donations from Facebook, Google, and Airbnb,” according to the SF Weekly.

In recent weeks, Conway’s Super PAC dumped $640,000 into “Independent Expenditure” campaigns aimed at defeating two pro-labor candidates, according to campaign records published by the California Secretary of State. 

One of the targeted candidates is Gordon Mar, the Director of Jobs with Justice San Francisco, which is part of a network of pro-labor nonprofit organizations across the nation. The second is an anti-eviction lawyer who serves on the city's Board of Education.

The avalanche of Super PAC donations from Regan and his corporate buddies has already prompted multiple complaints alleging campaign law violations, according to the SF Weekly.

San Francisco is an especially illuminating stage for Regan to flaunt his love-acts with tech billionaires and plutocrats.

Using data from the US Census Bureau, the city’s Human Services Agency concluded that San Francisco has more income inequality than Rwanda and other sub-Saharan countries. And the Brookings Institute found that San Francisco’s income inequality is growing faster than any other city in the nation.

Meanwhile, San Francisco’s housing costs are off the charts. City officials discovered that 42% of the city’s Latinos are living doubled-up with another family in one unit.

So why the f*ck is Regan working with billionaires to attack pro-worker candidates in the city with the highest income inequality in the nation?

Hotel workers striking Marriott in San Francisco

And how can Regan's $250,000 contribution to the Super Pac possibly be in the interest of SEIU-UHW's rank-and-file members?

Perhaps Diamond Dave is on the take.

After all, his timing is impeccable. 

Regan dumped SEIU-UHW’s quarter million dollars into anti-worker campaigns at the same time that thousands of UNITE HERE members are striking Marriott, the largest hotel operator in San Francisco.

So Dave, what kind of secret deal did you make with your billionaire buddies?

We want to know.

SEIU-UHW’s Dave Regan Joins Tech Billionaire to Oppose Pro-Worker Candidates

Tech billionaire Ron Conway

It turns out that Andy Stern is not the only SEIU official who’s working with billionaires to fight pro-worker candidates.

Ten days ago, Dave Regan deposited a quarter million dollars of SEIU-UHW members’ funds into a Super PAC to oppose two pro-worker candidates running for San Francisco’s Board of Supervisors.

One of the candidates is Gordon Mar, the Executive Director of “Jobs with Justice San Francisco,” a pro-labor organization backed by many unions… including SEIU.

Go figure.

According to campaign records, Regan dropped the $250K into a PAC that’s long been associated with billionaire tech investor Ron Conway, a San Francisco resident who’s been sharply criticized for using his cash to exert outsized influence on San Francisco politics.

Just days after Regan deposited the money into Conway’s PAC (“Progress San Francisco”), the PAC funneled more than $120,000 into two “Independent Expenditure” campaigns to oppose the pro-worker candidates. (The two IEs are “San Franciscans for Change, Supporting Johnson and Trauss for D6 Supervisor 2018” and “Safe and Clean Sunset Coalition, Supporting Ho for D4 Supervisor 2018.”)

 

SEIU-UHW's Dave Regan

Conway, once dubbed the “Godfather of Silicon Valley,” was an early investor in Google, Facebook and other tech companies. He was the single largest donor to former San Francisco Mayor Ed Lee… dumping $600,000 into an independent expenditure committee to support Lee. After Lee was elected, observers criticized him for taking actions to benefit the companies in which Conway has investments.

When Lee died suddenly in office, Conway threw his support behind London Breed, who defeated two progressives in June 2018 with the help of a half million dollars of Conway’s money, according to campaign records. Breed now sits in the mayor’s office.

Regan, by pouring $250,000 into Conway’s PAC, has joined forces with a gang of SF business titans.

In recent days, a business association representing San Francisco’s 40 largest employers -- the so-called “Committee on Jobs” -- dumped $50,000 into Conway’s PAC. The group’s board is headed by Lloyd Dean, the CEO of Dignity Health, which employs about 13,000 of SEIU-UHW’s members. Conway also serves on the Board of Directors of the “Committee on Jobs.”

Another contributor is Diane Wilsey, the owner and CEO of A. Wilsey Properties Company, a San Francisco-based real estate company. Last week, she dropped $150,000 into Conway’s PAC, according to campaign records. (See below.)

Diane Wilsey -- Dave's pal

Wilsey, the daughter of a US ambassador and the great-granddaughter of the founder of Dow Chemical, inherited $300 million and a real estate company when her husband, a real estate tycoon, died in 2002.

She’s also a socialite who pays special attention to the ballet, the opera and museums, which earned her the title of “San Francisco’s queen of philanthropy” by the New York Times. (Jori Finkel, “For San Francisco’s Queen of Philanthropy, No Quiet Exits,” New York Times, August 1, 2016)

By the way… she loves her pet dogs. She donated thousands of dollars to put her dogs’ names on the walls of a San Francisco museum, where her pure-bred canines are memorialized as generous donors to the museum. 

WTF, right?

And here’s a shocker.

Wilsey reportedly doesn’t have much respect for regular people. 

A former director of San Francisco’s museums told the New York Times: “She can laugh and joke with anyone, even a truck driver. Her failing is that she has not always listened to what people told her if they didn’t have social standing.” (Laura M. Holson, “Dede Wilsey Is the Defiant Socialite,” New York Times, September 24, 2016)

Another former director put it more bluntly: “A lowly staff member does not command her attention. There is a master-servant relationship that gets in the way of things.”

Yo, Dave… she sounds like a f*cking perfect ally for the workers in SEIU-UHW.  Great job.

So who are the two candidates opposed by Regan, Conway, Wilsey, and the other gold-plated execs?

One is Gordon Mar, the Executive Director of “Jobs with Justice San Francisco.” He’s a candidate in District 4 for the Board of Supervisors. The second is Matt Haney, a tenants rights attorney who served as the President of the Board of Education. He’s a candidate in District 6.

 

Diane Wilsey relaxing with her dogs

Mar and Haney have each been endorsed by more than 20 unions, including UNITE HERE, NUHW, CNA, UFCW, Teamsters, the teachers’ union, the San Francisco Labor Council, and SEIU Local 1021. They’ve also been endorsed by groups like the Green Party, the San Francisco Tenants Union, San Francisco Berniecrats, the San Francisco League of Pissed Off Voters, as well as progressive members of the San Francisco Board of Supervisors.

Meanwhile, their opponents -- Jessica Ho, Sonja Trauss and Christine Johnson, whom Regan is backing to the tune of $250,000 -- are each endorsed by just two unions.

So why is Regan working with corporate fatcats to oppose pro-worker candidates?

First of all, this isn’t new for Regan. Since Andy Stern appointed him as the trustee of SEIU-UHW, Regan has dramatically reshaped the union’s former political orientation in order to align it with business executives and the right wing of the labor movement.

In 2014, for example, Regan joined billionaire Conway and AirBnB investor Reid Hoffman in backing David Chiu, another corporate Democrat, in his race against David Campos, a progressive candidate for a California Assembly seat in San Francisco.

Secondly, there’s undoubtedly a transactional deal hidden behind Regan’s contribution -- a tit-for-tat exchange in which Regan kicks down $250,000 of SEIU-UHW members’ money in return for some secret benefit to Regan.

From the face of it, it’s difficult to see how SEIU-UHW’s numbers could possibly benefit from defeating pro-worker candidates and replacing them with corporate Democrats beholden to a billionaire tech investor and corporate bosses, including the CEO of Dignity Health.

Leave it to Regan -- a so-called “21^st century thinker” -- to sell out workers in favor of corporate executives.

For more information, see excerpts from campaign filings below. Also, here are links to several articles:

Joe Kukura, “Massive Dark Money Donation Rocks D6 Race,” SF Weekly, September 20, 2018.

Joe Fitzgerald Rodriguez, “Mystery backers of Trauss, Johnson drop $100k into D6 race,” San Francisco Examiner, September 20, 2018.

Matier & Ross, “The one-two strategy in SF’s District Six supervisor race gets money behind it,” San Francisco Chronicle, September 24, 2018.

Cash-Strapped SEIU-UHW to Sell $5M Office as Hospital Association Debt Comes Due

New developments point to serious financial problems at Dave Regan's SEIU-UHW -- including Regan's decision to sell the union's San Francisco office to generate $5 million of needed cash.

Observers say the crisis is due to Regan's secret deal with the California Hospital Association (CHA), which requires SEIU-UHW to fork over $20 million of SEIU-UHW members' money -- equivalent to one-fifth of the union's annual budget -- to a political fund that hospital owners will use to try to boost their bottom lines by $6 billion a year..

The rushed sale of the office building -- a four-story structure with 12,880 square feet of office space in downtown San Francisco -- underscores the urgency of the Regan's financial problems. According to a four-page real estate listing (see below), Regan doesn't even have a new office to house the soon-to-be displaced union staffers. Instead, the union will have to pay rent to the new owner while Regan looks for somewhere to put them.

Good luck with that. Due to San Francisco's red-hot real estate market, it will be impossible to find affordable office space anywhere near the city -- meaning Regan’s sale of its office building will permanently eliminate the union's footprint from a city where approximately 20,000 of its members work.

And that's not all.

Sources say Regan is attempting to quadruple the amount of money that's taken from union member's dues each month and placed into a political action fund (PAC). This money, too, will be used to back hospital companies' political campaign to boost their bottom line.

If Regan is successful at pushing through this political tax, which would begin in 2015, it would mean less money to hire staff to provide representation and workplace support to union members. Regan's scheme -- which will be considered at an upcoming meeting of the union's Executive Board -- would steer $2.9 million a year into politics and away from representational support for union members.

Lastly, sources say Regan is also trying to cut SEIU-UHW staffers' medical benefits in another scheme to free up money to pour into the CHA’s coffers.

What's next?

Stay tuned for Regan’s next scheme to cannibalize the union. 

  Real Estate Agent's Notice: SEIU-UHW 4-Story Office Building in San Francisco Is For Sale: November 20...

SEIU-UHW’s Dave Regan Sells Out SEIU Local 1021, Pimps for Kaiser Permanente

Tasty hears that Dave Regan’s latest atrocity has many observers shaking their heads in disgust.  

Here’s what happened.

In California, SEIU Local 1021 represents thousands of public-sector employees who work for the City of San Francisco, the city’s courts, city college, etc. Most of these workers get their health insurance from Kaiser Permanente, which is trying to boost the cost of their health insurance by $15 million a year.

San Francisco’s elected officials and the city's workers are fighting back. According to an analysis by city officials that’s cited in this Los Angeles Times article, “nonprofit” Kaiser HMO made a 15% profit margin from the City employees’ business during the past two years. That’s $87 million in profits.

Meanwhile, “nonprofit” Kaiser has pocketed more than $9.5 billion in company-wide profits since 2009.

That’s why elected officials and labor unions demanded that Kaiser lower its proposed rate hike on San Francisco’s workers. The city’s unions -- including SEIU Local 1021, the International Federation of Professional and Technical Employees, Union of American Physicians and Dentists/AFSCME -- even formed a coalition to fight Kaiser’s rate hike. Check out one of their leaflets below, entitled “Kaiser: Stop Draining San Francisco Tax Dollars,” which bears SEIU Local 1021’s logo.

Here’s where SEIU-UHW’s Dave Regan enters our story.

SEIU-UHW's Dave Regan

Did “Wall Street” Dave rush to the side of workers and taxpayers in order to fight the disgusting profiteering by the nation’s largest HMO? Not by a long shot.

According to multiple sources, Regan recently appeared at San Francisco’s city hall with a team of Kaiser’s executives and conducted a round of lobbying visits to push elected officials to approve Kaiser’s full rate hike.  

According to several sources, Regan even tried to enter the office of John Avalos, one of the most progressive members of the San Francisco Board of Supervisors. Last year, Regan teamed up with the Chamber of Commerce to try to unseat Avalos by fielding one of Regan’s staffers -- Leon Chow -- as a candidate against Avalos. That is… until Chow crashed and burned in spectacular fashion after evidence surfaced that he violated multiple election laws!

SEIU-UHW's Leon Chow

So… when Regan recently walked into Avalos’s office, Avalos reportedly told Regan to get out. At which point Regan began jabbing his finger at Avalos’s chest in “old school” fashion before “Wall Street” Dave and the Kaiser suits beat a hasty retreat.

Regan and his business-suited buddies then continued to lobby other elected officials to approve Kaiser’s multi-million-dollar rate hikes.

Quite a story, right?

Remember that famous labor song that says, “Which side are you on?”

Well… what does it mean when a top SEIU official shows more solidarity for a multi-billion-dollar HMO than for SEIU’s own members -- not to mention workers in general?

At a time when lots of people are asking well-deserved questions about the future of the U.S. labor movement, this recent episode speaks volumes.

Notably, Regan’s vision of company-dominated unionism is shared by the top leaders of SEIU, one of the nation’s largest unions. In fact, Tasty’s sources say SEIU President Mary Kay Henry hasn’t voiced the slightest opposition to Regan selling out San Francisco’s workers in favor of a giant HMO. 

Here's SEIU Local 1021's leaflet on Kaiser's price-gouging:

   Leaflet by SEIU Local 1021 about Kaiser Permanente's Price-Gouging of San Francisco's Workers: July 2013

Airport Workers: We Want Out of "Our Do-Nothing-But-Take-Our-Dues Union" (aka, SEIU)

SEIU is once again under fire for selling out workers through backroom deals… and boosting workers’ union dues at the same time!

The latest criticism comes from 1,100 workers at San Francisco International Airport and is aimed at SEIU Local 1877, which is headed by Mike Garcia.  

A local newspaper reports that workers have already filed a petition with the NLRB. Meanwhile, a worker-run blog describes workers' effort to decertify SEIU and replace it with a worker-run union (see more below).  

Here’s an excerpt from an article in the San Francisco Examiner.

Tensions recently flared up between San Francisco International Airport security workers and their representatives at Local 1877 of the Service Employees International Union. Claiming that the union has rolled over in negotiations with the airport's private security contractor, Covenant Aviation Security, several workers have petitioned the National Labor Relations Board for an open shop.

The signatories, who constitute more than 30 percent of the bargaining unit covered by SEIU's contract with Covenant, requested a "deauthorization" election that would make union dues voluntary. They plan to hold an election that could create one of the largest open shops in existence — 1,100 workers, including everyone from the checkpoint and baggage departments — if the petitioners garner a majority…

Baggage screener John Marteen, who has worked at the airport since November 2002, said the union has been too conciliatory in accepting Covenant's aggressive budget cuts, most of which sliced into workers' paychecks. Over the past year, Covenant has decreased holiday overtime pay by about 20 percent, raised employees' out-of-pocket expenses for hospital care and withdrawn reimbursements for employees' parking and shoes.

Rather than consulting workers, the SEIU took the liberty of bargaining by itself, Marteen said.

"In one of the meetings in the break room last week, the union said 'We had a choice of this and this, and we took the one that was less of a burden for you guys,'" he recounted.

"I said ... I wouldn't accept either of them," he added. "They never made a counter offer — they just accepted what the company presented."

He added that the union also raised the price of dues to 2.6 percent of each employee's paycheck in January, right after the employees got a 3 percent raise.

In a response, SEIU doesn’t challenge workers’ claims about its back-room deals and sell-out concessions. Instead, SEIU says some of the workers are receiving help from a right-wing, anti-union group.

This worker-run blog, however, indicates that workers are not anti-union, but instead want to decertify “our do-nothing-but-take-our-dues union” (SEIU) and replace it with a union that workers run themselves. 

In the blog, workers blast their Boss, Covenant Aviation, for its “profit at any cost” approach and “your complete and utter disregard for the well being of your employees and their families.”

If workers’ decertification effort is successful, SEIU Local 1877 will lose nearly 5% of its statewide membership.

SEIU's Mary Kay Henry Parachutes into California... and Gives 'Leadership' Lesson to SEIU Members

Check out this late-breaking story. Today, Mary Kay Henry (the president of SEIU) abandoned the cushy confines of the Purple Palace in Washington, DC and parachuted into California.

Why?

To give a speech about the righteous values that guide SEIU! 

Fortunately, a crew of rank-and-file SEIU members -- including workers from Kaiser Permanente -- was there to greet her.

Here’s the leaflet announcing Henry’s speech at a Catholic church in San Francisco.

   SEIU President Mary Kay Henry Gives Speech at Catholic Church in San Francisco, California on 4-20-2013 &qu...

So what happened?

Well, first of all, only about a dozen people showed up to hear Henry’s speech. When Henry arrived with her entourage,  there were seven SEIU members on the sidewalk handing out a leaflet that’s posted below. Tasty especially likes these excerpts from the leaflet:

How Ignoring Catholic Teaching Has Informed the Leadership Style of SEIU’s Mary Kay Henry

Those of us here today are San Francisco healthcare workers trapped in SEIU, a union that is more concerned about representing personal interests and those of healthcare corporations than the interests of workers. SEIU has bargained union contracts with company executives to cut pensions and health care benefits of healthcare workers. SEIU has settled these concessionary contracts with Dignity Health’s St. Mary’s and St. Francis Hospitals, with Sutter’s St. Luke’s Hospital, with Daughters of Charity’s Seton Medical Center and Kaiser Permanente Medical Center—all of which have been making record profits for years.

It appears that her primary goal is to represent her interests and not the interests of those whom she claims to represent. “Hypocrite” is a word that would fit comfortably in her resumé.

“The joy of the hypocrite lasts but a moment… for he has forsaken the poor.” Job 20:5 and 19.

As Henry walked up to the church, one of the SEIU members asked if they could speak with her. Henry’s response? She simply ignored them… and wouldn’t even look at them, according to the workers!

Next... one member of Henry’s entourage -- Paula Macchello, Henry’s longtime partner -- walked up to one of the SEIU members, ripped the leaflets out of her hands, and then tore them up while spewing a string of expletives and insults at the workers.

Quite classy, right?  SEIU’s values in action… and right in front of a church!!

Henry’s entourage then entered the church to greet the no-sell-out crowd. One of the SEIU members

shot this photo, which captures Mary Kay Henry (she’s the one with the purple backpack) and Paula Macchello (in the gray hair) right after Macchello’s attempt to reenact a violent scene from the Old Testament.

But wait… that’s not the end of this story! 

One of the dozen people who actually showed up for the event was an RN who works at Stanford University Hospital. On the way into the church, she stopped and talked to the SEIU members... who told her about their struggles with SEIU’s lack of democracy and its backroom, sell-out deals with bosses that are destroying their livelihoods.

The RN eventually went into the church to hear Mary Kay’s two-hour speech. But 15 minutes later, she suddenly reappeared on the sidewalk. 

She told the SEIU members that she asked Mary Kay Henry about the leaflet and the issues raised by the SEIU members. Henry refused to answer the RN’s questions and said, “Wherever I go, I’m followed by controversy.” 

The RN was not impressed. So she walked out and told the SEIU members on the sidewalk: “I’m not going to be a part of this. I’m a member of this church, but this is not my sense of social justice.”

Quite revealing, right? With thousands of Kaiser workers casting their ballots in the NLRB election, two of SEIU’s top leaders -- Mary Kay Henry and Dave Regan (during his radio debate) -- have offered stunning performances in the past two weeks that speak volumes about SEIU’s values and its attitudes towards its rank-and-file members.

So, Kaiser workers: only nine more days to get you ballot to the NLRB's office! 

Here's the leaflet handed out by SEIU members earlier today:

   SEIU Members' Leaflet Handed Out at Mary Kay Henry's Speech in San Francisco, CA on 4-20-2013