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…

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.

SEIU's Dirty, Backroom Deal at Daughters of Charity Health Systerm

Here’s the latest news from the SEIU’s exercise in “union democracy” at the Daughters of Charity Health System in California.

As Tasty reported last night, dozens of workers sent letters to Dave Regan and Mary Kay Henry to protest SEIU’s unconstitutional contract-ratification vote.

Regan and Henry basically ignored the letters. Late last night, they announced that “the membership” had enthusiastically ratified an SEIU contract that will eliminate workers’ pension plan and slash their health benefits.

And today, SEIU-UHW officials announced their “victory” to workers while company officials handed out slices of cake to workers to celebrate “your new contract.” (Tasty is not kidding).

Of course, workers are still scratching their heads and wondering what’s actually IN the contract. You see, Regan and Co. are STILL refusing to give workers copies of the actual agreement.  

Fortunately, an inside source sent Tasty a block-buster excerpt that reveals the dirty deal behind SEIU’s sell-out contract. It turns out that SEIU-UHW officials -- including Chief Negotiator Julie Kwiek -- traded away workers’ hard-earned pensions and health benefits for a new arrangement that’s designed to lock workers inside SEIU.

Perhaps you’ve heard of a “Golden Parachute.” Well this is a “Purple Ball-and-Chain.”  

Here’s how it works. For decades, each of the five Daughters of Charity hospitals has been a separate “bargaining unit,” which means that workers at each hospital have the right to vote separately on whether to leave SEIU-UHW if they want to. For example, several months ago, 750 workers at Seton Medical Center requested an NLRB election to leave SEIU-UHW and join NUHW.

But under SEIU’s new deal, workers would no longer have this option. Instead, SEIU’s deal merges all five hospitals into a single, statewide “bargaining unit” of 3,000 workers. In order for any of the hospitals to leave SEIU-UHW, a majority of this entire statewide “bargaining unit” of 3,000 workers would have to vote to leave.

This purple ball-and-chain was Regan’s top priority during negotiations. And in order to get it, he gave away workers’ pension plan and health benefits. And guess what? The entire, disgusting deal is captured in the following side letter. 

SEIU-UHW's Dirty Side Letter with Daughters of Charity Health System 2012

Daughters of Charity Workers Bust SEIU's Dave Regan for Rushed Vote on Massive Concessions

Here’s the latest development in the fast-paced story that Tasty described earlier today.

It turns out that SEIU’s Dave Regan was in such a rush to jam concessions down the throats of 3,000 workers at the Daughters of Charity Health System that he violated their rights under SEIU-UHW’s own constitution! 

Regan gave the California workers only 9 hours' advance notice before conducting a vote to ratify deep cuts to workers' health and pension benefits even though the union's constitution requires three days' advance notice before such a vote.

This afternoon, dozens of workers delivered the following letter to Regan and SEIU President Mary Kay Henry in Washington, DC to demand an immediate stop to the unconstitutional vote. Way to go, Daughters of Charity workers!

Letter from Daughters of Charity Workers to SEIU's Dave Regan on Constitutional Violations 4-30-12

SEIU Rushes Vote on Concessions at Daughters of Charity Health System

How dirty and dishonest is SEIU? Check this out. 

On Thursday, Tasty described the status of SEIU-UHW’s bargaining with the Daughters of Charity Health System, which employs 3,000 SEIU-UHW members at five hospitals in California.

Well, on Saturday night, SEIU officials announced they had accepted the company’s “last, best and final offer,” which includes these massive cuts:

• Terminating workers’ defined-benefit pension plan and replacing it with a cheap 401(k) plan.
• Cutting workers’ health insurance benefits by, for example, forcing workers to pay 25% of the monthly premiums for the company’s PPO plan, which has been free for employees until now.
• Implementing a Wellness Program that forces workers to pay 20% of their monthly health insurance premiums if they fail to meet the program’s requirements.
• Doubling workers’ out-of-pocket costs for prescriptions, doctors visits and other healthcare procedures.

So… will workers get a fair chance to reject these massive cuts during SEIU’s ratification vote? Not if SEIU can help it. Basically, Dave Regan and Co. are trying to ram the agreement down workers’ throats before they even have a chance to get the facts. Here’s what’s happening:

At 9:35pm on Saturday night, SEIU officials sent the following email to workers announcing SEIU’s "settlement" and declaring that ratification votes would begin IN LESS THAN 12 HOURS… AND ON A SUNDAY MORNING! Here’s the email -- be sure to check out the date and time at the top of the email:

From: SEIU-UHW Daughters of Charity Bargaining Team  <online@seiu-uhw.org>
Date: April 28, 2012 21:25:59 PDT
To:
Subject: Locking in our raises and benefits depends on YOU
Reply-To: info@seiu-uhw.org

Dear Mary,

We have great news! After months of difficult bargaining and united actions by SEIU-UHW members across our hospitals, we have finally reached a tentative contract agreement with Daughters of Charity. Our agreement ensures raises and benefits for the next three years, and we urge everyone to come out on Sunday and Monday to VOTE YES to lock in these guarantees.

We're working hard this weekend to make all the details available to you, so come out on Sunday and Monday to get more information and cast your vote.

 

St Francis Voting

Sunday, April 29th - Cafeteria 10am-7pm

Monday, April 30th - Cafeteria 7am-7pm

 

Seton Voting

Seton:  Seminar Room 2

 

Sunday:

1st Session:     6:30-12:30

2nd Session:    2:30-5:30

 

Monday:

1st Session:      6:30-1:00

2nd Session:     2:00-6:00

3rd Session:      7:00-8:30

 

Coastside Voting

Solarium

 

Sunday:

1st Session:      6:00 -11:00

2nd Session:     2:00-5:00

 

Monday:

1st Session:      6:00-12:30

2nd Session:     2:00-6:00 

3rd Session:      7:30-8:30

 

St Vincent Voting

Sunday, April 29th – Conference Room C 11am-7pm

Monday, April 30th – Conference Room B 7am-11pm

 

O’Connor Voting

Sunday, April 29 - Cafeteria  7am-7pm

Monday, April 30 - Cafeteria 

 

St Louise Voting

Sunday, April 29 - Cafeteria 7am-7pm

Monday, April 30 - Cafeteria

 

See you there!

Here's an excerpt from SEIU's lame "Q&A" about the proposed agreement (click on the image to enlarge it):

And SEIU officials are blatantly lying about the terms of SEIU’s concessionary agreement. For example, SEIU's “Q&A” falsely informs workers that their “pension is in really bad financial shape." Last week, SEIU delivered the same information in this leaflet, which says workers’ pension plan “is broken.”

So what’s the truth about the pension plan? Last week, the pension plan’s administrator issued an “annual funding notice” (see below), which reports that the plan is 92.5% funded. Underfunded? Hardly.

What's sorely “underfunded” is the basic honesty and integrity of SEIU's corrupt officials who first of all accepted a sell-out agreement and now are doing their damnedest to ram it down workers’ throats. 

Pension Funding Notice for Daughters of Charity Health System Workers-2011

ANOTHER California Hospital Chain Seeks Concessions from SEIU-UHW

Kaiser Permanente and Dignity Health are not the only hospital chains seeking massive concessions from SEIU-UHW.

Tasty has learned that the Daughters of Charity Health System -- which employs 3,000 of the union's members and is the fourth largest hospital chain that bargains with SEIU-UHW -- is seeking devastating cuts that are virtually identical to the ones that Dave Regan has given up to other hospital companies.

SEIU-UHW officials have been in bargaining with the company for months and the current contract is set to expire on Monday (April 30). The Daughters of Charity is the fourth largest hospital chain that bargains with SEIU-UHW.

According to an SEIU leaflet that’s pasted below, here are some of the major cuts on the bargaining table:

• Freeze workers’ wages and “step increases.”
• Eliminate workers’ defined-benefit pension plan and force them into a cheap 401(k) plan.
• Cut workers’ health insurance benefits. Workers would have to pay 25-40% of the monthly premiums for a PPO plan. And they'd have to pay 20% of the monthly premiums for an HMO plan if they don’t meet the requirements of the company’s Wellness Program.
• Eliminate protections against subcontracting workers’ jobs.
• Eliminate “successorship” protections that require a buyer to employ the current workforce if a hospital is sold.

These devastating cuts were absolutely unthinkable until Dave Regan and his East Coast trustees parachuted into California about 36 months ago. In fact, the cuts are so severe that they'd roll back hospital workers’ benefits to levels not seen since the 1960s in the San Francisco Bay Area.

So how are SEIU's officials responding? Check out this stunning leaflet that SEIU is handing out to workers (see below). The first line says: “We won’t let Daughters go broke, but we won’t go broke either.” Wait a sec! The company isn't even talking about "going broke." But SEIU is trying to plant fear in workers' minds so they'll accept the devastating concessions they plan to give to the company.

Meanwhile, SEIU is staging fake “rallies” against the cuts at the Daughters of Charity's hospitals. The purpose? In the future, when workers complain about the harsh impact of the cuts, SEIU officials will simply shrug their shoulders and say, “See? We tried. But we just couldn't stop the cuts…”

Check out this video of SEIU’s fake “rally” at St. Louise Regional Hospital in Gilroy on April 19.

And speaking of St. Louise Hospital, check this out. The hospital is only 25 miles down the road from Salinas Valley Memorial Hospital... but soon the two hospitals will be light-years apart as far as workers’ pay and benefits.

At Salinas Valley Memorial, NUHW's 800 members waged an aggressive, year-long fight for a good contract. After impressive strike activity and the threat of an additional strike, the hospital settled a deal that preserves workers' defined-benefit pension plan, fully employer-paid family health coverage and no-subcontracting protections, and also provides wage increases that'll keep their wages higher than Kaiser’s. Quite 'A Tale of Two Hospitals.' Or better yet... "A Tale of Two Unions!"

Here's the SEIU leaflet that Tasty referred to earlier:

SEIU-UHW's Leaflet on Cuts by Daughters of Charity Health System - April 2012