Dignity Healthcare Workers Bolt SEIU-UHW, Leaving Stan Lyles to Swallow His Words

Stan "Mr. Integrity" Lyles

Some workers at Dignity Healthcare report that not all employees were affected by SEIU-UHW’s recent bargaining during which management demanded more cuts to workers' wages and benefits.

In 2015, a unit of workers at Dignity's Northridge Hospital Medical Center in Los Angeles left SEIU-UHW after requesting an NLRB election to dump the union. The workers include clinical lab scientists, social workers (MSWs and LCSWs), radiation therapists, and nuclear medicine technologists.

According to NLRB records, the workers filed a formal “decertification” petition with NLRB Region 31 in Los Angeles. After SEIU-UHW officials realized they’d get trounced in an election, they decided to threw in the towel and let the workers go without an election -- what’s called “disclaiming interest in the unit,” in NLRB parlance.

Why did the Dignity workers bolt from SEIU-UHW?

They say SEIU-UHW never did anything for them... and wouldn’t even return workers' phone calls.

The workers’ action is especially embarrassing for SEIU-UHW Vice President Stan Lyles, who formerly worked at Northridge Hospital Medical Center. Lyes tells everyone he’s got “rockstar” status with his former co-workers at Northridge.

Not quite, Stan.

But... if you really want to see a rockstar performance by Stan, check out the following  video of Stan attacking SEIU for its undemocratic practices in 2008.

Lyles, speaking at a meeting of Teamsters for a Democratic Union (TDU), attacks SEIU officials for making back-room deals with CEOs -- including a secret deal with Tenet Healthcare to allow the company to subcontract the jobs of more than 10% of SEIU-UHW's members.

That's one of the dirty moves that prompted SEIU-UHW members to publicly criticize Andy Stern and SEIU in 2007 and 2008, which then caused Stern to remove SEIU-UHW's elected leaders through a trusteeship in 2009.

After imposing the trusteeship, SEIU officials gave Lyles a big purple paycheck to abandon his principles and pledge his allegiance to Andy Stern, Dave Regan, and the other Purple Palace officials whom he had so sharply criticized.

Lyles, who had aggressively opposed the trusteeship, quickly changed his tune. Ain’t it interesting what a boatload of cash will due to the moral compass of some people?

Perhaps that’s why Lyles has earned the nickname of “Mr. Integrity.”

Here’s the video of Lyles attacking SEIU in 2008, before he received his big payoff from Andy Stern:

NUHW Adds More than 1,000 Members

While SEIU-UHW’s Dave Regan spends millions on his unsuccessful quest for a sweetheart organizing deal with the California Hospital Association, a very different story is taking place in the background.

According to NLRB records, NUHW is winning large numbers of new members through old-fashioned, bottom-up worker organizing.

In recent months, 1,070 non-union workers at three separate hospitals voted to join NUHW.

Interestingly, NUHW won the elections by giant margins… of as much as 90%. 

Two of the hospitals are operated by large, for-profit chains traded on the stock market. Fountain Valley Regional Medical Center is run by one of the nation’s largest hospital chains, Tenet Healthcare. It is Tenet’s second-largest facility in California.

Here are the results, as well as the percentage of voters who voted to join NUHW in each election:

• Tenet’s Fountain Valley Regional Hospital & Medical Center: 560 workers. Vote Tally: 313 (NUHW) to 94 (No Union). 77% yes.

• UCSF Benioff Children’s Hospital Oakland: 374 workers. Vote Tally: 217 (NUHW) to 29 (No Union). 88% yes.

• Kindred Hospital San Francisco Bay Area: 136 workers. Vote Tally: 74 (NUHW) to 8 (No Union). 90% yes.

Recording Reveals Secret Deal behind SEIU-UHW’s Planned Benefit Cuts at Kaiser Permanente

It’s long been rumored that SEIU and Kaiser Permanente signed a secret business deal whereby (1) SEIU agreed to cut the pensions and health benefits of SEIU-UHW’s 45,000 members in California in return for (2) Kaiser’s commitment to allow tens of thousands of future Kaiser employees to join SEIU when they're hired at newly constructed facilities in other states.

Sources say this secret deal -- which would add millions of dollars of dues to SEIU’s coffers -- helps explain recent reports about Dave Regan’s efforts to speed up the implementation of benefit cuts if SEIU-UHW wins this month's NLRB election at Kaiser.

Now, an inside source has provided an audio recording that, for the first time, captures a top SEIU official discussing SEIU's backroom deal with Kaiser. The recording features none other than Dave Regan speaking to a room full of union officials from SEIU and the Coalition of Kaiser Permanente Unions, headed by John August.

First, Regan describes Kaiser’s plans for expanding under national health reform, which -- according to Regan -- will add 90,000 new employees and more than double Kaiser’s revenues during the next ten years. Next, Regan says the following:

If [Kaiser] achieves that, we’ll have about 250,000 people instead of 165,000 who work for Kaiser. And I think that would be a great thing. Ninety thousand more Kaiser jobs, most of them being in the Coalition of Kaiser Unions, would be a great thing. That’s where they [Kaiser] want to go. And I think it is our job to figure out a strategy that gets us to that point.

Here's the recording:

So what's SEIU’s strategy for "getting us to that point?" It's trading away billions of dollars of California workers’ pension and health benefits so SEIU can add more union members in other states without conducting union elections.

Both Kaiser and SEIU would profit handsomely. But SEIU-UHW’s 45,000 members stand to lose their defined-benefit pension plan and suffer deep cuts to their health benefits. That’s why SEIU has hidden this deal from them.  

The workers, instead, are being used as a giant bargaining chip on the private gameboard run by SEIU and Kaiser’s execs.

And this isn’t the first time that SEIU has tried to sell out its members through this sort of secret deal. In 2007, SEIU made a similar concessions-for-new-members transaction with Tenet Healthcare. In that case, SEIU agreed to subcontract the jobs of hundreds of SEIU members’ jobs in exchange for Tenet
allowing some of its facilities in other states to turn purple.

It's quite a story. And one that Kaiser workers need to take to heart... unless they enjoy getting played like so many pieces in a Monopoly game.

Nurses: We Beat Back Dave Regan's Deal with Hospital Industry

Remember Dave Regan's dirty deal with California’s hospital industry to undercut the state’s nurse-to-patient staffing law?

Well here's the latest development:  a leaflet announcing that the California Nurses Association beat back "the bid by SEIU-UHW head Dave Regan and the California Hospital Association (CHA)" to roll back the safe-staffing legislation.

For those who don’t know it, the CHA is the Chamber of Commerce for the state’s hospital industry and is run by the CEOs from multi-billion-dollar corporations like HCA, Tenet Healthcare, Kaiser Permanente, Sutter Health, Dignity Health, etc. 

Regan -- in addition to partnering with hospital corporations to slash workers’ benefits -- has partnered with the CHA to undermine patient and worker safety legislation. Here’s how the leaflet from the California Nurses Association puts it:  

Who is Regan’s new partner? The CHA lobbies for the state’s biggest hospital employers to eliminate meals, breaks, and other workplace protections, cut wages and other standards for hospital workers, and to silence the voice of unions.

And here’s another excerpt from the leaflet:

Regan is undermining standards for RNs and other staff with his advocacy for hospital profits. He has signed contract concessions in healthcare coverage and pensions that harm nurses seeking to defend safe working conditions and living standards for their colleagues and families.

Here’s the full leaflet about Regan's dirty deal, which prompted one of SEIU's own officials to famously write: "No idea what Dave was thinking."

Leaflet from California Nurses Association about SEIU's deal with California's hospital industry to attack ...

Sources Describe Regan's Meeting with Sutter Health

After Tasty published this post, sources forwarded additional news about Dave Regan’s plans for upcoming contract negotiations covering thousands of SEIU-UHW members at Sutter Health.

Sutter -- a $9 billion company that’s one of California’s worst anti-union employers -- has already put giant takeaways on the bargaining table with the California Nurses Association. The CNA has responded with a series of strikes, with the most recent strike taking place just 14 days ago.

Now, as Regan prepares for negotiations, Sutter is announcing its plans. On June 26, Sutter officials mailed letters to 1,100 SEIU-UHW members describing the company’s demands for “significant changes in our wage and benefit structure” along with “restructuring and reducing our staffing by approximately 10 percent.”

So… is SEIU-UHW gearing up for a fight to stop the cuts? Nope. In fact, Tasty’s sources say Regan is welcoming the Boss with open arms.

Last week, Regan reportedly held a meeting with top Sutter executives that was also attended by some SEIU shop stewards from three Sutter hospitals in the San Francisco Bay Area. During the meeting, Regan proposed “fast-track” negotiations that’ll last only a handful of weeks. And Regan, rather than trying to beat back Sutter’s cuts, signaled an opposite approach by telling the company, “We can work with employers like Sutter Health.”

Interestingly, Tasty hears that Sutter’s lead negotiator -- Dan Rodriguez -- has plenty of experience of “working with” SEIU officials. Until recently, Rodriquez was the Vice President of Labor Relations at Tenet Healthcare. He previously worked as an attorney at Littler Mendelson, one of the most notorious union-busting law firms in the US.  

In 2007, Rodriguez headed Tenet’s negotiations with SEIU. During the negotiations, Tenet’s workers caught three top officials from SEIU International after they had secretly signed a deal with Rodriguez to subcontract the jobs of hundreds of SEIU members! The SEIU officials -- without even talking to workers' elected bargaining committee -- had given away workers' protections against subcontracting.

Which SEIU officials were caught red-handed? Mary Kay Henry, Jim Philliou and Mary Joyce Carlson. A copy of the secret agreement is posted below.

 

After exposing the dirty deal, Sal Rosselli’s union famously forced SEIU’s top officials to rip up their backroom deal. This, of course, produced a deepening divide between healthcare workers in Rosselli’s union and Andy Stern’s Purple Palace in Washington, DC.

Needless to say, Sutter workers had better keep a close eye on Regan. Rodriguez has reportedly spent a lot of time socializing with Mary Kay Henry and other Purple Palace officials, who are big buddies with Regan. Regan may be hoping to do another side-deal with Rodriguez that'll certainly fast-track SEIU-UHW’s negotiations… but will undoubtedly leave Sutter workers hanging. 

SEIU Officials' Secret Tentative Agreement with Tenet Healthcare to Subcontract Workers' Jobs 02-08-2007  

NLRB Finds SEIU’s Dave Regan & Co. Guilty… Again

Last Thursday, the highest decision-making body of the NLRB delivered a guilty verdict against Dave Regan and SEIU for ordering the illegal firing of a rank-and-file SEIU-UHW member from his job at a Southern California hospital.

In a 13-page decision, the NLRB's board members -- who’re appointed by the president of the United States -- ordered SEIU-UHW to “cease and desist from causing or attempting to cause Lakewood Regional Medical Center to discharge or otherwise discriminate against [the worker] or any other employee...” 

They also ordered SEIU-UHW to have the worker returned to his job... and to make him “whole for any loss of earnings and other benefits suffered as a result of the discrimination against him, with interest, from the date of his discharge until the date he is reinstated.”

How much does SEIU-UHW owe him? Almost two years’ of wages, benefits and interest.

Last week’s ruling is the latest step in a case that's lasted for 20 months because of SEIU’s senseless legal appeals. In July of 2011, a judge delivered a guilty verdict against Regan, who promptly spent thousands more of SEIU-UHW's dues dollars to appeal the judge's decision to Washington, DC. Attorney Bruce Harland directed SEIU-UHW's attack against the worker.

Why did SEIU try to fire the worker in the first place? SEIU claimed he owed them a whopping $236 in union dues, even though SEIU refused to provide him any accounting of the money. Meanwhile, the worker told the judge how SEIU failed to provide representation or support to union members at his hospital following SEIU's disastrous trusteeship in 2009.

In 2010, SEIU’s Dave Regan, Cory Cordova and YouTube star Liz Castillo teamed up against the worker.

The news about Regan's despicable attack against one of SEIU's own members is not widely known right now. But not for long! In last week's ruling, the NLRB ordered Regan to send a description of the NLRB's verdict to ALL of SEIU-UHW’s members by email and also to post it on SEIU-UHW’s website.

Here's the NLRB's recent decision:

NLRB's Decision and Order against Illegal Firing of Union Member 3-22-12

Stan Lyles... Back on the Silver Screen!

Remember this older post about Stan Lyles, the guy who Dave Regan chose to be the second highest officer at SEIU-UHW? Tasty's post featured a link to a highly revealing video of Stan at a TDU Convention where he slammed SEIU for cutting backroom deals with bosses and snuffing out the voices of workers.

Stan made the speech just three months before SEIU's trusteeship when he was an unpaid member of UHW's Executive Board. After the trusteeship, things quickly changed. SEIU offered Stan lots of money to jump over to their side, and Stan, who's not well-known for his integrity, quickly forgot all his criticisms of SEIU and threw his support behind SEIU's trustees. That's how Stan landed a big office and fat paycheck from SEIU.

So... you can probably imagine that the Purple Palace was not too pleased when Tasty posted a link to Stan's tell-all video. SEIU officials sprang into action and launched a search-and-destroy mission to eliminate every embarrassing copy of Stan's speech. When the video finally disappeared from AOL and Tasty's blog, the Purple Palace breathed a collective sigh of relief. 

But lucky for us, one copy of Stan's video was carefully hidden from SEIU's Storm Troopers... and Tasty is now resurrecting it so the world can once again see what Stan said when his integrity was not so challenged by dollar signs dancing in his head.

Tasty especially urges Kaiser workers to watch the video. Why? Stan is currently doing a tour of Kaiser facilities to try to build support for SEIU in the rerun NLRB election. So when Stan shows up at your facility, ask him about the video! Ask him about SEIU's backroom deals... including SEIU's secret deal with Tenet to subcontract 10% of UHW members' jobs... Ask him about SEIU's top-down, undemocratic decision making system. And watch closely as Stan starts stuttering and stumbling... Here's the video:

Truth about Tenet Contract Trips up SEIU... and Journalist

By now, readers are probably all too familiar with SEIU’s strong dislike of the truth. Check out this latest episode, which snared a gullible journalist at the San Francisco Business Times. Here’s what happened:

Recently, SEIU issued triumphant press releases announcing they’d won 18% wage increases during a contract settlement with Tenet Healthcare in California. Chris Rauber, a reporter at the San Francisco Business Times, wrote two entire articles about the contract, which appeared to be reprints of SEIU’s press releases.

Rauber penned this headline for his first article: “SEIU reaches tentative 3-year contract at 9 Tenet hospitals in California, with up to 18% pay increases.”

Sounds good, right? Well… that is, until you actually read the contract language. It turns out that SEIU’s new agreement freezes workers’ wage scales for the first two years of the contract and increases the wage scales by only 1% increase during the third year.

Here’s what the actual contract language says, which Rauber conveniently forgot to mention in his article. [See the section labeled “Annual Hospital Wide Increase.”]

“Effective July 1, 2011, the wage scales shall remain unchanged.”

“Effective July 1, 2012, the wage scales shall remain unchanged.”

“Effective July 1, 2013, the wage scales shall increase 1%.”

So what about the 18% wage increase? Well, it turns out that it applies only to workers whose wages are far below the pay scale. Instead of immediately bringing them up to the pay scale, the contract caps their annual pay increase (including any “step” increases they’re owed) at 4.5%.

Not a great deal, especially when you consider that in 2010, Tenet made $1.1 billion in profits –its biggest profits in seven years. The for-profit company is projecting another $1.3 billion in profits during 2011.

So who negotiated the Tenet contract? SEIU’s Hal Ruddick – the same guy who bargained away the defined-benefit pension plan for 12,000 workers at Catholic Healthcare West. In that fiasco, Ruddick traded away workers’ pension plan for an infamously inferior cash-balance retirement plan, which is saving hundreds of millions of dollars for the hospital company.

As for the Tenet story, Tasty reminds readers that you can’t trust what SEIU says. And Chris Rauber… that goes for you, too. Time to do your homework!

Going Rogue: The Envelope, Please.

So, who was the "rogue bargainer" that MK was referencing in yesterday's article in The Nation?

The Nominees are:

A. Mary Joyce Carlson- Mary Joyce was the lawyer for the SEIU in Tenet negotiations, according to some she signed the sellout TAs with the employers.

B. Jim Philliou-Jim was, according to some, at the table for these negotiations, and was maybe the person who signed the TA (can't really get a straight answer on this fact.) Jim also, according to some, worked on a lot of sell out nursing home deals, so maybe this is where he cut his teeth!

C. Mary Kay her self!--MK was, in fact, in charge of these negotiations. Tasty can't imagine a world where Mary Kay just doesn't notice a "rogue bargainer" in her midst, working on her campaign.

D. All of the above-It takes a Village to ruin a union.

And the rogue bargainer is... D. All of the Above!

P.S. For those of you who didn't remember what the selling out on Tenet was about...It goes more or less like this: Tenet was bargaining nationally with SEIU for Cali, Florida and Nevada-as well as over organizing rights for other states.

In Cali, Tenet was nervous that UHW would bargain a contract that reached the same standards as other UHW contracts, including retiree health and a defined benefit pension plan. Since Tenet had massive financial and corporate issues they proposed to SEIU that they would give everything to UHW, except retiree health and the pension, in return for SEIU to have organizing rights in TX, et al.

The members of UHW mulled this over and voted to do accept that deal-thus working for less benefits as other UHW members, for the greater benefit of workers in other states. Generous, no?

But then some "rogue bargainer" kept bargaining away those standards that Tenet swore they would grant the Cali workers, in exchange for the workers conceding on some standards. And any time the Cali workers objected to the way that the national bargaining was undermining what the workers had agreed to--SEIU via Mary Kay accused UHW members of being into "just us" instead of "justice," as they love to say.

Eventually, SEIU and Tenet agreed to let California bargain with Tenet at a Cali only table. At that time the workers held to their agreement: achieved all of the standards, except retiree health and pension-and workers in other state got the right to join SEIU.

P.P.S. That WAS the short version.