SEIU-UHW’s Dave Regan Trips over Shoelace, Performs Faceplant

This is embarrassing.

Last week, Dave Regan committed another one of those fu*k-ups that’s earned SEIU-UHW a reputation as “the gang that can’t shoot straight.”

It happened in Los Angeles, where 230 workers at 158-bed USC Verdugo Hills Hospital voted recently to leave SEIU-UHW and work without a union. According to press reports, workers grew disillusioned after SEIU-UHW failed to negotiate strong contracts or provide good representation to its members.

Dave’s fu*k-up occurred when SEIU-UHW attempted to file a legal challenge after losing the election. Under NLRB rules, Regan and his attorneys were required to submit their challenge to both the NLRB and the hospital within seven days after the vote count. SEIU-UHW prepared the legal documents and actually sent them to the NLRB. But SEIU-UHW forgot to “cc” the hospital on the e-mail.

Consequently, SEIU-UHW’s legal challenge was tossed out and the election results were finalized by the NLRB, according to an article in the Glendale News-Press (Lila Seidman, “Labor board certifies election results disbanding union at USC hospital,” Glendale News-Press, February 19, 2019.)

Ouch.

This isn’t Regan’s first self-inflicted wound.

In both Arizona and Ohio, Regan famously spent millions of dollars to circulate petitions among voters in an effort to qualify statewide initiatives for the ballot. Unfortunately, Dave forgot to instruct his signature-collectors to sign paperwork required by state election officials… which resulted in both petitions being tossed out. In Ohio alone, Regan’s blunder cost SEIU-UHW more than $4 million.

And then there was the time that Dave reportedly assaulted a court worker who was trying to deliver legal records to Dave’s house.

Does Dave have more embarrassing human tricks up his sleeve?  

Stay tuned.

230 Calif. Hospital Workers Vote to Leave SEIU-UHW

Last week, 230 workers at 158-bed USC Verdugo Hills Hospital in Los Angeles voted to dump SEIU-UHW as their union and return to non-union status, according to NLRB records and the Glendale News-Press. 

(Mark Kellam, “Members vote to decertify union at USC Verdugo Hills Hospital,” Glendale News-Press, February 1, 2019.)

The results of the NLRB election, which took place on January 30-31, are 118 (No Union) to 107 (SEIU-UHW).

The outcome was a blow to SEIU-UHW and its president, Dave Regan. It happened exactly 10 years after Regan seized control of SEIU-UHW following a trusteeship imposed by SEIU’s DC headquarters.

Quite a telling way to mark your 10-year anniversary on the job, right?

Since 2009, SEIU-UHW’s membership has declined by approximately one-third and Regan has poured more than $30 million of the union members’ dues into a failed strategy of using ballot initiatives to unionize healthcare workers.

Meanwhile, SEIU-UHW’s members routinely complain about the union’s failure to enforce labor contracts and its refusal to give basic workplace support to its members. Regan has also failed to organize effective bargaining campaigns to protect workers’ wages, benefits and working conditions.

Unlike other unions, SEIU-UHW refuses to conduct strikes to force hospital corporations to treat workers fairly.

Regan, who’s notorious for making backroom deals with employers, has given away the defined-benefit pension plans of tens of thousands of workers at hospital chains like Dignity Health and Verity Health, prompting other employers to seek the same concessions.

According to media reports, the workers at USC Verdugo Hills Hospital requested an election to dump SEIU-UHW after the union failed to deliver on its promise to help workers improve their pay and benefits.