Update on Kaiser Trial

What's the latest on the NLRB's investigation into last year's big Kaiser election for 43,000 workers? Well, several months of hearings are all finished. And NUHW, Kaiser Permanente, and SEIU just submitted their "post-hearing briefs" to the administrative law judge.

Next step? The judge begins deliberating on all of the evidence and then writes up her decision (which will take months). If the judge finds serious violations by SEIU and Kaiser, she has the power to overturn last year's election results.

NUHW recently posted transcripts from the hearings on its website, along with NUHW's 154-page "post-hearing brief." Also, check out this 5-minute YouTube video that has a quick summary of the hearing and gives new details about the deep collusion between SEIU and Kaiser.

As one worker put it: "Are Kaiser and SEIU in bed together? Sh*t! They're so deep in bed, they're gonna have babies..." Well, it looks like one of their babies (aside from the back-room deal to cut Kaiser workers' health benefits and pensions) might possibly be a decision to overturn the largest private-sector union election since the 1940s.

Now… Tasty wants to remind readers that we’re talking about the NLRB -- the same agency that has allowed SEIU to block some workers' elections for 2 1/2 years. But Tasty hears there's such solid evidence against KaiSEIU that it should be hard for even the NLRB to ignore. Stay tuned!

P.S. Pictured above is Allen Nuccio in a Kaiser facility during the election. Nuccio, who was sent from the Amalgamated Transport Union on the East Coast to work on SEIU’s election campaign, nevertheless got a company-issued ID badge from management that let him campaign inside locked areas of hospitals and clinics, where he reportedly bullied, badgered and lied to workers. Check out Nuccio’s ATU video where he claimed to actually support “employee free choice.” Guess he must have forgotten all of his principles on the plane ride out to California.

More CA workers leaving SEIU

Tasty hears that more of California’s public-sector workers are leaving SEIU. So far, workers in three Central Valley cities – Tulare, Corcoran and Exeter – have decertified SEIU Local 521 and joined a new union called the “California League of Cities Employees Association.” In Hanford, CLOSEA lost a decert election for 120 city workers.

And in Kings County, a local newspaper reports that 77% of the county’s 800 employees signed decert petitions to leave SEIU and join CLOSEA, but county officials blocked the election due to a technicality. Next month, the workers will apparently get a chance to re-file their decert petition.

Further south, Tasty hears that workers are fixin’ to bolt from another SEIU local: Local 221 in San Diego. That’s the local where Eliseo Medina, earlier in his career, was appointed as the Executive Director and that’s been wracked by one scandal after another, with the local union losing almost 20% of its membership in recent years.

In the News

Tasty learned that, before NUHW's recent strike at Kaiser, management threatened to lock out nurses if they walked off the job. But the RNs didn't blink and walked out on strike, forcing Kaiser to back down from its threats. No lock-outs.

For those who didn't see all the TV news, check out this coverage on NBC that includes an interview with rank-and-file leader David Mallon.

And here's national coverage on MSNBC of NUHW's campaigns at Salinas Valley Memorial Hospital and Kaiser. Way to go NUHW!

SEIU's Benefits Cuts Make Headlines... Again

Tasty hears that SEIU-negotiated cuts to workers' health benefits are making headlines again in CA. During contract negotiations at Childrens Hospital in Oakland, Dave Regan and crew negotiated benefits cuts that force 450 hospital workers to pay $4,450 a year for family health coverage that had been free for decades.

And the hospital is now trying to force the hospital's RNs to accept SEIU’s cuts. When nurses went out on a recent 5-day strike, the hospital published this full-page newspaper ad celebrating SEIU's concessions: "The hospital has offered a healthcare package that is competitive with other Bay Area hospitals... This benefit package is consistent with what is offered to most other employees at the hospital and a similar package was accepted by the Service Employees International Union." (Oakland Tribune)

SEIU failed to organize any sympathy strike for the RNs, but instead sent a giant purple recreational vehicle to the picket line (vehicular solidarity??). About 8 purple-clad SEIU staffers tried to hand out food to the striking RNs, who apparently were having none of it.

The Boss's Union

Last week, while 2,500 NUHW members at Kaiser Permanente were holding California's biggest strike of 2011, SEIU showed itself to be the ultimate boss's union.

Before the strike, SEIU sent this glossy mailer to the 2,500 strikers in an effort to undermine support for the strike.

Next, NUHW's 1,200 RNs at Kaiser Los Angeles Medical Center got a strange letter at their homes. The letter, on plain paper, appeared to be a personal plea from RN Charles Garfield aimed at (you guessed it) undermining the strike. The letter reads:

NUHW STRIKE THREE!!!! Another strike? NUHW wants all of us to strike again and again and again... Months and months of negotiations and no progress, so NUHW will make the RNs walk out again. Another strike is not the answer.

The letter made personal attacks against NUHW's Chief Steward at the hospital by recycling false information that SEIU has been trying to peddle. RNs smelled a rat, so they confronted Garfield, who finally confessed that SEIU had organized and funded the fake letter. Garfield then signed this statement admitting that the whole episode was another one of SEIU's dirty tricks. Garfield's statement reads:

I was provided the personal information (i.e, names and addresses) of Kaiser LAMC - AFN-NUHW Registered Nurses from the Service Employees International Union (S.E.I.U.). I obtained your personal information without your consent. In addition, SEIU paid for this mailing.

Charles Garfield

In Tasty's humble opinion, SEIU's latest actions represent a new, despicable low. Is SEIU actually gonna undercut striking workers who are fighting for fair conditions for their patients and families? Gimme a break!

Unfortunately, this is not the first time that SEIU's trustees have worked hand-in-glove with Kaiser executives to promote the giant HMO's interests ahead of workers. Last year, as tens of thousands of SEIU members were in contract negotiations with Kaiser, SEIU's trustees put out this leaflet. The leaflet, filled with inaccuracies, tries to lower workers' expectations about winning better wages and benefits at the bargaining table. It reads:

Economic Downturn Still Rippling through Kaiser.

The economic downturn has been hard on Kaiser. Unemployment in California is the highest it has been since 1941... Kaiser posted $800 million loss in 2008 prompting Kaiser, according to the San Francisco Business Journal, to begin "serious belt tightening"...

Sounds like the boss talking, right? The SEIU trustees conveniently forgot to tell SEIU members that, in 2008, Kaiser made $1.5 billion in profits from its day-to-day operations and that the HMO's so-called $800 million loss was a temporary paper loss resulting from the effects of the downturn of the stock market on Kaiser's investment portfolio. SEIU's trustees also forgot to mention that Kaiser made $2.1 billion in profits in 2009 and gave multi-million-dollar bonuses to its execs because the company was so profitable.

Boss's Union (definition):

(1) A union that cooperates with the employers more than it promotes the interests of the employees.
(2) A union that purports to represent employees while actually ignoring (or working against) the best interests of employees.
(3) SEIU.