SEIU Enlists Mickey and Goofy in its Kaiser Campaign

As U.S. workers struggle to rebuild the power of their labor unions, SEIU has launched a bold new strategy to rally workers' support in the fight against the giant corporations that dominate our economy. 

"What kind of strategy?," you may be asking.

…Flash mobs?

…Dance offs?

…Zumba?

…Team Salad Days?

Nope. Something even more powerful.

That’s right! “SpongeBob SquarePants” and “Contract Buddy.”

SEIU has once again marshaled the astonishing power of SpongeBob. Last summer, SEIU deployed him to cheer on the handfuls of Kaiser workers who participated in SEIU-UHW’s lame-ass “Wellness Walk,” which SEIU’s Joe Simoes famously compared to the Montgomery Bus Boycott.

Then, just days ago, SpongeBob returned to the lives of Kaiser workers as “Contract Buddy” ...and he'll soon be featured in SEIU’s propaganda campaign for the upcoming NLRB election at Kaiser Permanente. Check out “Contract Buddy” in action on SEIU-UHW’s Facebook page. 

Wow!

So... is Contract Buddy winning the hearts and minds of Kaiser’s workers? Check out the comments posted by workers at the bottom of SEIU-UHW’s Facebook page (see above - click to enlarge). Here's what one worker wrote in response to Contract Buddy’s question: “What do you love about your contract?”

Contract Buddy is good friends with the employer.... He's their buddy(the employer) not yours...

Ouch! A second worker says:

I like how SEIU claims the entire 60+yrs of the contract as their earned own, after firing and accusing those who got it to where it is today. Oh, let's not leave out how they are no where in sight for representation except when it is election time, the electon they rigged last time.

So what’s next for SEIU’s “Disney-fication” of the labor movement and its desire to treat workers like little children? Hmmm... 

Will Dave Regan employ the charms of Goofy to convince SEIU members to give up their defined-benefit pension plan? 

Will unsuspecting Kaiser workers stumble across SEIU's “Contract Buddy” in a hospital parking lot as he satisfies the sexual urges of Kaiser’s corporate mascots, including “Marina the Water Otter” and this strange-looking green dude?

Well, Tasty wouldn’t be half-surprised if SEIU rolls out a video like this one to urge its members to hand over all of their benefits to Kaiser’s millionaire executives! Stay tuned!

Agenda for Tomorrow's Meeting of the Steering Committee for Kaiser's 'Partnership Unions'

A source forwarded a copy of the agenda for tomorrow’s meeting of the Steering Committee of the Coalition of Kaiser Permanente Unions, which will be held at the Marriott Hotel in San Jose, California.

Check it out… especially if you’ve ever had concerns that John August, Dave Regan and the other illustrious members of the “Steering Committee” are a bit too deeply embedded in Kaiser’s pocket.

Here’s what the agenda says (see full agenda below).

From 11:00am to 12 noon, John August and a business school prof from MIT will lead a discussion about “Kaiser Permanente’s Financial Challenges.”   

Are you kidding?  Financial challenges? Just ten days ago, Kaiser announced that it made $2.6 billion in profits last year -- that’s 30% more profits than in 2011. And Kaiser has pocketed a total of $8.7 billion in profits since 2009. Do those sound like “financial challenges” to you? Kaiser’s only challenge may be finding a bank vault that’s big enough to hold its bags of gold.

At 9:45am, the Steering Committee will discuss “Updates on KP’s actions on cost cutting, position elimination and related issues.” 

What does this mean? Well, “position elimination” refers to the 1,000 layoffs that SEIU-UHW accepted across California. Hmm… sounds like more workers’ jobs may be on the chopping block.

What about “updates” on “KP’s cost cutting?” 

According to Tasty’s sources, this refers to SEIU’s not-so-secret deal with Kaiser to slash workers’ health benefits and eliminate their defined-benefit pension plan. Dave Regan has already implemented these precise cuts on 20,000 of SEIU-UHW’s members at Catholic Healthcare West/Dignity Health and the Daughters of Charity Health System. Now, Kaiser’s execs are anxiously awaiting their chance to “cut costs.” That’s why Kaiser is working so hard to help SEIU-UHW try to win the upcoming NLRB election at Kaiser.

In the afternoon, the Steering Committee will discuss “Total Health.” That’s Kaiser’s and SEIU’s codeword for the Corporate Wellness Program that they recently implemented for Coalition members at Kaiser.  Under this program, Kaiser will collect “bio-metric data” from each and every worker, including workers’ body mass index, blood pressure, cholesterol levels and smoking rates. And Kaiser will link workers’ future compensation to improvements they make on their bio-metric performance… with the aim of saving Kaiser money on employees’ health insurance costs.

Quite a revealing agenda, right? And it makes it crystal clear which way the “Steering Committee” is headed... which is wherever Kaiser tells them to go.

PS. Check out this interesting workers’guide to corporate wellness programs, which sheds light on the coercive programs that SEIU and various companies are pushing on workers across the US.

   Agenda for Steering Committee of Coalition of Kaiser Permanente Unions, February 20, 2013 at San Jose Marri... by  

SEIU Parachutes Staffers into Kaiser Permanente. Invisible no more?

Here’s the latest from the giant re-run election at Kaiser Permanente in California, which is scheduled for April.

 

Sources report that SEIU has parachuted hundreds of staffers from across the U.S., Canada and Puerto Rico into Kaiser’s hospitals. This sudden appearance of hordes of purple-clad organizers is generating a tad bit of anger and hostility among Kaiser employees.

According to workers, SEIU-UHW has been AWOL since the last election. Not returning workers’ phone calls. Not handling grievances and arbitrations. Not enforcing the contract. SEIU has let management do whatever it wants to, say workers.

That’s why workers at Kaiser Walnut Creek Medical Center were a bit shocked one day when they saw an SEIU organizer wearing this shirt:

“Invisible no more!” Perhaps this will be SEIU’s slogan for the campaign! (B/t/w, take a look at the Kaiser security guard sitting at SEIU's table. Talk about being in bed with the boss!)

Apparently, workers are not buying it. Here’s an email that’s circulating among Kaiser workers.

Dear Co-Worker:

Shouldn’t we be asking ourselves these questions?

•           Where have all those hundreds of SEIU reps been since the last election?

•           Why is SEIU not enforcing our contract?

•           Why is SEIU not handling our grievances?

•           Why is SEIU not enforcing our conversion rights?

•           Why is SEIU making secret deals with management behind our backs?

•           Why is SEIU making us pay a Partnership Tax to Kaiser, even though Kaiser is already making billions in profits?

It’s simple. SEIU only cares about our dues. SEIU has no interest in actually fighting for us, so they cut backroom deals with management.

But make no mistake. Now that we’re having a new election, SEIU will flood our facilities with staff, pizzas and promises. They’ll spend millions of dollars of OUR dues money to lie to us. Don’t be fooled. If SEIU wins the new election, SEIU will abandon us just like they did the last time.

We need a union that we can trust. That fights for us. That enforces our contract. Vote NUHW!

SEIU Backs Chamber of Commerce in Slashing Unemployment Benefits for Workers in North Carolina

A reader from North Carolina sent along this jaw-dropping story about SEIU’s silent support for the North Carolina’s Chamber of Commerce and its campaign to slash unemployment benefits for hundreds of thousands of jobless workers.

North Carolina Policy Watch calls the campaign -- which will immediately affect 438,000 unemployed workers and their families -- “one of the most radical attacks on the unemployed in modern American history.”

This week, North Carolina’s legislature approved the draconian cuts, according to an article in the New York Times. The cuts will reduce weekly unemployment benefits by 35%, drop 170,000 of the state’s current jobless workers from benefit rolls, cut by as much as half the number of weeks for collecting benefits, and implement many other reductions.

Here’s what happened:

Last year, the North Carolina Chamber of Commerce and the Republican Party launched a campaign to gut the state’s system of unemployment benefits. In North Carolina, there happen to be lots of jobless workers: the state has the nation’s fifth highest unemployment rate at 9.2%.

In response, grassroots groups banded together to fight back. They include the North Carolina Justice Center, the National Employment Law Project, NAACP, National Council of Churches, National Organization of Women, Children First, the State AFL-CIO, Disability Rights North Carolina, and religious leaders. 

S. Lewis Ebert, CEO Chamber of Commerce

According to these groups, the Chamber’s legislation -- known as House Bill 4 -- will push many families “into extreme poverty.” One group called the bill “an unprecedented assault on struggling families” and “an evisceration of the state’s unemployment insurance system.” Here’s additional info on the bill.

What about SEIU?

SEIU is one of North Carolina’s largest labor unions. It represents 55,000 public-sector workers through a local called the State Employees Association of North Carolina (SEANC).

Now… it should be a no-brainer that a union would jump in and fight to protect the state’s system of unemployment benefits, right?

Well, not if you’re SEIU.

In fact… every union across North Carolina opposed the Chamber’s horrible cuts… except for SEIU. And that’s not all. SEIU’s Dana Cope (the Executive Director of SEANC) actually bragged about SEIU’s silent support for House Bill 4.

In the run-up to the legislature’s vote on the bill, advocacy organizations sent a tweet asking, “Could SEANC be the only union in North Carolina NOT opposed to House Bill 4”?  Cope responded: “Certainly the largest one with 55,000 members.” Here’s a copy of the exchange from Cope’s twitter page.

A reader in North Carolina writes: 

 I wonder, how many SEANC members have family members or friends who are unemployed and will lose everything when this bill becomes law?

The Chamber’s bill will have a particularly devastating impact on 170,000 jobless workers. Due to the ongoing recession, these workers are currently receiving extended unemployment benefits because there simply aren’t jobs for them to fill. Not much longer. Under the Chamber’s bill, all of these 170,000 workers will lose their benefits on July 1.

So why is SEIU taking a position that’s so contrary to workers’ interests? Tasty’s sources say that SEIU and Dana Cope likely cut a backroom deal with the Chamber of Commerce and the Republicans -- perhaps like the deal that SEIU-UHW’s Dave Regan cut with the CEO of the hospital industry’s Chamber of Commerce in California.

In fact, in an earlier deal, Cope reportedly sold out the teachers’ union by allowing the North Carolina legislature to take away payroll deduction for union dues from the members of the North Carolina Association of Educators (an affiliate of the NEA) while preserving it for SEANC’s members.

SEIU's Dana Cope

From what Tasty can tell, it sounds like this is par for the course for Dana Cope. It turns out that Cope has an ego that’s the size of Texas. He features himself on his own personal website -- www.DanaCope.com – which gushes about his lengthy “entrepreneurial career” and fabulous accomplishments. It even features his personal blog.

Here are a few fun facts from Cope’s website: Did you know that Cope was a “Vice-President of the Texas Future Business Leaders”? He sure was! 

And that’s not all. He was also a member of the “Outstanding Young Men of America.” (Tasty is not kidding.) These and other stomach-churning facts are splashed across Cope’s website in nauseating detail.

It’s no surprise, then, that SEIU and this ego-maniac were so quick to sell out workers. In fact, Cope is a perfect match for the other egomaniacal, fat-cat officials who populate the Purple Palace. And since 2012, Cope has served as a Vice President on SEIU’s International Executive Board, a position formerly held by Tyrone Freeman. Looks like Cope will have a legendary career with his Purple Palace mates.