Paranoia Grips SEIU-UHW's Dave Regan amid Witch Hunts and 'Dump Dave' Campaign

Tasty recently reported that SEIU-UHW’s Dave Regan has launched a witch hunt against a worker at Kaiser Permanente who challenged Regan during SEIU-UHW’s last internal election.

In July, Regan sent a formal notice to Sophia Sims announcing that an “SEIU Trial Body” would try her on charges that she wore a red t-shirt and supported NUHW during the NLRB’s recent election for 45,000 workers at Kaiser Permanente. 

There’s no word yet on whether Dave and his partner in crime, Stan Lyles, will conduct ‘show trials’ for the more than 13,000 other workers who also supported NUHW in the election.

So by singling out Sophia Sims, it’s clear that Regan is trying to knock her out as a challenger in SEIU-UHW’s upcoming elections. Regan’s kangaroo court will undoubtedly find that Sophia Sims was “disloyal” to the Purple Palace because she exercised her federal right to back one of the two options on the government’s ballot. (That’s SEIU-styled democracy for you.) And Regan will then use the verdict to declare Sims ineligible to run for office.

According to Tasty’s sources, Regan is super nervous about facing an election challenge because more than 13,000 Kaiser workers voted against SEIU-UHW in the recent NLRB election. Presumably, these workers would love to dump Dave and his disastrous reign of failed representation, bullying, and back-door deals with bosses.

Interestingly, Tasty has learned that Dave’s election paranoia has some real roots in reality. Apparently, a “Dump Dave” campaign is being discussed in hospitals across California.  Rumor has it that several well-regarded union members are mulling over the idea of assembling a slate of candidates to run against Regan in elections scheduled for next spring.   

Could this really succeed?

Tasty’s sources say:  “HELL YES.”  They say there’s deep-seated anger at Regan among a big part of the union’s membership. And it doesn’t take a rocket scientist to figure out why.

In fact, the 13,000+ workers who voted for NUHW in the recent Kaiser election are a big base of support… not to mention the thousands of workers at many other companies across the state. And Tasty’s sources point to Regan’s huge vulnerability. In SEIU-UHW’s last internal elections, Regan got only 7,000 votes out of 140,000 eligible voters.

One member put it this way:  “We may be stuck in SEIU right now, but why should we be stuck with a sell-out asshole like Dave Regan.”

Hmmm … “Sounds like the “Dump Dave” campaign is off to a rousing start!

More California Workers to Bolt SEIU

Last month, a group of approximately 400 public-sector workers in Southern California petitioned to dump SEIU Local 721 in order to create their own independent union. 

The workers are employed by the Coachella Valley Water District, which provides water to more than 110,000 homes, farms and businesses in Riverside, Imperial and San Diego counties.

The decertification effort is backed by the workers’ elected board, according to a July newsletter (see below). More than 50 percent of the workers had already signed the decertification petition by early July.

According to  newsletter, the water district workers want to form an independent union with the help of City Employees Associates, which represents 105 independent associations of public-sector workers across California.

The news was reported by a dirt-digging blogsite called “Loco 221,” which offers news and commentary about SEIU Local 221 in San Diego.

So why are so many of SEIU’s members running for the exit signs?

Here’s what the leader of a separate group of already-departed SEIU members says. "Loco 221" published an interview with the president of the La Mesa City Employees Association, which earlier decertified SEIU Local 221 to form their own independent union.

Just before the decertification of SEIU we had only 22% of employees who were SEIU members and most of them didn’t know why they were hanging on.  Employees were tired of SEIU people confronting them at their workstation and at home to join SEIU.  Employees were adamant that they would not join an organization that took a lot of their money and they had no say of where that money went.  Once we started our decertification process, we wanted to send a clear message to SEIU, every employee dropped out except the President and Treasurer.  We stayed only so we could control the bank account which had only a few hundred dollars left.  That last year I met with [former local 221 president] Sharon-Frances Moore 4 times insisting we needed change.  We needed  a rep that returned phone calls and responded to e-mails.  We needed a rep that did not “call in sick” to a bargaining meeting but forgot to call us and tell us he would not be there.  We needed a rep who would show up to her first ever Skelley hearing and NOT not know what to say – I could go on.  Sharon-Frances Moore made a lot of promises and it never got any better.

For readers who don’t remember Sharon-Frances Moore… Andy Stern met her at a cocktail party in New York City and then hand-picked her to run SEIU Local 221 even though her closest previous union experience was working for the Girl Scouts!

Moore crashed and burned in spectacular SEIU fashion, including an exorbitant salary, a fraudulent union election that was overturned by the U.S. Department of Labor, a civil lawsuit, and a six-figure severance package paid by SEIU’s members!

   Coachella Valley Water District General Employees Association Files to Decertify SEIU and Form Independent...

Spotlight on NUHW and SEIU-UHW at Kaiser Permanente

SEIU's Dave Regan: In Kaiser's Pocket

Last week offered a revealing "compare-and-contrast" between the unions at Kaiser Permanente.

On the one hand, news emerged that SEIU-UHW is working hand in hand with Kaiser’s executives to push an invasive “biometric monitoring” program (aka, “wellness program”) on SEIU’s members.

What’s next? 

Tasty wouldn’t be surprised if Dave Regan lets Kaiser do weekly urine tests on all of SEIU-UHW’s members!

Meanwhile, NUHW is scoring impressive victories in its fight against Kaiser’s short-staffing and shoddy patient care. A month ago, NUHW won a $4 million fine against Kaiser for understaffing its mental health services and forcing patients to wait weeks and weeks to get basic care.

The $4 million fine is the second largest in the agency’s entire history.

Then, last week, NUHW announced that Kaiser’s violations have apparently disqualified it from participating in California’s new public insurance market under Obamacare. According an NUHW letter posted below, Kaiser has violated a key provision of the health benefit exchange’s rules.

And that’s not all. NUHW also filed a complaint with California’s Attorney General Kamala Harris after Kaiser tried to discipline an NUHW member for simply writing “Patient should be seen sooner” in a patient’s medical chart. It’s a stunning story… which is now under investigation by the Attorney General for alleged violations of whistleblower protection laws.

Here’s how NUHW described it in a letter to the Attorney General:

On July 17, 2013, Kaiser disciplined one of its licensed psychologists after he made a clinical note in a patient’s medical chart indicating that this first-time patient needed more rapid access to Kaiser’s services. The psychologist evaluated the patient via a telephone triage assessment and discovered that the clinic’s first available appointment was more than three weeks later. Under California’s Timely Access regulations, HMOs are required to offer patients non-urgent mental health appointments within ten business days of the patient’s request for an appointment.   In disciplining the psychologist, Kaiser claimed that the psychologist’s clinical note – which stated “patient should be seen sooner” – was “a political statement.” Kaiser has announced it will now monitor the notes that the psychologist places in patients’ medical charts during the next three months. 

Here's NUHW's letter to California's health benefit exchange:

   NUHW's Letter to 'Covered California' regarding Kaiser Permanente's apparent disqualification from Californ...

SEIU and Kaiser Permanente Plot Fake Publicity Stunts to Promote Corporate Wellness Program

Check this out. 

A source provided a copy of a secret plan hatched by SEIU-UHW and Kaiser Permanente that seeks to promote an invasive corporate wellness program that SEIU-UHW's Dave Regan accepted during last year’s negotiations with Kaiser. Tasty has posted a copy of the plan below.

According to the secret plan, Kaiser and SEIU plan will soon stage a series of publicity stunts to try to get positive media coverage of their intrusive wellness program.

Which wellness program are SEIU-UHW and Kaiser trying to promote?

During last year’s partnership negotiations, SEIU-UHW’s Dave Regan agreed to allow Kaiser to annually collect “biometric data” from each of SEIU-UHW’s 45,000 members so that Kaiser can monitor workers’ weight (“body mass index”), their smoking rates, cholesterol levels, and blood pressure. Kaiser will then store this “biometric data” and use it to calculate workers’ future bonuses. 

Corporate Big Brother, anyone?

In addition, SEIU-UHW is deploying “Wellness Cops” (what SEIU calls “Wellness Ambassadors”) to 

pressure workers into losing weight, etc. ­

According to the leaked plan, staffers from Kaiser and SEIU-UHW and the Coalition of Kaiser Permanente Unions held a secret powwow on July 18 to prepare the upcoming publicity events, which will involve Kaiser’s new CEO Bernard Tyson and Dave Regan.

Interestingly, the staffers -- including SEIU-UHW Communications Director Steve Trossman -- gave specific instructions to deliberately withhold information from labor reporters across the U.S.!

So WTF is a “wellness recess”?

Good question. Apparently, it’s an event where workers are instructed to stop their normal work and instead do exercises for 10 minutes while music blasts in the background.

Of course, most healthcare workers are on their feet all day as they run from patient to patient, clean patients’ rooms, cook and deliver food, staff busy surgical suites and emergency rooms, sterilize equipment, push bins full of laundry through hospital corridors, etc.

The secret publicity plan from Kaiser/SEIU makes for interesting reading.

Tasty especially loves the part where Kaiser's and SEIU's staffers describe how they will "pre-write" fake posts for FaceBook and Twitter in order to give the public the false impression that people are spontaneously expressing support Kaiser/SEIU’s corporate wellness program. By the way, the wellness plan will officially be called “Total Health Incentive Plan.”

Here are some excerpts from the secret plan, which is posted below:

We won’t pitch to labor reporters. We will utilize social media; KP, UHW and LMP facebook pages and handles; we will use social media to build buy-in and create interactivity; we will pre-write some tweets and FB posts…

Once finalized, we need to move FAST and keep this mum to not get scooped. UHW and other Coalition Unions to turn out workers. KP to assist with management support… BUT keep it confidential! Will probably have to be done at last minute to avoid chatter.

The secret plan also identifies “commenters” who will be lined up to offer favorable quotes to reporters... including Oprah’s fitness guru (Bob Green), Kristi Yamaguchi and Tavis Smiley!

Interestingly, at the same time that Kaiser and SEIU are staging fake publicity events to show how workers totally love having their biometric data monitored by their Boss, the people over at WhenWellnessSucks.com have a very different opinion.

Check out their short video below. Tasty hears the fitness guru in the gym suit is actually Steve Trossman!

   Wellness Program Media Plan for Kaiser Permanente, SEIU-UHW and Coalition of Kaiser Permanente Unions, July...

SEIU-UHW’s Dave Regan Sells Out SEIU Local 1021, Pimps for Kaiser Permanente

Tasty hears that Dave Regan’s latest atrocity has many observers shaking their heads in disgust.  

Here’s what happened.

In California, SEIU Local 1021 represents thousands of public-sector employees who work for the City of San Francisco, the city’s courts, city college, etc. Most of these workers get their health insurance from Kaiser Permanente, which is trying to boost the cost of their health insurance by $15 million a year.

San Francisco’s elected officials and the city's workers are fighting back. According to an analysis by city officials that’s cited in this Los Angeles Times article, “nonprofit” Kaiser HMO made a 15% profit margin from the City employees’ business during the past two years. That’s $87 million in profits.

Meanwhile, “nonprofit” Kaiser has pocketed more than $9.5 billion in company-wide profits since 2009.

That’s why elected officials and labor unions demanded that Kaiser lower its proposed rate hike on San Francisco’s workers. The city’s unions -- including SEIU Local 1021, the International Federation of Professional and Technical Employees, Union of American Physicians and Dentists/AFSCME -- even formed a coalition to fight Kaiser’s rate hike. Check out one of their leaflets below, entitled “Kaiser: Stop Draining San Francisco Tax Dollars,” which bears SEIU Local 1021’s logo.

Here’s where SEIU-UHW’s Dave Regan enters our story.

SEIU-UHW's Dave Regan

Did “Wall Street” Dave rush to the side of workers and taxpayers in order to fight the disgusting profiteering by the nation’s largest HMO? Not by a long shot.

According to multiple sources, Regan recently appeared at San Francisco’s city hall with a team of Kaiser’s executives and conducted a round of lobbying visits to push elected officials to approve Kaiser’s full rate hike.  

According to several sources, Regan even tried to enter the office of John Avalos, one of the most progressive members of the San Francisco Board of Supervisors. Last year, Regan teamed up with the Chamber of Commerce to try to unseat Avalos by fielding one of Regan’s staffers -- Leon Chow -- as a candidate against Avalos. That is… until Chow crashed and burned in spectacular fashion after evidence surfaced that he violated multiple election laws!

SEIU-UHW's Leon Chow

So… when Regan recently walked into Avalos’s office, Avalos reportedly told Regan to get out. At which point Regan began jabbing his finger at Avalos’s chest in “old school” fashion before “Wall Street” Dave and the Kaiser suits beat a hasty retreat.

Regan and his business-suited buddies then continued to lobby other elected officials to approve Kaiser’s multi-million-dollar rate hikes.

Quite a story, right?

Remember that famous labor song that says, “Which side are you on?”

Well… what does it mean when a top SEIU official shows more solidarity for a multi-billion-dollar HMO than for SEIU’s own members -- not to mention workers in general?

At a time when lots of people are asking well-deserved questions about the future of the U.S. labor movement, this recent episode speaks volumes.

Notably, Regan’s vision of company-dominated unionism is shared by the top leaders of SEIU, one of the nation’s largest unions. In fact, Tasty’s sources say SEIU President Mary Kay Henry hasn’t voiced the slightest opposition to Regan selling out San Francisco’s workers in favor of a giant HMO. 

Here's SEIU Local 1021's leaflet on Kaiser's price-gouging:

   Leaflet by SEIU Local 1021 about Kaiser Permanente's Price-Gouging of San Francisco's Workers: July 2013