Stern in Hot Seat as Congress Probes SIGA's $2.8 billion Contract

SEIU President Emeritus Andy Stern is in the hot seat again – this time for his role in a controversial $2.8 billion government contract awarded to SIGA Technologies, a bio-warfare firm that gave Stern more than 35,000 stock options to sit on the for-profit company's Board of Directors.

CNBC is reporting that two Congressional committees have launched probes into how SIGA got the no-bid federal contract to produce small pox antiviral medicine.

CNBC's coverage discusses both Stern and his cigar-chomping billionaire buddy, Ron Perelman, who owns 30% of SIGA's shares. Last year, SIGA brought Stern onto its board reportedly because of the extensive relationships he developed with government officials while on SEIU's payroll.

After SIGA got the $2.8 billion contract, the company's stock price jumped. According to a journalist at Forbes, Perelman stands to make $140 million in profit if SIGA's stock price increases by $10 per share. As for Andy's profits, good question.

The Huffington Post has written about Stern's cozy relationship with Perelman, who's the 64th richest person in the world (estimated net worth: $12 billion). As president of SEIU, Stern reportedly cut a sweetheart labor deal with Perelman, who owned a giant security firm called AlliedBarton. The HuffPo writes:

In September 2006, the SEIU surprised the labor movement by agreeing not to organize 10,000 security guards working for AlliedBarton, largely in the Philadelphia area, in exchange for organizing opportunities elsewhere. In 2008, the SEIU again surprised observers by not standing in the way of the sale of AlliedBarton to the private-equity firm Blackstone Group...

Observers speculate that Stern's cushy gig at SIGA may be Perelman's way of paying off for Stern for his earlier sweetheart deal on AlliedBarton. It also raises other ethical questions… like whether SEIU's President Emeritus is using his SEIU rolodex to make millions – the kind of revolving-door ethical violation that SEIU likes to criticize when other people do it.

So…as SEIU claims to be "fighting for a fair economy," SEIU's President Emeritus is "making bank with his billionaire buddy."

What's next? Well... we'll see what Congressional investigators can uncover. In the meantime, it stinks like all of the other corrupt dealings that seem to emerge from SEIU like a steady stream of effluent.

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.