SEIU's Bill Lloyd Joins Steve Trossman in L.A. Scandal

Tasty uncovered some salacious details about Bill Lloyd, the current head of SEIU Local 99 in Los Angeles. Lloyd, who also sits on SEIU’s International Executive Board, has spent the past 7 years living in the Wilshire Grand Hotel… all on the members’ dime… while pulling down three separate SEIU paychecks for more than $220,000 a year.

Tasty’s newest details about Bill Lloyd would fit perfectly in a trashy airport novel: secret love affairs, embezzled funds, federal criminal indictments… and even SEIU’s Steve Trossman. Here’s the scoop:

In 2004, Lloyd landed atop the 25,000-member Local 99 when the Purple Palace appointed him to be a trustee of the local union. What’s perhaps less well known is Lloyd’s sexual relationship with Local 99’s previous president, Janett Humphries, who was abruptly removed from the union’s top spot after embezzling tens of thousands of dollars from the union. 

In fact, in 2006 Humphries pleaded guilty in federal court to four counts of embezzlement and one count of conspiracy. In a separate case, she was found guilty of two counts of conspiracy and two counts of perjury. And that’s not even counting her conviction in state court for breaking campaign finance laws and perjury. Among her deeds? Embezzling $30,000 for political campaigns and using union funds to buy plane tickets for her personal travel.

And here’s where Bill Lloyd enters the SEIU drama. While Humphries was doing her criminal deeds, Bill was literally doing Humphries, according to Lloyd’s courtroom testimony. Despite their intimate relationship, who did SEIU choose to take over Humphries’ position atop Local 99? None other than her “former” boyfriend, Bill Lloyd!

Talk about the fox guarding the henhouse! Tasty wonders how hard Lloyd actually worked to find additional evidence of his ex-girlfriend’s criminal acts. “Hey honey, you shoulda seen the papers I found in your bottom desk drawer today…”

So how does Steve Trossman fit into this sordid affair? Well, Trossman was SEIU’s public relations spin-meister and was assigned to do “damage-control” with the press – the same role he played in covering up Tyrone Freeman’s million-dollar theft from SEIU members.

Here’s what Trossman, who’s not known for his honesty, told the Los Angeles Times about Bill Lloyd’s appointment to run Local 99: 

Asked why Lloyd remained a trustee despite his relationship to the case and to Humphries, Steve Trossman, a spokesman for SEIU in Washington, wrote in an e-mail to The Times: "Mr. Lloyd was no longer having an affair with Janett Humphries prior to the time he was appointed to the position of deputy trustee of Local 99. Mr. Lloyd is an experienced leader and has done a very good job as deputy trustee."

So there you have it in all its disgusting detail:  another SEIU corruption scandal, slathered with cronyism and wrapped in an SEIU cover-up courtesy of Steve Trossman. Trossman, of course, currently serves as Dave Regan’s right-hand propaganda man at SEIU-UHW, where he earns $200,000 a year. Last year, Trossman famously waged SEIU’s law-breaking disinformation campaign against Kaiser workers, which notoriously violated SEIU members’ federal labor rights and overturned the largest US union election in 70 years. Quite a revealing tale!

Fraudulently Elected Official Attempts Leap onto SEIU-UHW's Executive Board

Remember this post about a union election that was rigged by Regan and Co. so they could put John Cuddihy on the steward council at Kaiser Walnut Creek Medical Center?

Well… just as Tasty predicted, Cuddihy is now using his Shop Steward position to leap-frog into an open seat on SEIU-UHW’s Executive Board. In fact, the election is scheduled for Nov. 9.

Tasty hears that SEIU's latest move is creating some serious disgust among workers at the Kaiser Permanente hospital. Why? Let’s just say that Cuddihy is not exactly known for his integrity. Several years ago, workers actually caught Cuddihy making a secret deal with management to re-write the union's rules in a way that benefited only him.

But that’s not all. Cuddihy also has problems with women. Here's how a reader describes an incident that took place when Cuddihy was previously a Shop Steward:

A number of representatives from John [Cuddihy’s] department came to the steward council and requested that recall procedures be initiated. What they specifically cited was that John treated the women in the department with contempt and specifically, he had been informed that one of his constituents was being sexually harrassed by a male coworker in the dept (John's friend). Instead of giving his constituent the resources to report the harassment so that an investigation could be initiated, John did his "own" investigation and told her that the complaint had no merit. She continued to suffer sexual harrassment at the hands of his friend. When this young woman reported to the steward council, she was in tears and John did his best to attack, interrupt and intimidate her through the entire presentation.

The steward council launched a full investigation into Cuddihy and discovered that “there were several more incidents of discrimination based on race and gender reported by John's constituents and that he used his position as steward to harass and intimidate them,” according to the reader. Under the union’s old rules, workers were allowed to vote on whether to keep Cuddihy in his union position – and they removed him by a near unanimous vote.

Ahh… but those were the old days. Under the new system ushered in by Dave Regan, “democracy” means back-room deals with bosses, $300,000 salaries for union officials, and rigged votes.

That's how Cuddihy -- whose ethical transgressions sound eerily similar to Regan's -- got a position at SEIU-UHW even though workers overwhelmingly voted him down several weeks ago. Sounds like Cuddihy is destined for a bright future alongside Regan!

More Canadians Bolt SEIU

This just in...  Late last week, 263 workers in Ontario, Canada registered SEIU's latest decertification loss. According to this article, 70% of the workers at Moulure Alexandria Moulding voted to leave SEIU Local 2 to join a competing union. Tasty hears the loss is a serious blow for SEIU because the facility was one of the larger bargaining units inside Local 2, which has 10,000 members.

Apparently, California's healthcare workers are plenty familiar with the Field Reps from SEIU Local 2. They were some of the thousands of purple-shirters who parachuted into the Golden State to impose SEIU's bogus trusteeship and law-breaking Kaiser campaign.

No wonder Canadian workers are rushing to leave SEIU -- kinda hard to get help with a grievance when your Field Rep is 2,000 miles away in California!

B/t/w, Tasty hears that SEIU must have failed its (former) Ontario workers big time...  because workers voted by a wide margin to join a new union that's notorious for bargaining weak contracts.

Next???

NUHW Members Approve New Constitution

Tasty hears that NUHW’s members just ratified a new constitution that’s like night-and-day compared to SEIU-UHW’s. 

Check out some of the differences:

Decision Making: 

• At Dave Regan’s SEIU-UHW, the union’s main decision-making body is an “Executive Committee” where 30% of the positions are filled by SEIU staffers who’re hand-picked by Regan… people like Hal Ruddick, Rebecca Malberg, Joe Simoes, Cass Gualvez and Myriam Escamilla.

• At NUHW, only rank-and-file members can sit on the union’s Executive Board. No staff. And members have the right to recall the union’s officers.

Union Salaries:    

• At SEIU-UHW, there are no limits on the salaries of the union’s officers and staff. That’s why Regan was able to boost his pay to $300,000 and union staffer Steve Trossman is making $200,000 a year.

• What about NUHW? Under the new constitution, staff people and officers (like the president) cannot earn more than the highest-paid rank-and-file member.

Members' Rights:  

• NUHW’s constitution guarantees members the right to elect and recall stewards; the right to ratify contracts; the right to elect rank-and-file representatives to bargaining committees; the right to vote on whether to strike or not; the right to full and open accounting of Union finances; and the right to disagree with the leadership of the Union (Article 5).

• SEIU-UHW’s constitution doesn’t guarantee any of these rights. Instead, Regan and Co. can remove shop stewards and bargaining committee members simply because they disagree with union officials or because they refuse to sign “loyalty oaths.” And SEIU’s DC officials have the ultimate right to bargain workers’ contracts for them.

Union Dues: 

• NUHW’s dues are 25% lower than SEIU-UHW’s and the dues formula can only be changed by a vote of the membership.

• At SEIU-UHW, dues can be increased without a vote of the membership.

You can check out a full version of NUHW’s new constitution on NUHW’s website.

So… how did NUHW’s constitutional vote end up? Tasty hears that voter turnout was more than twice as high as in SEIU-UHW’s officer elections. And 94% of the voters backed NUHW’s new constitution. Congrats to NUHW's members!

Canadians Win Another One!

Tasty hears that, earlier this week, more Canadian healthcare workers voted to leave SEIU and join the Ontario Workers Union (OWU). 

Apparently, a unit of approximately 160 nursing home workers at Woods Park Nursing Centre in Barrie, Ontario voted to leave SEIU and join OWU by a vote of 55 to 54. Readers report that SEIU threw everything but the kitchen sink at the nursing home workers… SEIU had organizers crawling all over the workplace, stalking members in their homes, and blowing up their telephones with purple robo-calls. 

Way to go, Canadian healthcare workers!

SEIU's Cory Cordova Dives Deeper into Gutter

Remember scab extraordinaire Cory Cordova? He’s the SEIU-UHW staffer who helped carry out Dave Regan’s illegal firing of a popular SEIU-UHW member at Lakewood Regional Medical Center in Southern California. And at USC University Hospital, Cordova famously worked hand-in-hand with hospital execs and their union-busting consultants to try to defeat a union drive by 600 workers… even though workers ultimately voted to join NUHW by a three-to-one margin.

Well… last Friday, SEIU’s Cory Cordova took “scabbing” to a new level by showing the world how much SEIU loves to help employers. Here’s what happened.

After a government investigation that lasted for months, the NLRB put USC University Hospital on trial for violating its employees’ federal labor rights. Last Friday, near the end of the trial, USC management called a surprise witness to the stand: SEIU’s Cory Cordova! (That’s him in the photo).

What did Cordova say? Under questioning by management, he told the judge that after SEIU’s trusteeship in 2009, SEIU basically allowed management to make unlimited changes to workers’ contract. Why’s that relevant? Because USC is currently on trial for violating workers’ contract. According to SEIU’s Cordova, USC's violations were a routine, day-to-day reality under SEIU’s watch, meaning that management should continue to have the right to gut the workers’ contract… even though the workers booted SEIU out of the facility.

Quite a stunning admission for SEIU. After all, what's a union that can't enforce its own members' contract? Kind of like a baker that can't bake bread. Or a farmer that can't farm.

Equally stunning?  The fact that SEIU officials instructed Cordova to voluntarily testify for USC management even though SEIU doesn’t represent a single worker at USC. It looks like SEIU is working extra hard to build its reputation as the bosses' union among California healthcare companies!

"You're not supposed to lie about stuff..."

A reader sent along this cartoon about SEIU at Kaiser. Apparently, the cartoon was put together by workers at Kaiser along with some help from a healthcare worker at Catholic Healthcare West who's also a cartoonist!