Josie Mooney Joins Skunks at Whitehurst/Mosher

Ever wonder what happened to SEIU’s Josie Mooney after she was dumped by the California School Employees Association? Well, just like a slow-flushing toilet, Josie appears to be swirling around with the same set of unsavory characters.

In her latest adventure, Josie landed a gig as a "Special Counselor" for “Whitehurst/Mosher,” the San Francisco lobbying and P.R. company that played an infamous role in Andy Stern’s attempted ‘character assassination’ campaign during SEIU’s California trusteeship. In fact, Josie was thigh-deep in the scandal when a conscientious insider outed the conspiracy in a tell-all article published in the San Francisco Bay Guardian.

The article revealed how Josie, SEIU Executive Vice President Tom DeBruin and Andy Stern hired hatchet-men John Whitehurst and Mark Mosher to try to smear California union leaders after they criticized SEIU officials for selling out frontline workers in secret deals with healthcare corporations. (Sound familiar?) Josie and DeBruin even worked hand-in-hand with Sutter Health, California’s biggest anti-union hospital company, to wage their so-called “Skunk Team” attack against union reformers.

So what kind of work is Josie doing now? Well, it turns out that Josie is still sucking dues from SEIU members’ pockets. Check out these meeting minutes from SEIU Local 221’s Executive Board. They show how Josie was present when union officials steered a $50,000 consulting contract to Whitehurst/Mosher earlier this year:

In the end, it sounds like Josie’s consulting firm didn't do such a good job for county workers. In fact, SEIU Local 221’s members ended up with a contract that’s inferior to the one negotiated by workers who recently decertified Local 221 and joined an independent union.

So, union members, if you happen to see Josie Mooney lurking around your union hall, look out! She’s probably trying to score a fat consulting gig funded by your union dues!

More Workers Leave SEIU Local 221 in San Diego

“Another group of workers recently flew the purple pond here in San Diego,” says a reader. Just one year after voting to join SEIU Local 221, a unit of 402 employees at the San Diego Regional Center voted to decertify the local union. The workers, who provide services to people with developmental disabilities in San Diego and Imperial Counties, had their election results certified by the NLRB in September.

According to Tasty’s source, this recent election brings to six the number of bargaining units that have bolted Local 221 in recent years:

1) San Diego Community College District

2) City of San Marcos

3) City of La Mesa

4) San Diego County Probation Officers Unit

5) San Diego County Crafts Unit

6) San Diego Regional Center

And from what Tasty hears, more workers are preparing to join the rush for the exit...

Purple Lies: SEIU Pushed $217 Million Pension Cut on Catholic Healthcare West's Workers

Remember the massive pension cut that SEIU officials negotiated with Catholic Healthcare West (CHW)?  SEIU stripped at least $217 million from workers’ pockets by eliminating their defined-benefit pension plan and replacing it with a 401(k)-style plan, according to financial documents recently filed by CHW.

Well, here's the latest news:  SEIU officials not only negotiated the $217 million pension cut, but they then blatantly LIED to CHW workers in order to get them to accept the horrible deal during the union’s ratification vote. (And when Tasty says “LIED,” he means full-on fraud, treachery and deceit.)

Here’s what happened: 

Last summer, as workers prepared to vote on SEIU’s tentative agreement to change their pension plan, this is how SEIU advertised the deal to workers (b/t/w, the “GDP plan” is the defined-benefit pension plan that SEIU eliminated):

Do you notice any mention of the hundreds of millions of dollars that workers would lose by accepting SEIU's deal? In fact, there's no mention of even the possibility that workers would lose a penny. SEIU officials, instead of telling the truth, flooded workers with thousands of leaflets with all-caps headlines like this one:

And guess who was one of the main perpetrators of this massive fraud against workers? Stan Lyles, who is SEIU-UHW’s Vice President and second-in-charge behind Dave Regan. Lyles’s picture appears on multiple purple propaganda pieces urging workers to vote “Yes” on the deal.

SEIU staffer Hal Ruddick, who now sits on Regan's Executive Committee, inked the massive concession with CHW executives and then directed the purple disinformation campaign against workers. And get this: Ruddick negotiated the cuts even though CHW made $917 million in profits last year, nearly doubling its profits from the previous year.

So how bad is SEIU’s pension cut? First of all, SEIU eliminated CHW's defined-benefit pension plan that guaranteed workers monthly pension payments for life that were based on workers’ final wage rate and their years of service.

In its place, SEIU implemented a new 401(k)-style plan that pays far less. Under this new plan, CHW contributes a fixed amount into each worker’s retirement account once a year (for example, 2% of a worker’s annual pay, which is the same as SEIU-UHW's union dues rate). When a worker retires, her retirement account is cashed out and this has gotta last for the rest of the worker's life. Here are excerpts from the agreement that Hal Ruddick signed:

Bottom line: SEIU officials committed a nearly quarter-billion-dollar fraud against its own members. In Tasty's humble opinion, these SEIU officials should face criminal punishment for this massive scam. And the pension cuts should be overturned because SEIU deliberately deceived its own members about what they were voting on. Hmmm...  any attorneys out there?

Toto Joins SEIU-Kaiser Permanente Propaganda Campaign

Have you ever wondered what might cause Kaiser and SEIU to feature Dorothy, Toto and the Wizard of Oz in an article about the Labor Management Partnership (LMP)? Well, check out this story.

Apparently, workers at Kaiser Permanente have become increasingly disgusted with the Partnership between SEIU and Kaiser. According to the LMP’s magazine called “Hank,” a recent survey of employees reveals that many workers have “negative perceptions of partnership.” What a shocker!

Well... the head-honchos at Kaiser and SEIU have gotten so nervous about their plunging popularity that they decided to launch a propaganda campaign featuring videos, online quizzes and glossy articles that are aimed at convincing workers to support for the LMP.

Sounds kinda ominous… until you take a look at the hilariously lame materials that SEIU and Kaiser have shoveled into their first propaganda piece.

The two partners – in their typical, arrogant fashion – have once again decided to treat workers like a bunch of six-year-olds. Their ingenious article uses a “Wizard of Oz” theme that features pictures of workers and Toto gazing down the Yellow Brick Road from their perch inside Dorothy’s giant shoes.

The super-defensive article is entitled: “PARTNERSHIP? REALLY? If the Labor Management Partnership Is All It’s Cracked Up To Be, Why Do We Keep Hearing These Myths about It?” And it includes gems of wisdom like these:

Myths are useful when they help people understand their world. They get in the way when they prop up and lend an air of truth to outdated ideas. Fourteen years in, it’s troubling there are some persistent myths, the latter kind, about the Labor Management Partnership.

Partnership is not a diabolical management scheme to hoodwink union members… Misunderstanding partnership basics like these undermines our ability to produce superior health care outcomes.

The naysayers perpetuate a different view of LMP, claiming… that management has co-opted the unions.

But wait, gentle readers! That’s not all! This hard-hitting article tries to tackle myths like this one:

MYTH: The Labor Management Partnership is a way to hoodwink frontline workers. Unions that partner with employers are selling out their members’ interests.

How to answer this one? Fortunately, an SEIU-UHW “partnership representative” at Kaiser San Jose Medical Center sets all of the silly workers straight: “The partnership has always been a win-win.” Whew! That explains it all! Tasty knew there was a perfectly good reason why Dave Regan accepted the $242 million cut in Kaiser workers’ lump-sum pension payouts without ever putting it to a vote of the membership. Win-win!

Tasty especially likes this bizarre picture of the Wicked Witch of the West using her crystal ball to watch workers (and Toto) as they desperately seek the “the other side of the rainbow” while they float in giant high-heeled shoes along the Yellow Brick Road! (Btw, who's the witch?)

So who penned this inane article? Tasty hears it was the brainchild of Dave Regan and John August (Executive Director of the Coalition of Kaiser Permanente Unions), who apparently smoked massive amounts of drugs before sketching their Pulitzer Prize-winning piece. Hey Dave and John -- Tasty can’t wait ‘til your next article comes out!

Michelle Ringuette's Dual Unionism with Andy Stern

Here’s an interesting story featuring Andy Stern and his former personal spokesperson, Michelle Ringuette, who’s apparently been working as a union double agent since her departure from SEIU.

As readers no doubt remember, SEIU’s President Emeritus has been making quite a scene by shamelessly pimping for giant corporations… like when he joined Fortune 500 CEOs to push for massive tax cuts on U.S. corporations' overseas profits. Of course, Andy LOVES all the attention... although he gets kinda sensitive when people criticize him.

That’s where Michelle Ringuette comes into our story. After Andy retired as SEIU’s president, Michelle eventually followed him out of the Purple Palace by landing a job at the American Federation of Teachers, where she got a fancy title as “Assistant to the President for Strategic Initiatives.” Adios, SEIU…

Or so we thought!

Earlier this month, Tasty was stunned to see Ringuette using her SEIU email account to defend King Andy’s reputation during an email discussion among labor journalists. Here’s what happened. 

One journalist sent an email entitled “Andy Stern's integrity continues to deteriorate,” and others followed by sharing articles like Former Union President Andy Stern Says He Was Too Tough on Banks at SEIU, which features a pinky-ringed picture of King Andy with this caption: “Convert? Former union president Andy Stern is supporting pro-business policies.”

That’s when Ringuette, wielding her SEIU email account, jumped into the discussion to defend Stern (even though she managed to inadvertently backhand him as she tried to curry favor with the journalists). Here’s Ringuette’s email:

From: Michelle Ringuette <michelle.ringuette@seiu.org>

Date: Fri, 11 Nov 2011 17:46:38 -0500

To: laborjourno@googlegroups.com<laborjourno@googlegroups.com> 

Subject: Re: [laborjourno] Re: Andy Stern's integrity continues to deteriorate

As some of you might know, I used to work for SEIU and I served as Andy's spokesperson for a while. I consider him a friend and I think he's far more complex than what can be captured in this kind of thread. 

I asked Andy about this because after all our work, this was profoundly disappointing to read. 

What he actually said (or had been trying to convey - I wasn't present for the interview) was that he (we) made a mistake by personalizing it and going after [JPMorgan Chase CEO] Jamie Dimon and [Goldman Sachs CEO] Lloyd Blankfein as individuals rather than staying focused on the problems with the system. 

Michelle Ringuette

202 341 7057

Random words and unconventional spelling courtesy iPhone 

So what’s the deal??  Is Ringuette secretly working for SEIU while pulling down a paycheck from the American Federation of Teachers? Is this “dual unionism”... or just plain old double-agent spyism? Or has Michelle decided to launch a “strategic initiative” to use the AFT’s resources to defend Andy Stern? Well, whatever it is, it looks like Michelle has some explaining to do!