Did John August Get the Axe at Kaiser Coalition?

A source reports that John August, the Executive Director of the Coalition of Kaiser Permanente Unions, is being ousted from his job after an investigation into his abusive behavior against staff members. 

Tasty hasn’t had a chance to independently verify this report, but here’s what Tasty’s source says:

Former Coalition staff members reportedly filed complaints against August for sexually harassing and abusing staff members. Tasty hears that the staffers’ complaints reached the AFL-CIO, which interviewed staff and is now reportedly orchestrating August’s imminent departure.

Union officials apparently held off on axing August until after the conclusion of the giant Kaiser election in California. Why? August has worked hand-in-hand with SEIU-UHW’s Dave Regan to pave the way for takeaways affecting Kaiser workers, and he also helped implement the multi-million-dollar Partnership Tax on Kaiser workers. 

Furthermore, August is super tight with Kaiser’s top execs. In fact, Kaiser gives August a fancy, rent-free office inside Kaiser’s national headquarters. And Kaiser’s incoming CEO, Bernard Tyson, even made this video with August.

August’s reputation as a womanizing “culo-crat” is well known (me entiendes?). He’s reportedly had multiple sexual affairs with staffers, rank-and-file SEIU members, and at least one member of SEIU’s International Executive Board. 

Last summer, August was gripped by a scandal after he reportedly sexually harassed a Kaiser partnership staffer who, upon quitting, turned in her phone… which contained comprising files implicating August. 

Despite the scandal, SEIU President Mary Kay Henry -- who serves as the president of the Coalition's board of directors -- reportedly refused to axe August because she was afraid that another scandal would further wound the image of SEIU's already scandal-plagued officials.

Coalition staffers describe August’s behavior as “predatory” -- sometimes targeting his sexual advances on staffers who are single moms and who can’t afford to quit their jobs. According to others, August has an anger-management problem that’s pathological… like “Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde.”   

One female staffer described how August ordered her into a one-on-one meeting, then yelled at her so ferociously that spit was flying out of his mouth as he jabbed his finger in her face. 

In the end, it's certainly no surprise that the Kaiser partnership is run by corrupt officials like August and Regan. And it's no coincidence that Kaiser execs and union officials would hold off on axing August until after the giant Kaiser election.

SEIU's Andy Stern Commits Latest Chipocrisy

Andy Stern’s newest 'bromance' with a fatcat business exec offers readers another glimpse at the immense integrity that's become the hallmark of SEIU. Here’s the latest.

Ever heard of Chipotle Mexican Grill? That’s the chain of restaurants that fired nearly 700 immigrant Latino workers without notice… and in some cases without paying back wages.

Many groups -- including SEIU -- have protested Chipotle for this despicable act, using slogans like this one: “Chipotle Chipocrisy: Selling Mexican culture and then selling out Mexican workers.”

For example, SEIU has this on its website (click on image to enlarge it):

And here’s SEIU’s Secretary-Treasurer, Eliseo Medina, protesting in front of a Chipotle restaurant. 

Which of course makes it a tiny bit awkward now that Andy Stern is palling around with one of Chipotle’s current board members and its former top exec. 

In late March, Jeffrey Kindler was appointed to the board of directors of SIGA Technologies. Like Stern, Kindler quickly pocketed 25,000 stock options in the bio-warfare phamaceutical company. Kindler formerly served as the Executive Vice President of the McDonald’s Corporation, where he was directly in charge of Chipotle Mexican Grill for a number of years, according to the Securities and Exchange Commission.

That's not all. Kindler also served as the Chairman and CEO of Pfizer. In 2010, Pfizer boosted Kindler’s take-home pay to $15 million a year. Why?  Because Kindler successfully lobbied the U.S. government to give the pharmaceutical industry “a largely hands-off regulatory atmosphere in drug pricing.” That means the giant pharma industry was free to charge astronomical prices to patients and then pocket giant profits.

In addition, Pfizer rewarded Kindler for buying a company called Wyeth, and then laying of nearly 20,000 workers. What a guy!

In fact, Pfizer was so pleased with Kindler that it gave him 20 hours of “personal use” flight time in Pfizer’s

corporate jet and helicopter, in addition to his company-paid personal car and driver. Here’s a photo of the interior of Pfizer’s jet.

Now that they're both on SIGA's board of directors, Andy and Kindler will spend countless hours together in corporate board rooms as they plot the future of their stock options and the pharma corporation. 

Andy Stern -- one more principled SEIU official who's fighting on behalf of U.S. workers!

CA Hospital Worker Fires Back at SEIU-UHW with Homemade Video

Check out this hilarious video from a hospital worker in California:

More News and Analysis of Kaiser Election

Here’s additional reaction to the Kaiser election in BNA’s Daily Labor Report. The article, entitled “In Rerun Election Mirroring First One, SEIU-UHW Retains Kaiser Representation” and authored by Joyce Cutler, includes comments from Nelson Lichtenstein, a labor historian and the director of the Center for the Study of Work, Labor and Democracy at UC Santa Barbara. Here they are:

Nelson Lichtenstein, UC Santa Barbara history professor and union watcher, told BNA May 2: “[The] original effort of SEIU to take over UHW-West, this will be SEIU's Iraq, and I think the last four years has proven to be the case.”

Lichtenstein said “the whole thing was a blunder on the part of the SEIU.”

“It's always been in SEIU's court to extend their hand to NUHW and resolve this” as SEIU has done with other unions it battled, Lichtenstein said.

“The remarkable thing about NUHW, always in labor history established unions of whatever sort never back dissident factions. It's just not done. But in this case it was done. Basically the political and union base of the Bay Area and California did back NUHW,” Lichtenstein said. “I do think that it will be wise on the part of the SEIU to extend an olive branch to the leadership and the activists of NUHW and end this thing, this internecine warfare.”

NUHW after results were announced said together with 18,000 CNA-represented Kaiser registered nurses and 5,000 NUHW-represented Kaiser employees, “13,000 workers belong to a majority of Kaiser workers in California who stand united and ready to fight the downward spiral of cuts that SEIU-UHW and employers like Kaiser are forcing on healthcare workers everywhere.”

News Coverage of Kaiser Election

Here's an article from Steve Early, a labor journalist who's written extensively about the labor struggles in California's healthcare industry. The following is an excerpt from the full article, published by Labor Notes.

“We were hopeful this time would be different than last time,” said Roberto Alvarez, a 17-year Kaiser X-ray technician from southern California. “In Orange County, we tripled the support for NUHW, so it was a great leap forward for us there. We know what the future is with SEIU, so what we have to do now is keep on fighting.”

That future, according to Alvarez and others interviewed yesterday, will include further deterioration of working conditions, weak enforcement of the “best contract in the country,” and, at some point, major SEIU give-backs on pensions, job security, and medical coverage for active employees. These takeaways have already been won by Kaiser competitors like Dignity Healthcare and Daughters of Charity Health System.

“My theory is that SEIU has promised Kaiser a lot of stuff, cuts that are coming down sooner or later, now that the election is out of the way,” Alvarez said.

“We’ve got to stay organized, support each other, and remain defiant,” said George Wong, who works for Kaiser in San Francisco. “There’s going to be another day, and the fight will continue—because it has to.”

Results from Kaiser Election

Late in the afternoon, the NLRB announced its election results… which left many observers surprised and stunned given the outpouring of support for NUHW during the campaign. Here are the results, according to the NLRB's website:

SEIU-UHW: 18,844, NUHW: 13,101, No Union: 334.

NUHW posted the following statement from its president, Sal Rosselli, on its website:

You may have heard by now that the results of the Kaiser election did not go the way we had hoped. The NLRB’s final vote count was 13,101 for NUHW-CNA to 18,844 for SEIU-UHW, with 334 voting for neither union.

There’s a few things I would like to say about this election.

First of all, I have never been prouder to be part of this movement. For the last four months, tens of thousands of healthcare workers stood hand-in-hand with registered nurses at hundreds of Kaiser worksites all over the state and ran the most principled, spirited and courageous campaign the labor movement has ever seen. We should feel energized and inspired by the unity we achieved.

That unity is not going away. It will persist at our workplaces, in the friendships we’ve made, and in the continued affiliation between NUHW and CNA. It will fuel our continued struggle to stop the cuts that Kaiser is trying to force down our throats with the shameful complicity of SEIU-UHW.

I also want to note that I’m stunned by these election results. Speaking from decades of experience in elections like this, we have many questions that deserve answers.

We should feel very proud of our achievments, and ready to continue the fight to force Kaiser to put workers and patients before profits.

In Unity,

Sal Rosselli

Tasty’s sources say the scene at the final vote count was quite revealing. Apparently, the happiest people in the room were not SEIU-UHW... but Kaiser! As the NLRB announced its final tally, Kaiser executives reportedly grinned from ear to ear.

Why?

Kaiser has not only kept its preferred “partnership” union atop the 45,000 workers, but it has made SEIU-UHW even more endebted to Kaiser as a result of the HMO’s extensive election assistance… which included Kaiser’s withholding of annual bonuses from NUHW’s members and blocking NUHW’s supporters and staff from accessing Kaiser facilities.

Now that the election is over, Kaiser’s execs will undoubtedly demand a fat payback… which will come in the form of giant cuts to SEIU-UHW members’ pensions and health benefits -- just like the cuts that SEIU’s Dave Regan delivered to Dignity Healthcare, the Daughters of Charity Health System and other companies. 

More election coverage to follow.