SEIU President Andrew Stern Undermines Employee Free Choice Act (EFCA)

[Better Believe It]

UHW's Rejection of Andy Stern's Decision to Impose Trusteeship in Response to UHW's Request for Members' Right to Vote
January 27th, 2009


Today's action by Andy Stern imposing a trusteeship against the members of United Healthcare West has the effect of declaring martial law against those advocating for the right to vote and other democratic principles in their own union.

UHW has rejected this imposition.

It's doubly ironic in that Stern has tried to position himself as the leading champion of the Employee Free Choice Act which would give unorganized workers the freedom to choose a union, while he is unwilling to give the members of SEIU a free choice within their union.

UHW strongly opposes Andy Stern's attempt to eliminate democracy and self-determination in our union simply because we have advocated for the right of members to vote before they are transferred from one SEIU local union to another, or because we believe that UHW members, rather than Andy Stern's D.C. appointees, should control the collective bargaining relationship with the employer.

At a time when the entire labor movement should be united to win real labor law and healthcare reform, we are appalled that SEIU would choose to create this discord and disharmony in our movement.

http://seiuvoice.org/article.php?id=682

Note by poster: Right-wing anti-labor outfits are already using Andrew Stern's action in their anti-EFCA propaganda.

------------------------------


SEIU Launches Takeover of United Healthcare Workers-West -Labor Notes by Mark Brenner

January 27th, 2009

Financial assets for the 150,000-member local were immediately seized, the executive board was dissolved, and full-time officers were removed from payroll. Reports circulated among workplace leaders that SEIU also dismissed UHW stewards, and that employers are holding captive-audience meetings to introduce new SEIU-appointed staff representatives.

Stern named Executive Vice Presidents Eliseo Medina and Dave Regan as trustees of UHW. Regan said rank-and-file worksite leaders remain in place.

As word of the trusteeship spread, hundreds of members and supporters rallied at the union’s Oakland headquarters, vowing to resist SEIU’s hostile takeover.

UHW leaders announced the formation of an independent union, the National Union of Healthcare Workers, and signaled their intention to decertify SEIU in hospitals and nursing homes, declaring that they would not permit appointed staffers to decide which union members belonged to.

http://seiuvoice.org/article.php?id=687

-----------------------


Members of United Healthcare Workers West pray during a meeting to discuss the union’s takeover by the Service Employees International Union. Officers of the 150,000-member local were removed Tuesday and replaced with two SEIU executives.


------------------------



For Immediate Release
January 28, 2009

CNA/NNOC Criticizes SEIU Trusteeship: Cites Concerns for Erosion of RN and Patient Care Standards
Citing concerns about erosion of RN and patient care standards, the California Nurses Association/National Nurses Organizing Committee today criticized the action by the Service Employees International Union to take over its largest California affiliate, United Healthcare Workers-West.

In a statement today, Rose Ann DeMoro, executive director of CNA/NNOC, which represents registered nurses in most of the hospitals where UHW represents ancillary staff, noted "the appalling track record of SEIU International in signing substandard agreements with employers in exchange for additional dues payments is a major cause for alarm in a state that has set the national standard in hospital patient care conditions and RN standards."

"What we can expect to see now is open complicity between hospital corporations happy to have in SEIU International a new partner in hospitals across California who has repeatedly demonstrated a brutal indifference to protecting workplace protections for patients or employees," she said.

DeMoro said CNA/NNOC will send an emphatic message to employers across California urging them not to exploit the SEIU-UHW battle to seek to unilaterally roll back conditions or contract standards for CNA/NNOC members, and to state legislators to be wary of SEIU-backed legislation that would harm patients or nurses. SEIU International, for example:

Lobbied against reforms to improve patient care conditions and staffing in California nursing homes, and agreed to give management the "exclusive right" to set pay, discipline employees, reassign or eliminate jobs, and outsource work.

Agreed not to voluntary report adverse conditions to any regulatory or other oversight agency in a pact with Washington state nursing homes.

Opposed RN-to-patient ratios in California, and then sought to undermine the law, and has also worked to undermine RN ratio legislation in other states.

Endorsed the closure of public hospitals and nursing homes in New York state in a joint pact with the New York Hospital Association.

Opposed public health funding in Cleveland, where SEIU spent hundreds of thousands of dollars to defeat a critical public health services measure after county officials refused to sign a sweetheart agreement to help SEIU gain new members.

-The above is a public news release and is not copyrighted material-

[Better Believe It]

1. Caonsumer Watchdog Group Opposes Stern's Takeover Of United Health Care Workers Union

Consumer Watchdog.org
Breaking news — January 28, 2009

Consumer Watchdog Says California Nursing Home Patients' Quality Of Care In Jeopardy Under SEIU Takeover Of United Health Care Worker Facilities

Consumer Watchdog warned that the move by SEIU International to take over nursing home worker unions in California will lead to degradation of the quality of patient care, as the agreements negotiated by SEIU tend to put the interest of nursing home owners over patients.

The current agreements in nursing homes run by the United Health Care Workers protect the right of caregivers to blow the whistle on quality of care problems and create quality of care committees to give workers a voice in how nursing home residents are treated. Agreements cut by SEIU International's loyal unions have prevented caregivers from speaking out about quality of care problems, and in many cases even striking. One agreement, pledged the workers, would lobby with nursing home owners to restrict the legal rights of injured patients. (Read about these agreements at: http://www.consumerwatchdog.org/patients/articles/?storyId=15165 or http://www.consumerwatchdog.org/patients/articles/?storyId=17864 )

"The quality of care in California nursing homes with suffer significantly if workers who are empowered to speak out about unacceptable conditions are suddenly represented by a union which is notorious for cutting sweet heart deals with nursing home owners that gag caregivers," said Jamie Court, president of Consumer Watchdog. "This power grab over a democratically elected union will mean our grandparents will be less safe in California nursing homes because the owners will have taken over an independent voice for patients."

http://www.consumerwatchdog.org/patients/articles/?storyId=24519

[BrklynLiberal]

2. K&R

[Freddie Stubbs]

3. There are, of course, always at least two sides to a story:

SEIU last year alleged that the Oakland local's leadership has committed "financial malpractice" by moving dues into a fund for personal and political use. Rosselli said the charge was bogus, but an administrative hearing officer, Ray Marshall, a former secretary of labor, found it had merit. Under that finding, Stern said he was authorized to take over the local in a trusteeship.

more: http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/c/a/2009/01/28/BURV15I9NA.DTL

[Better Believe It]

4. Stern picked his pal Ray Marshall to conduct the "impartial" hearing.

The leadership of the 150,000 member has not engaged in any corrupt or illegal activities. Their crime was opposing Stern's corrupt policies and turning SEIU into a company union that collaborates with employers at the expense of union members.

The right of 150,000 union members to elect their own leadership has been violated by Andrew Stern. His bureaucratic and undemocratic actions are hurting the Employee Free Choice Act.

[Freddie Stubbs]

5. How good of 'pals' are Stern and Marshall?

Do they simply know each other socially? Have they worked together before? Is one of them the godfather of the other's children?

[Better Believe It]

6. Why won't Ray Marshall publicly release his report?

Being "pals" is just an educated guess on my part. I don't know how frequently they socialize nor what kind of food or drinks they enjoy. That's really not the main point in these posts and I'm sorry you choose to concentrate on that. My fault! Two really important points are that Stern didn't agree to select a neutral third party acceptable to both sides in this dispute and Marshall didn't conduct an impartial hearing process.

Statement by UHW on SEIU's Claims Regarding SEIU-Trusteeship Hearing Process Chaired by Ray Marshall
New Release
OAKLAND, Calif., Jan. 22 /PRNewswire-USNewswire/ --

EXCERPT


SEIU's press release and the cherry-picked quotes from the decision are predictable. It also is predictable that Hearing Officer Ray Marshall, former Secretary of Labor, who was hired by SEIU President Andy Stern to conduct the hearing would do the job he was paid to do -- render a decision that would make findings favored by Stern.
Of course, none of us can know for sure what the Marshall report contains, because Stern and SEIU have refused to release it, including to us.

SEIU's trusteeship hearing process contains serious structural flaws that biased its outcome toward SEIU's President. For example, Hearing Officer Ray Marshall was first asked to become hearing officer by the law firm that prosecuted the International Union's case. Moreover, Andy Stern personally approved Marshall's selection and then appointed SEIU's legal department to "assist" Marshall in conducting the hearing, analyzing the evidence and crafting his analysis.

UHW member Beverly Griffith, an environmental services aide at Sutter's Alta Bates Summit Medical Center in Oakland, stated, "A process like this would never be allowed in any union contract In my own contract, a hearing officer is a mutually selected neutral third party, who acts as an independent arbitrator. This is an injustice and a double standard."

The SEIU press statement, released even before the Marshall report has been made public, also is a sad commentary that SEIU, which has made fighting for the Employee Free Choice Act and a voice for non-union workers a top priority, denies its own members a voice and choice. Unions are supposed to stand for democracy in the workplace - and the union hall. This decision from an SEIU-dominated process only further demonstrates the need to end corruption and reform the International Union. In SEIU, "justice" means injustice for all those who disagree with Stern and his cronies.

http://www.breitbart.com/article.php?id=prnw.20090122.DC61730&show_article=1

[ogneopasno]

7. I can't stand Andy Stern. SEIU deserves better leadership, and labor needs to be united.