some responses:
1- on the ratio law. in California, in 1999 in the final days of the legislative session, SEIU lobbyists went into legislative offices with Kaiser to lobby legislators to vote against the bill, they wanted them to vote it down. after the law was passed, in hearings by the state health department they tried to water the intent of the law by having LVNs included in the count. while LVNs are important caregivers, there is a difference, a significant difference, in their expertise and education, and their legal role and ability to act in the interest of the patient and not the employer. SEIU tries to eradicate that distinction with the charge that CNA promotes elitism, but they ignore the serious patient care implications under corporate healthcare, and mock their own RN members when they say that. SEIU also lobbied against a bill we sponsored that would have significantly increased penalties for hospitals that willfully violate the law. and it's not just California, SEIU also lobbied against a ratio law in Massachusetts that the Massachusetts Nurses Association has valiantly tried to pass for years.
2- the argument that SEIU has the best RN contracts in the nation is far from true. they themselves did a survey about a year ago that they did national press on and reported that something like five of the six best regional areas for RN compensation in the country were in San Jose, SF, Oakland, LA, and either Sacramento or Long Beach can't remember the fifth. what's the common denominator there? all of those are areas where we represent most of the nurses and reflect our contracts. we also have the best contracts on pensions, retiree health, health benefits, and a wide variety of patient care protections, including ratios, floating, lift teams, and language barring the use of new technology to displace nurses or replace their professional judgment - a very significant growing issue.... the proof in the pudding is the fact that so many nurses around the country have been calling us seeking to join CNA, including nurses currently represented by SEIU. the main reason we're in an election in Las Vegas now is that the nurses there have seen our California contracts and their own failed representation and know they can do better...
3- contracts with ratios. here's the difference ours have real enforcement language to assure compliance with the ratios, theirs do not
4- Ohio. do you really think it is a good precedent to have employers petitioning for elections without a single signed union card? is that not exactly what was a common occurrence in the 20s and 30s that led to the NLRA. is that a good way to build a union? is sending one joint letter from the union and the employer and telling workers they can not talk about the union or the election a good way to build the union? or is it possible that these practices feed cynicism about unions and the perception that their employer is picking their union and workers are being shut out of the process. one of their leaders told Labor Notes she had not heard from the union in weeks... the thrust of the seiu argument is that they spent a lot of money on a corporate campaign and thus they essentially own the workers. sorry, nurses are not chattel.
finally, the point they always avoid- they made the decision to call off the election, not us. if it was such a great deal for the workers, and if the workers really wanted to be affiliated with seiu, why not just go ahead with the election? unions hold elections all the time in the face of opposition far worse than our objections to their shady deal in Ohio -- if there is real support.
5- disempowering workers in organizing, which their Ohio agreement effectively does, is an extension of what they routinely now do in facilities where they already represent members. much of what they do now is shift bargaining from the shop floor to the top levels of SEIU. a new trend is effectively ending representation in their facilities, now replaced with call centers where workers must call to get help not available from reps on the ground. signing contracts that reduce the voice and power of workers in the workplace, such as their nursing home pact in California which barred the union from reporting safety violations except where specifically required by law in extreme cases, and giving management the exclusive right to negotiate wages, benefits, working conditions, outsource union jobs, and barring picketing and strikes... again does this behavior build the power of workers, encourage workplace democracy or participation in the union, or undermine it... and, of course, when the workers rebel, they're met with a crackdown, as is occurring right now with UHW, rigging of elections for delegates to the convention in Puerto Rico, and the use of employer funds to rig a local election in Las Vegas (articles below)
6- with all their whining about "raiding", it's a common practice for SEIU. it's exactly what they are doing to a militant teachers union in Puerto Rico. but apparently it's not "raiding" when conducted by them against anyone else.
-------------- next part --------------
Apr. 17, 2008 Copyright ? Las Vegas Review-Journal
Federal agency scrutinizing union's election tactics
SEIU accused of using employer cash to make election materials for candidates
By JENNIFER ROBISON REVIEW-JOURNAL The federal government's investigation into union-election practices has put one powerful local labor union on the defensive and given a competing union ammunition for its organizing efforts.
The U.S. Department of Labor is looking into allegations that the Service Employees International Union's Local 1107 in Las Vegas used employer money to produce campaign materials for a specific set of candidates in its September election of new officials.
SEIU spokeswoman Hilary Haycock said the investigation began after candidates who lost their bids for offices within the union complained to federal officials.
Deanne Amaden, a spokeswoman with the U.S. Department of Labor, said the agency's policy is to neither confirm nor deny ongoing investigations. She declined to comment further.
Haycock said she wasn't certain when the department would issue its findings, but she noted the bureau extended its deadline for gathering evidence to May.
Gregory Kamer, a partner in the labor law firm Kamer Zucker Abbott, said allegations of union use of employer dollars in elections is uncommon in Nevada.
The charges are serious, he said, because the Labor Management Reporting and Disclosure Act of 1959 prohibits direct contributions from private-sector employers to unions.
The law designates such violations as felonies, Kamer said, and penalties include up to $15,000 in fines or up to five years in prison, or both.
The federal government's investigation into the SEIU has become fodder for the California Nurses Association/National Nurses Organizing Committee, which is tangling with the SEIU over representation of nurses at the three hospitals in the local St. Rose Dominican health-care system.
The CNA issued a series of statements Tuesday blasting the SEIU over the department's investigation, calling the charges "the latest in a pattern of corruption and violence emanating from the top leadership" of the SEIU.
"They're taking money from employees, the people they negotiate with, and using it to run a slate of candidates," said Fernando Losada, collective bargaining director of the National Nurses Organizing Committee and head of the effort to gather Southern Nevada members. "It's the worst type of conflict."
The CNA began its current bid to represent local nurses in late 2007.
That's when SEIU-covered nurses at St. Rose Dominican started talks for new contracts with the SEIU. Some of those nurses reached out to the CNA and asked for the opportunity to join, Losada said.
The nurses are scheduled to vote on their union representation May 6 and 7.
The CNA has already made strides with nurses at a St. Rose Dominican sister hospital in Northern Nevada.
About 500 nurses at Reno's St. Mary's Hospital, which belongs to St. Rose Dominican parent Catholic Healthcare West, joined the CNA four months ago. The CNA also represents about 10,000 other nurses at Catholic Healthcare West hospitals across the region. CNA officials plan to meet with nurses at other local hospitals as well, after the May elections conclude, Losada said.
Haycock said the CNA's take on the Labor Department's investigation shows the competing union's officials "clearly don't understand the investigation."
"It's another example of the CNA using hyperbolic language, completely distorting the truth and really hurting the ability of workers both here and across the country to achieve the goals workers want to achieve, which is to improve working conditions, build the American dream and improve health care in Las Vegas," she said. "They're trying to organize nurses here, and they're willing to say or do anything to destroy the powerful union that Nevada's health- care workers and public-service workers have built."
Haycock added that SEIU officials are "pretty confident" that the Department of Labor will certify the union's election was legal.
Contact reporter Jennifer Robison at jrobison at reviewjournal.com or 702-380-4512.
Las Vegas Sun Labor law broken during SEIU election, report saysPreliminary probe finds union misused funds, roster By Tony Cook, Michael Mishak
Thu, Apr 17, 2008 (2 a.m.)
A preliminary U.S. Labor Department investigation has found that one of Nevada?s largest unions violated federal labor law during its most recent officer election, including the use of union funds and membership rosters for internal political purposes.
The findings give new ammunition to critics who argue that the Service Employees International Union leadership gamed the election to produce the results it wanted. The findings also are fueling a rival union?s attempts to poach SEIU members at three local hospitals.
For the past four months, Labor Department officials have been probing last year?s election of union officers at SEIU Nevada, which represents 17,500 health care and public sector workers in the state.
An initial election in June resulted in victories for several candidates opposed to SEIU Nevada Executive Director Jane McAlevey, but those results were overturned because some union fliers had advertised incorrect dates and locations for the election. That led to a second election in September in which McAlevey and other paid union staffers successfully campaigned for favored candidates, who called themselves Members United to Win.
SEIU Nevada President Vicky Hedderman and several candidates who lost in the second election filed a complaint with the Labor Department.
The department?s preliminary probe found four violations, according to an April 7 letter to Hedderman and SEIU International President Andy Stern.
Two violations involve improper use of union resources. The pro- McAlevey slate used union membership lists for campaign purposes and used $5,000 in donations from an SEIU District 1199 solidarity fund, the letter says. SEIU District 1199 represents more than 27,000 health care and social service workers in West Virginia, Kentucky and Ohio, and is headed by Dave Regan, a close ally of Stern?s.
Neither the international union nor representatives from District 1199 could explain how the solidarity fund works. A local SEIU spokeswoman and members of the slate that benefited from the donations said membership lists were not used improperly and that no union money was used in the election. A District 1199 spokeswoman said in a statement that the union ?believes that there is no basis for the current allegation.?
A third finding involves Sacramento-based political consultant Phil Giarrizzo. The Labor Department says the pro-McAlevey slate improperly benefited from campaign mailings paid for by Giarrizzo?s company.
Giarrizzo is a former SEIU leader in California who sat on the union?s national executive board with Stern. He also has performed work in Nevada, including SEIU mailings opposing Clark County Commissioner Mary Kincaid-Chauncey?s 2004 reelection bid.
Giarrizzo said he did not do any free work for Members United to Win last year. In fact, he said the group still owes him $20,000 for printing and mailing fliers. The group has paid him only $3,000 so far, he said, though it sent a second check for $3,000 that bounced.
?We in no way, shape or form are donating a damn thing and we want our money,? he said Tuesday.
The fourth Labor Department finding says a member of the pro-McAlevey slate was allowed to campaign at St. Rose Hospitals? Siena campus while a candidate on the opposing slate was denied the same opportunity.
Shauna Hamel, SEIU Nevada?s executive vice president, said that if the opposing candidate was not a nurse at St. Rose, that person might have been restricted from certain areas out of concern for patient safety.
The Labor Department letter emphasizes that the findings are not final. It gives union officials until Friday to provide additional information, though SEIU Nevada spokeswoman Hilary Haycock said that deadline has been extended. The Labor Department would not comment on the investigation ? or even confirm that it is conducting one.
The government generally seeks to correct union election violations through voluntary compliance. Possible corrective actions include rerunning all or portions of the disputed election. If challenged, the government could file suit in District Court to have the election set aside and order a rerun under government supervision.
Labor experts are skeptical of the Labor Department?s motivations, given the Bush administration?s pro-business stance and the SEIU?s status as the nation?s largest union. The department?s actions in this case seem uncharacteristically quick, they say.
?My guess is that they are saying, ?Here is a juicy internal fight and here?s an opportunity for us to say there is some impropriety,??? said Janice Fine, a labor expert at Rutgers University.
?They will seize on it because it gives the whole labor movement a black eye.?
Still, union members who have been critical of McAlevey are reveling in the findings, which they say underscore the argument of some SEIU leaders that Stern and his allies are too heavy-handed in local affairs. So is the California Nurses Association, which is fighting to replace the SEIU as the representative of 1,100 nurses at three St. Rose Dominican Hospitals. A representation election is scheduled for next month.
The international SEIU plans to send a representative to Nevada this month to address the rift within the local union, said Andy McDonald, a union spokesman. It will be the international?s second attempt to mediate the dispute.
-----Original Message----- From: Doug Henwood [mailto:dhenwood at panix.com] Sent: Thursday, April 17, 2008 9:12 AM To: Chuck Idelson Subject: Fwd: [lbo-talk] LBO's Union Experts, I Call Upon Ye!
Any comments on all this?
Begin forwarded message:
> From: "Mark Rickling" <mrickling at gmail.com>
> Date: April 17, 2008 9:42:28 AM EDT
> To: lbo-talk at lbo-talk.org
> Subject: Re: [lbo-talk] LBO's Union Experts, I Call Upon Ye!
> Reply-To: lbo-talk at lbo-talk.org
> List-Archive: <http://mailman.lbo-talk.org/pipermail/lbo-talk>
>
> On Thu, Apr 17, 2008 at 1:07 AM, Gar Lipow <the.typo.boy at gmail.com>
> wrote:
>
>> It seems like throughout the discussion you've managed to avoid a
>> critical issue - whether SEIU is building scab locals and bargaining
>> units. That is the essence of the CNA charge - that SEIU is trading
>> away critical safety demands in return for recognition in spite
>> of the
>> fact that the majority of the nurses on whose behalf the deal is
>> made
>> are against that.
>
>> If they are false they should
>> be easily rebutted and even refuted.
>
> Hi Gar,
>
> What specific CNA allegations are you referring to, and what do you
> think this rebuttal would look like? Here are the CNA's charges in OH,
> from one of their unionbusting flyers:
>
> http://www.seiu.org/docUploads/CNA%20flyer%20%2D%20Ohio%2Epdf
>
> Working off the second page, under "facts you should know":
>
> -- Sweetheart union. I think I've demonstrated beyond a doubt that the
> CNA is rather promiscuous in its use of this term. I think I've also
> demonstrated that the election agreement is one SEIU had to convince
> CHP into accepting. Let me know here if I'm wrong.
>
> -- RNs and LPNs -- This is incomprehensible, no? The crazy nutters
> over at the CNA propaganda dept. are still trying to fight a battle
> that happened years ago, when SEIU lobbied to have the nurse staffing
> ration law in CA cover both RNs and LPNs. SEIU represents around
> 40,000 LPNs (actually called LVNs) in CA. From the perspective of a
> conservative craft union trying to defend its own narrow interests in
> CA against another union in the same workplaces, the point of the
> critique, but certainly not the content, makes sense. (FYI in the
> nurse ratio battle SEIU was not in cahoots with management trying to
> save them money, but rather trying to protect its members' jobs --
> note to Mike Yates: here's a real world example -- not some arid
> hypothetical -- demonstrating that in practice craft unionism is
> rarely as harmonious as you would have us believe). In OH, of course,
> SEIU would have represented the whole unit wall-to-wall given a
> successful vote, which renders the CNA's point doubly laughable.
>
> -- SEIU actually has the best RN contracts in the nation. Outside of
> CA -- where nurse staffing ratios are mandate by law -- SEIU has won
> RN patient ratios in their contracts. CNA hasn't. SEIU has lobbied
> long and hard in other states to get ratios passed, with little
> success. Outside of CA, the power isn't there yet.
>
> -- Nurse ratios are the holy grail, and management will fight tooth
> and nail in bargaining to prevent the union from winning this. They'll
> take a strike time and again before agreeing to this. But as I
> mentioned before, outside of CA SEIU has managed to win RN ratios in
> some of its contracts. The CNA hasn't. They're not in the CHP Lorain
> RN contract we already have -- we don't have enough power system-wide
> to get this implemented. Maybe had the CNA not unionbusted the
> election, we would have had enough power (but don't think so for a
> first contract).
>
> -- So a mailing from the union and management, explaining to workers
> that they are to have a union election free from any interference
> whatsoever from either side, doesn't mention patient safety. So what?
> A better question would be: does the already extant RN contract in
> Lorain address patient safety? Short of ratios, what can a collective
> bargaining agreement do to improve staffing? What we push for are
> joint management and worker committees tasked to address patient
> safety. The very strongest of these are called on to set ratios in the
> hospital (this is very hard to win, too). Don't have the CHP RN
> contract in front of me this second, but undoubtedly there's a joint
> patient safety committee in there. As it's a first contract, I doubt
> that the patient safety committee language is very strong -- I can
> check when I get to the office. But beyond what gets written into the
> contract, more important is building a strong network of workers to
> advance the rights of both themselves and their patients. A union, if
> you will. Don't know how persuade someone already convinced that
> everywhere and anywhere SEIU is a sellout company union that instead
> this is actually what SEIU does.
>
> At the end of the day, however, we all know that Andy Stern wants to
> enslave women, so I guess this is all rather academic . . .
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