Shane Goldmacher Sacramento Bee July 23, 2008
A federal lawsuit filed by national SEIU leaders against the president of one of the union's largest California affiliates has been dismissed without a hearing.
The suit, filed against Sal Rosselli, president of United Healthcare Workers West, and nine other local union leaders, had alleged that Rosselli and his allies had diverted members' dues to an outside fund out of the control of the union's national branch.
U.S. District Judge John F. Walter of the Central District of California, in a ruling Tuesday, dismissed all of the claims.
The lawsuit was just the latest chapter in the boiling feud between Rosselli, whose union is an estimated 140,000 workers strong, and Andy Stern, president of SEIU International.
Here is some background from the Capitol Alert story on the lawsuit back in April:
Rosselli has sparred for months with Andy Stern, president of SEIU International and one of the nation's top labor leaders.
In December, Rosselli was forced out as president of the SEIU state council, the umbrella organization for all California SEIU affiliates, which total 600,000 members. Rosselli accused Stern of engineering his ouster, writing in a letter, "Your actions concerning the State Council have created a major distraction from maintaining the unified focus needed to achieve our objectives."
More recently, SEIU national has ordered all its local chapters to stop paying dues to state and local labor federations to protest the California Nurses Association. Rosselli has refused to follow that edict.
The repeated confrontations between Stern and Rosselli have led to rumors that Stern would put Rosselli's union in "trusteeship," which would suspend the local leaders' access to members' dues.
After the court dismissed the suit this week -- which Rosselli had decried as part of a "PR circus" back in April -- UHW-West issued another sharply worded statement.
"The only purpose of this suit was to harass and discredit members of UHW who had spoken out against Andy Stern's and Anna Burger's backroom deals with corporations that hurt healthcare workers and our patients," said Rosie Byers, a union member targeted in the suit.
Read the judge's ruling here. http://s3.amazonaws.com/seiuvoice.org/downloads/7-22-08-Court-Order.pdf
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