Now looks who might be going to jail!

For all the fuss the Zombies made about NUHW leaders going to jail, a Zombie staffer might be the first, and likely only person to actually go to jail. It seems Alex Espinoza a UHW rep and white rapper didn't believe his own oath for honesty while on the stand yesterday and was caught in a lie! Pictured below is Alex, and an excerpt about what he did from the NUHW daily newsletter keeping us all abreast of what is going on in the trial.

Here's what he did:

SEIU rep Alex Espinoza committed perjury-a federal crime punishable with jail time-by lying about his actions in the days before trusteeship. He denied ever contacting anyone with SEIU International, and claimed not to know who Amado David worked for. But NUHW's attorney showed an email Espinoza sent to SEIU International official Amado David just days before the trusteeship that proved Espinoza was secretly spying for SEIU while on UHW's payroll. In lying to the jury, Espinoza damaged SEIU's credibility and put himself at risk of prosecution.

Source:http://www.nuhw.org/trial/day-7-seius-paid-witnesses-lose-credibility.html

So, yes folks, the Zombies are Leading the Way...to jail!

When great local unions go bad

(As per Perez Stern's direction in his Friday, March 26 entry here are the key terms in today's blog entry, and its supporting works: Huffington Post, BeyondChron, Sal Rosselli, John Borsos, Shirley Nelson, Carl Finamore, Andy Stern, SEIU, NUHW, UHW, Judge Alsup, $25 million in damages, lump sum payout pension, Alameda Hospital, Eliseo Medina, Mary Kay Henry, Tyrone Freeman and Leon Chow.) Now, on with the show (blog)!

* * *

If occurs to me that some of my readers may be outside of the healthcare/NUHW/SEIU realm of understanding and therefore only vaguely aware of SEIU's lawsuit against the 26 union reformers now the leadership of NUHW. So I found a couple of articles that give a good summary of the trial; one from NUHW supporter perspective and one that gives an outside looking in perspective. Both are well written and will sum up this crucial trial for union democracy.

First, NUHW member and caregiver at Kaiser Redwood City Hospital Shirley Nelson sounds off with this bit about the absurdity of the Zombies attacks and why they are really suing the vanguards of union democracy.

Second is Carl Finamore's article on BeyondChron. It explains what happens when international union leadership runs roughshod over the local union's elected leaders, to the dismay of the electing members.

Meet the vanguards of union democracy

For the most part I avoid directly referencing any NUHW material in an attempt to maintain my creative autonomy. So, except when I hear privileged information I don't seek their approval, and they don't tell me what to write. Someday I would love to work for NUHW; in the mean time I write from my perspective and its 2 vantage points: as a homecare worker and supporter deeply involved in the struggle for homecare funding, representation and advancement; and as an outsider looking in on my healthcare peers in hospitals (especially Memorial) and long term care facilities. But every once in a while, the is no credible (or no other) source outside of NUHW for the topic I want to write about, and today's entry is a prime example. Today, I present to you the 28 reformers currently enduring an SEIU-dues-paying-member-funded assault on their actions while employees of UHW.

SEIU gets into bed with Sutter management...

...before the beds have even arrived! This move defines a new low for the Zombies in terms of back room deals and now, the very odd appropriation of their own staff.

The Side Letter even authorized Sutter to assign SEIU-UHW workers to spend work hours building support for the project.

Wow, I thought they hit rock bottom , but this is messed up! Read Randy Shaw's article of BeyondChron.com about the new deal between the Zombies and Sutter, the worst of the worst in their respective fields.

NUHW book: Labor's Civil War In California: The NUHW Healthcare Workers’ Rebellion.

I haven't written a book review or report since 6th grade, and the last book I read was Barbara Ehrenreich's Nickeled & Dimed: On (Not) Getting By in America, and that was 6 years ago. Also, when I first started writting on this blog I thought I'd be preaching to the choir here in Sonoma County, so it came as quite a pleasant surprise when Cal WInslow asked me to review his book. That said, here's my take on Cal's book Labor's Civil War In California: The NUHW Healthcare Workers’ Rebellion.

Cal's book details SEIU's view of it's members. I never knew how cold and mechanical SEIU was when it came to dealing with dues units, err, I mean members, nor was I aware of their "victory at any cost" approach to fighting with NUHW...I just thought they were sore losers! The more I read, the more outraged I became. I am convinced that, given the choice between the right way and the wrong way to do something, SEIU will pick the wrong way as it fights it's foes while losing the support of elected leaders, academics, workers, popular opinion, et cetera in its pursuit of what it believes it best for itself (and spend freely doing so) Contrast this to NUHW, which with the backing of a dedicated groups of volunteers, future members and all those that SEIU has cast aside will take the high road, organize and build coalitions, and wins elections.

This book is a great read. For me I learned the most from the first 3 chapters, chapter 4 is about the time I was aware of what was going on. I hope Cal writes another book because this is just the beginning of the end for SEIU. I recommend it to anyone who would like a summary of the dispute from a perspective of  someone who has nothing to gain or lose from the rise or fall of NUHW or SEIU. Plus for $12 it's a steal!

Perez is back...again!

All hail Perez! As SierraSpartan pointed out there is certainly strength in numbers. I can wholeheartedly understand why Perez took a breather, 451 entries for last year would make anyone want to take a break.

Rural issues dominate first debate in south county supervisor's race

I reported last week about the candidates forum for 2nd district supervisor. Here is the only coverage I could find about the south county debates. I was hoping about some kind of debate about healtcare, county budget or, really, anything that touches on healkthcare at the county level. The Board of Supervisors have final say on some decisions concerning homecare workers. If this forum is any measure of their knowledge of -or willingness to talk about- the needs of the 4300+ homecare consumers (clients) or their providers (workers) then we have a lot of educating to do!

Zombies tell their "truth" about the Fresno slim victory

Desperate to get any attention even if it is easily disputed attention about a long passed election, the Zombies have have made up their own irrefutable (in their eyes) "truth" about the Fresno homecare election. Below is their slant on the Fresno homecare election's pyrrhic victory followed by a line by line dissection of the "truth".

SEIU-UHW was certified as the winner among 10,000 Fresno home care workers by the California State Mediation and Conciliation Service 8 months ago. An NUHW protest of the election had so little merit that it was dismissed without a hearing.

This decision is under review: just look here. 59 pages of complaints replete with several sworn declarations from harassed Fresno homecare workers.

What protest? When? Where?

NUHW waited four months to submit new bogus charges and has done nothing to move them forward. The Public Employment Relations Board (PERB) has taken no action and it is not even clear that they will consider them.

Well these complaints didn't surface overnight. It took a while for people to work up the courage to speak up. And speak up they did, see the above linked sworn declarations!

Many of the allegations were made anonymously and lack credibility. Some were made by people who were not even eligible voters. The chief accuser vowed to cause “trouble” for SEIU because he was not offered a job after the election.

Does being a witness to intimidation but not eligible to vote by virtue of not holding employment as a homecare worker always automatically discount a complaint 's validity? To put it another way can't I complain to the police if I see someone else being mugged? Must I be mugged to complain about being mugged?

The allegations surrounding threats on immigration are particularly deceitful and malicious. SEIU has more immigrant members than any other union and has helped lead the fight for immigration reform. Hundreds of SEIU supporters and staff in Fresno were themselves immigrants or sons and daughters of immigrants, and would not have put up with a strategy that threatened workers’ immigration status.

Yet the Zombies have a record for approaching those who don't speak the language natively, or others who are otherwise easily convinced in the very lopsided arguments put forth by the Zombies. My proof: just look around at who is now on the e-board, are stewards, and contract negotiators. They don't question and likely don't fully understand what is going on, but are all too eager to sign off on the truly dumb decisions made by Zombie UHW and those members who they control with a steady diet of lies, half truths and other propaganda.

If there is one thing I have learned from blogging it's that you can't just say something without backing it up in some credible way. Their statements above don't stand on their own; hopefully, my questions will provoke my readers to seek out the truth the Zombies don't want you to know.

Finding Sal Rosselli video makes South Park look sophisticated!

My oh my! The production values and cheesy "graphics" (if you can call them that) makes the animation on South Park seem on the cutting edge of animation technology. For my readers without an adolescent and crude sense of humor, South Park is an animated television program that, like SEIU, pushes the limits of decency, but unlike SEIU offers scathing social commentary, all while using sub-par animation. The horribly designed video and the clearly under-informed members speaking their "minds" attest to the quality of work of SEIU and the willingness of some to believe a perceived authority without question or comprehension.

As for NUHW not answering the door, my guess is they were out running circles around the Zombies while the Zombies were busy slapping members around or spreading lies about the $3 million that was "stolen" (not stolen just moved to another account, read the referenced E-Board meeting minutes).

Despite being $20 billion in the hole, Governor finds way to harrass IHSS consumers

I guess it isn't enough that the Governor has had IHSS providers (workers) in his crosshairs since the day he took office. Apparently our (both providers and consumers (clients)) mere existence is unacceptable. Always looking for a new and devastating way to burn his fellow Californians, he's going after IHSS consumers (clients). You know, the low income elderly and disabled not to mention usually frail neighbors and family we care for that are our neighbors, friends and family. My friend's who cares for his father with dementia, my wife with Cerebral Palsy, my friend who cares for her child with Spina Bifida these are the latest group he's added to his list of usual suspects. This man has no conscious: he'll attack the poor and weak to perpetuate the illusion his efforts are saving money. But as I've written before the pennies he's saving are far outweighed by the dollars he's spending. Take, for example, the $3.5 million spent in Sacramento County to find fraud. Nineteen cases of fraud were detected for their efforts. That is a monumental waste of our, the taxpayers, money and an affront to 99% of honest IHSS providers. Now his administration is mulling over the purchase several hundred of these "MorphoTrak 'mobile biometric identification' device[s]". I checked out their website and found 2 devices that seem to fit the description in the Sacramento Bee article. Clearly this is speculative, but these devices seem overpriced and are more like mobile homecare terrorizing devices. Take your pick. What's next: a 1984-esque television that watches back?

See, if the guy gathering your information just smiles at you  it's make the criminalization of your job/disability so much easier to swallow! Seriously what a condescending smirk!

Or how about this one. Why not just go for broke and bring a lie detector to every consumer's house?

I see a few problems with the devices and their use. Here in Sonoma county, and I presume other organized counties, the contract between the county and the union reaffirms the long standing (e.g. before unionization) consumer right to "[d]etermine in advance and under all circumstances who may and may not enter their home." This is from section 3.1 (A) (3) of all contracts since we became organized in Sonoma county. What if a consumer can't come to the door? Hmmmmm. This privacy clause applies to unannounced house visits, but the Zombies are too busy hiring an army of lawyers from 4 law firms to fight NUHW in court next week to care about what really matters.

Second is the cost of these devices. These devices appear to be functionally equivalent to what I've listed below, at a price well below the 5 grand estimated cost of these mobile terrorizing units. Is this the best the Governator can come up with to fight fraud and save money? He can have both without spending a fortune of taxpayers money (which is not his money).

Finger print scanner: $39-$64
Digital camera: $29 & up
Netbook (a stripped down notebook computer): $250 & up (or better yet this one)

Add them up and what do you get, outside of a vendor who found a pot of gold hiding in the state budget?

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$318 (just under $350 with tax)

The software to operate the fingerprint reader is included with the reader itself and any computer from 2001 forward can retrieve pictures from a digital camera with any additional software.

Finally, as stated in the article the new legislation does not mention photographing consumers. Sounds like the State is getting in on the harassment of consumers normally performed by fraudsters.

So it appears that yet again the Governator's plans to destroy homecare will cost far money than it can ever hope to save. I'm so happy he's terming out of office next year.

Candidate forum for supervisors

Here ye, here ye... a forum for 2nd district supervisors is this Saturday in Petaluma.

Union Democracy Goes on Trial

A good summary of the upcoming trial from In These Times. Mr Finamore hits the nail on the head: this is really a test to see if democracy is allowed within SEIU. In the case of Local 1021's recent reform election they received a congratulatory phone call from Führer Stern. With Local 888, SEIU backed off fighting a decert and helped the members change their representation to NEA. So why is it when UHW employees turned NUHW employees try to do their best to provide for the prisoners of Zombie UHW they are hauled into court? Perhaps this is one fight for democracy SEIU figures it can't lose!

Desperate for attention, Zombies inform Candians about UHW trials

You know nobody cares about your cause when a majorly trumped up trial against former employees can't garner any free media attention. Shown below are the identically worded and the only press coverage about the upcoming trial. Both are from pay-to-play PR websites featuring the same tired arguments trotted out against the former leaders. This is evidence of yet another basic principle of interpersonal relations lost on the Zombies: if you have to pay someone to publicize your point of view then this should be a pretty good sign about the world's view of your argument. Put another way: Listen here Zombies, no one cares about your bogus trial. This is clearly an attempt to discredit NUHW, squander ever more dues paying members money on a futile effort and run NUHW out of town. In a year since the disastrous trusteeship can the Zombies point to one legitimate victory for their members? Zombies, feel free to chime in. I check my email frequently!

From what I've heard the trial will be 2 weeks long and the hearing officer is tightly limiting the focus, so much so that there is only 18 hours of testimony (per side) divided among the 26-ish former employees being questioned. At best this is just over 40 minutes per witness ! Is that worth the Zombies time and money? Of course not, but the Zombies are hell-bent on making an example of NUHW, and I suspect they will end up shooting themselves in the foot. Also, the judge has barred the Zombies from seeking damages for the Memorial and Fresno elections.

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For my readers who want to support NUHW the trial is in San Francisco starting Monday, March 22. I've been told since the Zombies are likely to make a circus of the trial supporters of NUHW are encouraged to take the high road and just wear NUHW button to show support. The hours and address of the trial are shown just above the Like Minded Folks sidebar.

Here's the same bit published in Canada. Canada! Do you think anyone in Canada cares about what is going on in California? Or is this just a sign of how desperate the Zombies are to get their point of view across

Will they succeed in their goals? No, but I'm sure it will backfire on them horribly, and we'll all be having a good gut laugh once this charade is through. More as it comes: the saga of David v. Goliath is only going to get better!

Judge upholds Doctors Medical Center election results; more to come?

As you may recall from last year (long before my blog came about) the good folks at Doctors Medical Center voted 158 to 24 to get out of SEIU. Of course they complained and filed charges with the NLRB, but really it was all stalling. A stalling tactic that has finally been put to rest. Perhaps this is the first in a long line of defeats for the Zombies.

9th Court of Appeals, US DOJ support homecare funding

Read 'em and weep Governator! It's good to see the federal government is stepping up where the Zombies used to. Case in point: homecare providers (workers) in Lake County, who are not represented by the Zombies, can get their state mandated fingerprinting free of charge! Sonoma county providers who are "represented" by the Zombies receive only intermittent mailings apparently based on employment gained through the Registry, the list of providers who have applied for job placement with the Public Authority and have passed background checks. As a direct hire by my wife, I never had to undergo a background check or fingerprinting and I have yet to receive any mailing about fingerprinting.

From Thursday, March 4, 2010:

From Monday, March 8, 2010:

Perhaps the tide against homecare providers and clients is turning.

FREE fingerprinting for homecare workers in Lake Co...

...so will Sonoma County follow suit? Guess who I'm emailing and calling Monday morning. For my readers especially homecare providers (workers) and consumers (clients) in Sonoma County please call your supervisor as listed below. Don't know which district you are in? Look up your supervisor by street address. We need to raise their consciousness about the cost of proving our innocence.

They can all be reached at (707) 565-2241

District 1: Valerie Brown, vbrown@sonoma-county.org (southeast county)
District 2: Mike Kerns, mkerns@sonoma-county.org (southwest county)
District 3: Shirlee Zane, szane@sonoma-county.org (Santa Rosa & east Rohnert Park)
District 4: Paul Kelley, pkelley@sonoma-county.org (northeast county)
District 5: Efren Carrillo, ecarrillo@sonoma-county.org (northwest county)

Partial summary of SEIU's dastardly money wasting presidential appointees

Nothing new here but good to see a few familiar names rounded up for an article that connects the dots about Stern's crumbling empire.

Zombie Mouthpiece Trossman to media, staff: "Don't take the bait!"

If staff member needs to be advised to not "take the bait" then -- ugh -- things are worse off than even I suspected. And who calls a camera-hurling backhand a "push"? Time to put this menace to society in the hoosegow or better yet move her out of state. Tent City in Arizona is always looking for new "residents", and I'm sure a little jail time would temper her spirits. She could definitely use time away from the couch watching Jerry Springer all day.

Zombies catch election fever

A little background to explain why the Zombies are all of a sudden struck with election fever.

Post-trusteeship, the former leaders of UHW formed NUHW and quickly got down to the task of orchestrating the members gathering signatures for decertification of the newly Zombie-fied UHW. The Zombies naturally filed blocking charges to slow down, frustrate and hold their members hostage indefinitely. It appears that Zombies took stock of what they had to deal with (an underdog union supported by devoted UHW members dying to get out of the Zombies deathgrip, more than 100 community and political leaders supporting a fair and free from intimidation election, and losing 7 out of 9 elections in 2009) and reasoned that if they are going to win an election this year they had better focus their efforts on facilities where NUHW support is weaker, hence their appeal to the NLRB. NUHW viewed this as the Zombies trying to manipulate election scheduling, which ought to be handled by the NLRB with no bias for any party, be it union or employer, and tried to appeal to the NLRB's sense of reason. Unfortunately this request was not honored and the Zombies view NUHW's actions as being anti-member. Lame for sure.

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Shown below is the Zombies attempt to prove substantial member backing for their desperate plea in getting NUHW to back off decert elections.  The astute reader will notice a none-too-clever attempt by the Zombies to increase the number of signatures.

A quick glance at the signatures in the right hand column shows that the first 5 listed are the same as the last 5! C'mon Zombies at least move the signatures around a little bit and make me work a bit for these blog
-entries...you make it too easy! I guess the proofreader was at lunch when this gem was pushed out via the UHW Report. Tasty over at Stern Burger with Fries, notes that this leaves 52 unique signatures. I wonder about the authenticity of these unique signatures since I am not able to match signatures to faces of people I know. Given the Zombies propensity for deceit it seems reasonable that some of these signatures could be forgeries.

So 52 signatures at 51 facilities...does this mean that there is one signature for 50 facilities and a staggering 2 for the remaining facility? Or did the Zombie(s) charged with collecting these signatures get smart and visit just a few facilities to round up a bunch of signatures? Either way the Zombies are desperate to publicize the names of their few supporters, no matter how pathetic that support looks. How pathetic could their support be? Heh heh heh, read on.

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The Zombies, being a shifty group of sellouts, scabs and fighters fond of backhanding actually make things a whole lot worse for themselves by issuing a press release about most of the facilities where elections are soon to be scheduled.

When one compares the list of facilities shown in the open letter to those shown in the press release a number of discrepancies appear. First off are the facilities that appeared in the open letter but are not shown in the press release:

• Brookside Skilled Nursing Hospital
• Emerald Gardens Nursing Center
• Gilroy Healthcare and Rehab Center
• Golden Living Center - Fresno
• Grant Cuesta Sub-Acute and Rehab Center
• Heritage Care Center
• Home for Jewish Parents
• McClure Convalescent
• Northgate Care Center
• Palo Alto Nursing Center
• St. Francis Convalescent Pavilion
• St. Francis Heights Convalescent Hospital
• Valley Point Nursing Center
• Willow Tree Nursing Center

Is this an oversight or more likely a realization that these 14 facilities are still very much pro NUHW?

Second are the facilities they've added:

• Centinela Hospital Medical Center (Inglewood)
• Clovis Convalescent Hospital
• Creekside Care Center (Heritage) (Stockton)
• Enloe Medical Center (Crothall)
• In-Home Supportive Services Consortium (San Francisco)
• O'Connor Hospital (San Jose)
• Prison Health Services (Dublin)
• Saint Louise Regional Hospital (Gilroy)
• St. Francis Medical Center (Lynwood)
• Sutter Delta Medical Center (Antioch)
• Sutter Eden Medical Center (Castro Valley)
• Sutter Solano Medical Center (Vallejo)
• Tiburcio Vasquez Health Center (Hayward)

They have picked up 13 facilities totaling 4,080 members. Looks good for the Zombies, right? Well I have 3 things for you to keep in mind:

1. in the press release, the number of members shown after each facility doesn't indicate support for the Zombies; it's merely a count of the number of workers eligible to vote,
2. in the open letter, the number of workers at the 14 facilities listed above don't show their member count so a net loss or gain in voters is impossible to determine, and
3. net loss for facilities: 1

When one considers the open letter and the press release a startling fact can be derived: of the 6715 voting member, just 52 signed the open letter. That's just 0.77% -- less than one percent and folks, that's messed up. Zombies: if members are truly happy with your dismal representation, where's the support to back it up? There is virtually no member support for staying with the Zombies, period. At Memorial you lost badly: 21 NUHW votes for each SEIU vote. How badly do you think you are going to go down in this dress rehearsal for the Kaiser election this June? Tasty was right: math is hard!

NLRB decides in favor of Memorial workers; recap of employer objections hearing

After just four days of NLRB hearings, replete with conflicting witness accounts and relentless attempts to delay the inevitable the NLRB performed a lightning quick turn around on and dismissal of the unfair labor practices charges Memorial management filed.

Check out the NLRB's dismissal below then check out what NUHW has to say about remaining 4 objections brought about by Memorial management and what's next for workers.

(Click to super size above letter.)

Here's NUHW's recap of the hearing, and prospects on future actions. The most shocking part of this recap: the amount of money Memorial management spent on a very expensive expert witness testimony that failed to offer an opinion in management's favor. Image what that sum of money could have been better spent on. Oh, let me count the ways....

(Click to super size above flier.)

So perhaps not the last hurdle I had hoped it would be; however, when these hurdles are confronted they are easily cleared. I'm sure management is going to throw their own employees under the bus at every turn, by spending obscene amounts of cash to frustrate and delay the workers choice to unionize just so they can satisfy top management's need for ever bigger bonuses, dictatorial control, and downsizing in the name of "efficient" patient care. Stay strong fellow healthcare workers, you're almost at the end of this election dismissing nonsense!

Local 1021 members regain control of their local; Führer Stern...

...calls to congratulate them?! Might we be seeing the softer side of ol' Mr. Pink-Scarf? Who would have thought an election inside a mega-local could have been pulled off without any (or at least any substantial) resistance from $tern & Co.? Congratulations Local 1021 elected leaders: you've set an example for the rest of SEIU.