The mess Stern leaves behind

Wow, things are more messed up in Zombie SEIU than even I suspected! Steve Early, writes this well researched piece about how much, and in what ways, the Zombie have squandered members' dues money over the past few years under the careful guidance of Führer Stern. Make sure you're sitting down and maybe have a pen and notepad ready for tallying the dollar figures. It makes me sick, almost as sick as Tasty when he realized how many articles have been written about Führer Stern's resignation.

"Meanwhile at the Legion of Doom..."

Disclaimer: Exactly who said what and name spellings may be incorrect but the gist of what was said should be pretty easy to figure out and follow.

Artists rendering of the tightly controlled teleconference Friday afternoon.

An unexpected perk of following the trial from the Zombies perspective included a mass email invitation to the post verdict debriefing. I received two invites: one sent to my real name and email address and one for the blog. Much to my surprise both received replies with the phone number to call. So I called in under my real name and after waiting on hold for 10 minutes (I called 2 minutes early to make sure I got in) I was patched into the call in the middle of a man's sentence. He then introduced Mary Kay Henry, International VP of SEIU. What a cheerleader!

When she took control of the phone call she announced an agenda.

1. Verdict
2. Evidence
3. Feelings & Impressions

Verdict

So, of course they were happy with the verdict for obvious reasons. Now they finally have a third party/jury-based opinion about these crimes against SEIU that the former UHW employees allegedly committed for defending the wishes of their members above the dictatorial wishes of Führer Stern. No doubt they will go to ridiculous lengths to promote this verdict to their own advantage, including recycled lies and other puffery.

Keep in mind the representation cost for Zombie SEIU was, according to Steve "Don't take the Bait" Trossman, $5 million and involved for 4 law firms. Given the Zombies propensity for lying it's sure much more than $5 million. Should they get every penny of the award (see below) they still lost $4.3 million, backed off of or had numerous claims struck down, galvanized NUHW staff and supporters and have further pitted members against each other and employers against workers. As both Randy Shaw of BeyondChron and Tasty Burger at Stern Burger with Fries point out, the award is for either $724,000 against NUHW itself or $854,150 for the 16 remaining (out of 28) defendants. Added together this adds up to just a little more than the oft repeated "more than $1.5 million" the Zombies are fond of quoting. 12 defendants were cleared of all charges including 2 during the trial itself.

Evidence

The evidence the Zombies presented included:

• secret conspiracy as far back as 2007, (likely a reaction to the secret deal with nursing home operators which is a real conspiracy!),
• secret access to UHW servers (sounds like a lazy or incompetent sys admin to me),
• secret (non-UHW addresses) email system (which, when used to resist a trusteeship is totally legal, as pointed out numerous times by Judge Alsup),
• $3 million secret slush fund (didn't they drop this claim early on in the suit? It isn't listed in their "Guilty" flier.)

At this point a man's voice took over and covered many point to put the listeners into a froth. He stated that among other things, former UHW leaders:

• resorted to violence (but gave no examples)
• used members as a shield for their activities (it's the members who need a shield from Zombie UHW, just ask Liz Castillo!)
• circulated disassociation petitions (still not illegal)

Feelings & Impressions

He then stated that "they can't be trusted ever on anything". Has he (I believe he was Kohlman, the lawyer) followed what the Zombies have done since the trusteeship? Talk about the pot calling the kettle black!

Finally he stated that everything in Barbara Lewis' [make the local] "ungovernable" memo came true. I don't know what the document stated, if it was a note to herself or a policy to be followed but the Zombies have done a fine job of making UHW ungovernable all by themselves. Of course this last comment concerns what has happened outside of January 2009, the focus of the trial, but still...I'm just saying.

At this point a Daughters of Charity member stated that she was very upset about the expired contract, and it's canceled extension. I wonder if she can admit to herself that the contract expiration and subsequent cancellation of the extension was to allow the members to strike for improved benefits. The half-truths Zombie supporters are willing to believe say in order to convince themselves the Zombies have their best interests at heart despite overwhelming evidence boggles the mind!

For a while there was some random spouting off from the "member bloggers" including Rudy Vallin stating it's time to "get back to work". Erica Boddie, another "member blogger"stated she was disappointed, felt this was a "slap in the face", complained about "purple shirts turning to red" and wondered why former leadership wasn't "practicing what you preach". She wanted it known that if she felt something was wrong with her union she would do everything within her power to fix it. What?! Where were you in the months leading up to the trusteeship? It's so easy to say that now! She also stated the obvious by saying that this trial "deeply impacted the labor movement" and now is the time to "restore the labor movement". Finally, she stated the trial has caused a lot of confusion among members. This surely was one of the Zombies goals, and for those Zombie supporters that read and believe everything stated in their emails and other propaganda, then pick up a newspaper or read any other source of news or opinion,confusion will result. And confused people made decisions they don't understand.

Mary Kay kicked in with a few completely unbelievable comments. She stated the "nation is cheering", spoke highly of the "3 incredible ['member blogger'] leaders" and finally "I'm completely indignant!"

Q & A

Finally came the Q & A which showcased how brainwashed some of the Zombie UHW members really are, and how some members will believe what ever is told to them by the union, no matter how ludicrous.


April, from Kaiser Vallejo, stated this was a "great, great, great victory" but wanted to know what was next, specifically do they go to jail? No, this was a civil trial jail time is not an option. Where would they get the idea jail time was a possibility for the defendants? Hmmmmmmm.

Not wanting to pass up a chance to show off her self-deprecation skills Erica Boddie stated she would have been just as happy with a damage award of "$1.98".

A reporter from the Daily Labor Report asked about the fees for representation. Erica's response: likely equal to what NUHW spent defending itself, but most importantly "the cost to us was a moral victory"! I couldn't have misquoted myself any better than she did just there. She didn't even stop to correct herself! She was confident about the excellent representation! Sheesh. The self-denial among this group of sheep is amazing to say the least!

David Moberg, of In These Times asked what evidence did the jury agree with, and was told "the jury just took it all in". How's that for a non-answer?!

Erica spoke up again and said she is "here to represent the members" and "it's time to move forward"

Finally some members who were waiting on hold got in on the action were allowed to speak. Sonoma county's very own human megaphone, homecare worker and one time NUHW supporter Mark Nelson profusely thanked the lawyer for his work, and then proclaimed the new name for NUHW: "First name: Nothin', Last name: Comin' ". This is the level of understanding and sophistication we in Sonoma county have come to expect from Mark. I was somewhat disappointed when Mark didn't try to start and S-E-I-U! S-E-I-U! S-E-I-U! chant right then and there.

But the best part came in the last few seconds of the teleconference from yet another Sonoma county homecare worker and turn-coat Karen Timmons (a/k/a marymagdaleneforpresident or Nerak as she is known on the "member blogs"). She stated without hesitation and quite proudly that Sal and company didn't care about workers, and, (I'm not putting words into her mouth) "they are sociopaths"! That was classic Karen. I wished I had the ability to legally record the conversation. She also felt that "an act of God or a thunderbolt" was needed" to wake them up", but now is the time to talk to members, be kind and thoughtful. I wonder if this includes known or suspected NUHW supporters.

Just before the phone called ended there was an announcement that there were no more people waiting to ask questions which makes me wonder if the Zombies were screening callers, and how many other were on hold.

 * * *

Through out this phone call there was a sense of carefully controlled language, and not-so-subtle suggestions about what the members need to take back to their coworkers to convince them this circus, this spending spree, this near complete legal defeat was somehow a tremendous win for workers. No matter how you look at it this trial failed in all of it's objectives. Persist and march on reformers turned NUHW employees and supporters, you all continue to amaze me!

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.

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.