(Message from CPPEA CEO Ken Hamidi)

Hello,

Please take a moment to read the article linked above, then afterwards kindly:

1) Please leave a comment at the end of the article expressing your views about SEIU Local 1000    (you can leave this comment anonymously if you prefer).

2) If you like the article, please check the “Like” button, its very important.

3) Please share the article with your friends.

Thank you,

Ken Hamidi

(Available again next year… June 2012…. See you then!)

Submitting this 2011 NGO form will:

1 – Cancel your SEIU Membership
2 – Instruct SEIU to reduce your Fair Share Fees by that portion of their activities that are Non-Germane to Bargaining
3 – Specify to SEIU that your are filing for Non-Germane Objector status
4 – State that you are Challenging SEIU’s calculations of the Non-Germane portion of your Union Dues
5 – Document that you are Appointing CPPEA’s Ken Hamidi as your representative for all legal matters pertaining to the NGO

Whether you are a member or not this form will cover you and will qualify you for Non-Germane Objector status, meaning you won’t have to pay that portion of Union Dues that is not explicitly used for Germane Union Bargaining of our contracts, and/or Representation by SEIU.

Estimates of the Non-Germane portion of our Union Dues have ranged from 75% to 95% of union dues.  That means you could get a 75% to 95% “discount” on your Union Dues and SEIU must still represent you, just as though you were a full dues-paying member. See the Pay Stub below!

The issue is: Who gets to tell you how much of your dues are being spent on non-germane activities?  The answer is: SEIU, the Union spending your money!  Sounds a lot like “putting the Fox in charge of the Hen House”, doesn’t it?  So the law gave us the ability to Challenge SEIU’s calculations of the Non-Germane portion of our Dues in an Arbitration Hearing.

This form automatically makes all of us  challengers which will allow us to force SEIU to reveal what they are actually doing with our $63 million of Union Dues paid to them annually.

In last year’s Arbitration, SEIU and the Arbitrator wouldn’t allow CPPEA’s Ken Hamidi to speak on our behalf, because he didn’t have signed permission from all challengers.  This year’s Form will give Ken that documented permission to ask SEIU hard questions on our behalf, and to force greater transparency, and adherence to established law and guidelines, from SEIU.

Here are just a few of the established guidelines ignored by SEIU last year, that CPPEA’s Ken Hamidi will try to force SEIU to follow this year:

a. Force SEIU to permit member input on who is assigned the role of the Arbitrator.

b. Force SEIU to agree to multiple locations for the arbitration this year, preferably in Sacramento, Bay Area, Fresno, LA, and San Diego.

c. Force SEIU to agree on an Arbitration date, day (preferably a Saturday) and time, that is more convenient for members to attend and participate.

d. File a subpoena to require SEIU to reveal the details of the SEIU expenditures being spent in preparation for the NGO Arbitration, and if like last year, SEIU doesn’t provide the required information, Ken Hamidi will file for an injunction with PERB until they provide the information.

Below is the verbatim language of the law/government code pertaining to the Dills Act:

3515.8. Return of part of fair share fee:
Any state employee who pays a fair share fee shall have the right to demand and receive from the recognized employee organization, under procedures established by the recognized employee organization, a return of any part of that fee paid by him or her which represents the employee’s additional pro rata share of expenditures by the recognized employee organization that is either in aid of activities or causes of a partisan political or ideological nature only incidentally related to the terms and conditions of employment, or applied towards the cost of any other benefits available only to members of the recognized employee organization. The pro rata share subject to refund shall not reflect, however, the costs of support of lobbying activities designed to foster policy goals and collective negotiations and contract administration, or to secure for the employees represented advantages in wages, hours, and other conditions of employment in addition to those secured through meeting and conferring with the state employer. The board may compel the recognized employee organization to return that portion of a fair share fee which the board may determine to be subject to refund under the provisions of this section.

3515.7. (g) Maintenance of membership or fair share fee deduction:
(g) An employee who pays a fair share fee shall be entitled to fair and impartial representation by the recognized employee organization. A breach of this duty shall be deemed to have occurred if the employee organization’s conduct in representation is arbitrary, discriminatory, or in bad faith.

Here is the link for both of the above statutes:  http://www.perb.ca.gov/laws/statutes.asp#ST3515_7

This link is for a Downloadable Flyer version of one of last year’s Non-Germane Objector’s pay stub

Follow the link above to a Pay Stub from one of last year’s Non-Germane Objectors.  Total SEIU Union Dues paid out monthly:  $3.25 !

Kaiser workers reject SEIU’s fear campaign and join with their co-workers in Southern California

Oakland, Calif.—Approximately 1,500 Kaiser mental health professionals and optical workers in Northern California have voted to leave the Service Employees International Union (SEIU) and join the National Union of Healthcare Workers (NUHW). The National Labor Relations Board (NLRB) concluded the ballot count today with a final tally of 603 for NUHW to 196 for SEIU in the Integrated Behavioral Health Services (IBHS) unit, and 154 for NUHW to 142 for SEIU in the optical unit.

“This is a victory for democracy. Now we will have a real voice regarding issues of patient care, staffing and workload,” said Spencer Gross, a psychologist at Kaiser Pleasanton for 23 years.

Kaiser’s Northern California mental health and optical workers will join 2,300 psychologists, social workers, dietitians, audiologists, speech pathologists, health educators and nurses in Southern California Kaiser hospitals and clinics who voted overwhelmingly to join NUHW in January.

“We’ve waited a long time to be united in NUHW with our co-workers in Southern California,” said Maria Padilla-Castro, a 10-year therapist at Kaiser Sacramento. “Now we’ll be able to work together to improve the standards of care for our patients.”

In a smaller bargaining unit of 368 social workers, SEIU’s illegal collusion with Kaiser management was too large an obstacle for NUHW supporters to overcome. SEIU won by just 9 votes out of 288 cast.

NUHW’s newest members overcame a relentless campaign by SEIU designed to instill fear that workers would lose the provisions guaranteed under their existing contract if they voted for the new union – a claim clearly contradicted by settled labor law.

“SEIU had no positive case to make for why healthcare workers are better off with them, so they just played the fear card,” said Ken Rogers, a psychologist at Kaiser Santa Clara/Campbell for 6 years. “Fortunately, enough of us saw through their illegal tactics that we were able to do what we’ve been waiting almost two years to do: take back our union and put members in charge again.”

Kaiser management unlawfully assisted SEIU in the election by bringing organizers into mandatory work meetings to campaign against NUHW, and allowed SEIU to use the company’s email system to disseminate its campaign messages. At the optical laboratory in Richmond, Kaiser supervisors barred NUHW organizers and off-duty Kaiser optical employees who supported NUHW from entering any part of the property, while giving SEIU free rein to campaign there.

Last month, the NLRB announced its intention to seek an injunction in response to Kaiser’s decision to illegally withhold scheduled raises for 2,300 Kaiser professionals in Southern California, an action that formed the basis of SEIU’s misleading message to Northern California professionals that an NUHW victory would put workers’ contract gains in jeopardy.

At the eleventh hour on the very day of the vote count, SEIU attempted to persuade the NLRB to impound the ballots and postpone the count indefinitely, continuing its statewide efforts to prevent workers from making a free choice in facilities where majorities support NUHW. Thousands of workers at hospitals all over California have been waiting for months for SEIU to lift blocking charges and allow them to vote, including workers who have been waiting since February 2009 at Children’s Hospital Oakland, California Pacific Medical Center in San Francisco and Alta Bates Summit Medical Center in Berkeley.

The Labor Board rejected SEIU’s request, and as the vote count revealed, the overwhelming majority of workers in the three elections rejected SEIU’s campaign of fear and misinformation.

As NUHW members, Kaiser professionals’ priorities at the bargaining table will include reversing the takeaways SEIU agreed to in its latest round of negotiations with Kaiser, and winning improvements to job security, health insurance benefits and patient care standards.

# # #

The National Union of Healthcare Workers is California’s fastest-growing union, representing caregivers in every job classification. NUHW is dedicated to member democracy, dignity and justice for healthcare workers, and quality, affordable healthcare for all. | NUHW.org

Concerned about the ongoing economic crisis and lack of leadership by their union, California State employees represented by SEIU have watched in dismay in recent years as millions of dollars were deducted from workers’ paychecks only to be funneled out of state into a variety of political campaigns and ideological causes.

In June, 2010, many of these workers sent SEIU a message.

First, to call attention to SEIU’s failure to address the issues they face every day, many California State employees resigned their SEIU membership.

The Supreme Court, in Communication Workers v. Beck, 487 U.S. 735 (1988) …ruled that objecting nonmembers cannot be required to pay union dues. The most that nonmembers can be required to pay is an agency fee that equals their share of what the union can prove is its costs of collective bargaining, contract administration, and grievance adjustment with their employer. [1]

These workers exercised their legal rights to resign from full membership in SEIU and become “Fair-Share” fee payers. And to tell SEIU they only wanted to pay their “Fair Share” (for expenses related to their workplace), they used an annual one-month window to file Non-Germane Objector Forms.

These Non-Germane Objector Forms notified SEIU that they would no longer subsidize the millions of dollars spent with no bearing on their collective bargaining agreements.

These workers are using their rights, guaranteed under the National Labor Relations Act (NLRA), to object to payroll deductions by SEIU above the amount needed for collective bargaining, contract administration, and grievance adjustment.

Here are examples of activities that these workers do not have to subsidize:

• Political activities, including activities related to ballot and bond issues.
• Ideological activities.
• Lobbying, unless necessary to ratify or fund the collective bargaining agreement in the nonmember public employee’s bargaining unit.
• Public relations activities.
• Union “members only” benefits.
• Portions of union publications reporting on the foregoing activities.

Now, SEIU must prove that the money they require from “Fair-Share” fee payers is used only for collective bargaining, contract administration, and grievance adjustment.

How much will fee-payers save? That information is yet to be determined, but based on data from sources outside SEIU Local 1000, the amount may be as high as 40%, or even higher.

If you filed a Non-Germane Objector Form this year, remember…

• The Non-Germane Objector Form form must be submitted every year, so if you filed it in June 2010, you must file it again in June 2011
• This form can only be filed by “Fair-Share” fee payers (who have cancelled their SEIU membership).

For information on the upcoming process to “Fire SEIU” and choose a better union, visit: Why Decertify SEIU?

Sources

[1] “Can I Be Required to Be a Union Member or Pay Dues to a Union?” The National Right to Work Legal Defense Foundation. http://www.nrtw.org/a/a_1_p.htm (accessed July 1, 2010).

Photo credit: Snail Mail by uzvards on flickr. Accessed Jul 2, 2010. Licensed under a Creative Commons license.

SEIU closed our office and treated our staff very poorly... then SEIU had us use a call center in Pasadena. So you’d be talking to someone who didn’t know our contract with the county.”

The history behind the vote, described as a “major shift,” is covered by Marinscope Community Newspapers.

The reasons for the Marin county workers’ longstanding discontent with SEIU will be familiar to many California public employees:

• SEIU’s management style favored top-down control from Washington
• Patterns of consolidation eliminated any local presence
• Assistance was available only through call centers in remote locations
• Reductions in service were made in the name of “efficiency”

Eventually Marin County employees began the process to replace SEIU.  It began with the re-establishment of their old union MAPE, now as a local, woker-led organization. They filed petitions to decertify the SEIU and certify MAPE,  then conducted a vote that could have: a) recertified SEIU, b) certified the  new union (Marin Association of Public Employees) or c) refused any representation at all.

With the results of the election now official, MAPE is ready to negotiate on behalf of its members.

CPPEA is a worker-led organization dedicated to helping California’s public employees get the representation they deserve.  If you’re represented by SEIU Local 1000, you may relate to the experiences of Marin County’s Local 1021.

We invite you to Share Your Story and join us in working for a fair and professional work environment for all California State Employees!

Nurses at Kaiser recall, "Under SEIU and its president, Andy Stern, we made absolutely no progress..."

Once upon a time, Registered Nurses at Kaiser Sunset Los Angeles Medical Center (one of the largest hospitals in the nation) were represented by SEIU. Like many SEIU members, they were frustrated with their union representation.

Then they took action.

In the words of Kaiser RN LaNeta Fitzhugh, “With SEIU, our concerns about our workplace often went unaddressed. Our experience with SEIU was that more and more it was a union dedicated to the employer-friendly agendas of union officials in Washington D.C. and not the concerns of health care workers and our patients.”

As a result, the RN’s overwhelmingly voted to break with SEIU in January 2010. Instead of SEIU, they chose representation with the member-led National Union of Healthcare Workers (NUHW). For these nurses, the results have been very positive.

According to Fitzhugh, “We elect our leaders. We participate in every aspect of bargaining our contracts. When there are important decisions that affect our workplace, we know that we will have a vote. In sum, we determine our relationship with our employer.”

You can read LaNeta Fitzhugh’s story in her own words:  “The Power of a Member-Led Union” at The Huffington Post. She recounts the frustrations she and her colleagues experienced in dealing with SEIU in the past, and the benefits today of being part of a worker-led movement.

What’s her advice for other SEIU members who aspire to better representation? “Get the facts. Don’t let fear and scare tactics distract you from the power that you and your co-workers possess.”

CPPEA is a member-led organization dedicated to helping California State employees obtain the union representation they deserve!

SEIU is accused of working in collusion with management to defeat the breakaway union and leave the workers with no collective-bargaining representation.

Last year, health care workers at USC rejected SEIU – described as “autocratic and nonresponsive to members.” Now, the workers will have an opportunity to certify the National Union of Healthcare Workers as their official union.

Today, the LA Times reports that SEIU, previously included on the ballot, dropped out in the face of certain defeat by NUHW.  At best, SEIU has apparently abandoned any attempt to rebuild damaged relationships with its former members.

But wait, there’s more… SEIU is also accused of attempting to deny workers from having any representation at all.

As the LA Times reports, SEIU stands accused of “working in collusion with management to defeat the breakaway union and leave the workers with no collective-bargaining representation.”

SEIU and the hospital management are scheming and plotting together for people to vote no union,” said an NUHW supporter, Michael Torres, a respiratory therapist at USC University Hospital. “We don’t know the difference between SEIU and management anymore.”

Read the full story at L.A. Now — the Los Angeles Times’ news blog for Southern California

If you are represented by SEIU and want better union representation, you’re not alone. Share your comments and experiences below.

Andy Stern’s debts: SEIU leader swims away while his organization sinks

By F. Vincent Vernuccio

Purple may be the official color of the Service Employees International Union (SEIU), but Andy Stern is leaving the union deep in the red. Last week, he surprised the labor community by announcing his resignation as president of SEIU. Mr. Stern has claimed victories in helping pass health care legislation and getting President Obama elected, but his impact within his own organization shows gaping budget deficits and massive underfunding of pensions.

SEIU has seen its liabilities skyrocket during the past decade. The union’s liabilities totaled $7,625,832 in 2000. By 2009, they had increased almost by a factor of 16, to $120,893,259. Meanwhile, SEIU’s assets barely tripled, growing from $66,632,631 in 2000 to $187,664,763 in 2009. A significant portion of SEIU’s current assets are from IOUs from hard-up locals.

SEIU is $85 million in debt, down from its 2008 high of $102 million, and has been forced to lay off employees. Mr. Stern has led protests against Bank of America, calling for the firing of Chief Executive Ken Lewis. Yet the union owes $80 million to Bank of America and $5 million to Amalgamated Bank, which is owned by the rival union Unite-Here.

SEIU’s pensions are in even worse shape. Both of SEIU’s two national pension plans, the SEIU National Industry Pension Fund and the Pension Plan for Employees of the SEIU, issued critical-status letters last year. The Pension Protection Act requires any pension fund that is funded below 65 percent of what it needs to pay its obligations to inform its beneficiaries of the deficit.

Many SEIU local pension plans are in as bad a shape as the national plans – if not worse. In 2007, well before the financial meltdown, the SEIU Local 32BJ Building Maintenance Contractors Association Pension Plan was funded at an anemic 41 percent, the SEIU 1199 Greater New York Pension Fund at 58 percent, the 32BJ District Building Operators Pension Trust Fund at 56 percent, and the Service Employees 32BJ North Pension Fund at 68 percent.

An underfunded pension plan does not have enough assets to meet its obligations to retirees in the future. Recovery is difficult if plans are significantly underfunded, as is the case with the SEIU plans. The Pension Benefit Guarantee Corp. (PBGC) insures only a portion of promised benefits to retirees in union multiemployer pension plans. If one of those plans goes bankrupt, the PBGC will guarantee only up to $12,870 in benefits.

Do not worry about Mr. Stern and other high-ranking SEIU officials, though. At age 59, he has 37 years of service in the SEIU and is entitled to a full pension and lifetime health benefits. Unlike SEIU’s pension plans for rank-and-file members and union employees, SEIU’s officer pension plan, the SEIU Affiliates Officers and Employees Pension Plan, was funded at 102 percent in 2007.

While SEIU’s pension plans were failing and its liabilities growing, Mr. Stern seemed more concerned with electoral politics than with the internal workings of the union. Indeed, politics can account for much of SEIU’s lavish spending in recent years. “We spent a fortune to elect Barack Obama – $60.7 million to be exact – and we’re proud of it,” he boasted to the Las Vegas Sun last year. In all, under Mr. Stern, SEIU spent more than $85 million to elect President Obama and give Democrats control of Congress. What has been Mr. Stern’s reward?

It is often said that in politics, personnel is policy. By that measure, SEIU carries considerable weight within the Obama administration. Patrick Gaspard, formerly the executive vice president of politics and legislation for the powerful Local 1199 SEIU United Healthcare Workers East, is now the political director at the White House.

Craig Becker, formerly SEIU’s associate general counsel and adviser to the ACORN affiliate SEIU 800 in Chicago, is now on the National Labor Relations Board (NLRB). Mr. Obama made a recess appointment of Mr. Becker after he failed to be confirmed by the Senate. This was a significant win for organized labor. Mr. Becker has hinted at having the NLRB enact card check without a vote in Congress.

SEIU Secretary-Treasurer Anna Burger sits on the Obama administration’s Economic Recovery Advisory Board. Mr. Stern himself was appointed by Mr. Obama to its deficit commission. (Mr. Stern has said he will stay in that post after he steps down from SEIU.)

Mr. Stern’s abrupt resignation has led many to question his motives and ponder his next steps. Whatever the answer, one thing is certain: He leaves SEIU – especially its pension funds – swimming in red ink. Sadly, it will be the union’s rank-and-file members who will be paying for Mr. Stern’s profligacy well into the future.

F. Vincent Vernuccio is an adjunct analyst at the Competitive Enterprise Institute and formerly was an official with the Bush Department of Labor.

Published by The Washington Times Friday, April 23, 2010

Officials said Ms. Henry, an executive vice president, has the support of locals representing nearly 60 percent of the union’s 1.9 million members, giving her the likely edge over Anna Burger, the union’s secretary-treasurer, in an executive board vote expected to be held in May 2010.

Ms. Henry grew up in suburban Detroit and graduated from Michigan State University. She became an organizer for the S.E.I.U. in 1979 and has played a major role in some of its biggest organizing drives, at Beverly Enterprises, Catholic Health Care West, Tenet and HCA. She is a founding member of the union’s gay and lesbian caucus.

Source:
http://topics.nytimes.com/top/reference/timestopics/people/h/mary_kay_henry/index.html

See also:
The New York Times: “New Union Leader Wants Group to Be More of a Political Powerhouse”

From The National Right to Work Legal Defense Foundation — a “nonprofit, charitable organization providing free legal aid to employees whose human or civil rights have been violated by compulsory unionism abuses.”

Gov. Quinn Faces Class-Action Suit for Executive Order Designed to Unionize Home-Care Providers

Chicago, IL (April 22, 2010) – With free legal aid from National Right to Work Foundation attorneys, a group of home-based personal care providers today filed a class-action lawsuit in federal court against Governor Pat Quinn and union officials for their efforts to force Illinois personal care providers under unwanted union boss control.

The suit stems from an executive order issued by disgraced former-Governor Rod Blagojevich shortly after his election, later codified, in which over 20,000 personal care providers who care for individuals with disabilities were designated as “public employees” of the state of Illinois for the purpose of granting Service Employees International Union (SEIU) bosses monopoly “representation” and forced dues privileges over them.

Following the Rod Blagojevich blueprint of forced unionism, Quinn signed an executive order last June that made an additional 4,500 home-based personal care providers susceptible to unwanted union boss bargaining and political “representation.” Not coincidentally, Quinn received the SEIU union bosses’ political endorsement and support during his recent closely-contested primary campaign for the Democratic nomination for Governor.

The additional 4,500 home-care providers who are not yet under union control soundly rejected union membership by a two-to-one margin in a mail-in vote. However, per Quinn’s executive order, the home-care providers may again be subject to out-of-state SEIU and American Federation of State, County, and Municipal Employees (AFSCME) union organizers making “home visits” attempting to organize the home-care providers through coercive “card check” unionization tactics.

Pam Harris, Gordon Stiefel, and several other home-care providers — with assistance from the National Right to Work Foundation — filed the federal suit on behalf of all of Illinois’s providers unionized by Blagojevich and on behalf of home-care providers threatened by forced unionism as a result of Quinn’s executive order.

“My primary concern is that someone else will be telling me how to best care for my son,” said Harris, who provides personal care for her adult son and is the lead plaintiff in the suit. “Union dues would be a deduction from what we have available to provide for my son’s needs. And then I would be giving my money to a union to exercise their political muscle on issues I may vehemently disagree with.”

The class-action suit challenges the forced-unionism scheme on the grounds that it violates the U.S. Constitution’s guarantees of free political expression and association.

“This scheme is nothing more than pure political payback” said Patrick Semmens, Legal Information Director of the National Right to Work Foundation. “In effect Governor Quinn is picking the lobbyists of Illinois’s personal care providers, all in exchange for the union bosses’ support and political contributions.”

by Anthony Riedel at nrtw.org