SEIU Impersonates Nurses in Hostile Takeover Campaign Against California Nurses Association/NNOC

OAKLAND, Calif., Feb. 5 /PRNewswire/ — Impersonating nurses in a
multimillion dollar campaign replete with deceptive mailers, phone calls, a
website linked to a phony RN group, and the diversion of groups ostensibly
working on “healthcare reform,” the Service Employees International Union has
sharply escalated an offensive to seize control of the nation’s largest
nurses’ organization, the California Nurses Association/NNOC charged today.

SEIU is trying to take over the California Nurses Association/National
Nurses Organizing Committee (AFL-CIO) by soliciting SEIU-allied individuals to
run for the CNA/NNOC national board of directors, as well as attempting to
harass and intimidate the CNA/NNOC leadership, said CNA/NNOC.

The SEIU playbook bears sharp resemblance to a hostile corporate takeover
– and emulates tactics SEIU and its agents have used against other unions,
said CNA/NNOC.

Elements of the multimedia campaign include the creation of a false “RN”
group titled “RNs for Change” with a fake website, e-mail address, and 800-
phone number. All it was missing was actual RNs. Under the “RNs for Change”
banner, SEIU has sent multiple smear mail pieces, e-mail alerts, and robo
calls soliciting recruits to run for the CNA/NNOC board on SEIU’s behalf. (For
more details, see the CNA website, http://www.calnurses.org or
http://www.servingemployersinsteadofus.org.)

The attack coincides with SEIU’s seizure of its largest California local
United Healthcare Workers-West. SEIU President Andy Stern has appointed a top
enforcer, Dave Regan, as a director of that takeover. Regan has also been
Stern’s key lieutenant in attacks on CNA/NNOC.

For its CNA/NNOC takeover bid, SEIU has brought staff from around the
country to impersonate RNs for phone banking and uninvited home visits to
CNA/NNOC members. In some cases the visitors and callers have slipped and
identified themselves as SEIU staff. One such caller was Jessica Vollmer, who
heads Healthcare United in Colorado, a group whose purported mission is
“healthcare reform,” not participating in takeovers of other unions.

Other players in the campaign are individuals associated with the Prewitt
Organizing Fund and its offshoot, the Direct Organizing Group (DOG), which has
been engaged in similar takeover campaigns on behalf of SEIU against Engineers
& Architects Association Local 8000 (AFL-CIO) in Los Angeles, and the
International Union, Security, Police and Fire Professionals of America
(SPFPA).

The Stern Playbook seen in attacks on other unions

In an August 2003 newsletter, SPFPA International President David Hickey described the SEIU/Prewitt campaign as including “sending out false literature
and anti-union SPFPA videos, creating false websites with misinformation and
lies about SPFPA, and threatening the lives and careers of our members… [and
through the use of] phone calls and unwelcomed visits to their homes.” That
campaign parallels almost exactly the attack on CNA/NNOC.

CNA/NNOC Executive Director Rose Ann DeMoro, who is the primary focus of
the SEIU smears and takeover campaign, says Stern’s goal, is “to destroy
CNA/NNOC as the only effective national voice for RN patient advocates.”

“SEIU wants to silence the foremost critic of SEIU’s program of aiding
employer efforts to undermine patient standards, break down working
conditions, cut wages, and eliminate employee benefits in return for employer
grants of recognition by SEIU.”

“RNs are unified in rejecting this blatant attempt by SEIU to force itself
on our members,” DeMoro said. “They well know the history of SEIU in signing
substandard, backdoor deals with employers that sacrifice the interests of RNs
and patients, in undermining RN professional standards, and in suppressing
union democracy.”

In the meantime, California hospitals and nursing homes have been plunged
into a chaotic internal war with SEIU’s Regan while some 25,000 healthcare
workers have filed petitions to leave SEIU and join a new local led by the
ousted UHW President Sal Rosselli.

“Instead of focusing on passing the Employee Free Choice Act,” said
DeMoro, “SEIU is using its members’ dues to destroy other unions and create
this massive upheaval in California. Millions of dollars of SEIU members’ dues
have been wasted in trying to take over unions in California and control them
from Washington.”

Regan was named by Stern to be an executive vice president of SEIU shortly
after one of SEIU and Regan’s most notorious exploits — an assault on a
peaceful union conference near Detroit last April at which DeMoro was
scheduled to speak about the campaign for healthcare reform.

Shortly before the dinner event at which DeMoro was scheduled to speak,
busloads of SEIU representatives, led by SEIU staff, many from Regan’s local
in Ohio and West Virginia, stormed the conference, breaking into the banquet
room. Some staffers, wearing purple bandanas over their faces to hide their
identities, proceeded to punch, shove, kick, and knock union members to the
floor who were in their way.

In a subsequent website debate about the actions, Regan proudly defended
his role and lambasted a non-CNA/NNOC conference participant who criticized
SEIU’s behavior, “If other organizations wish to host and honor the leaders of
CNA, as is their prerogative, we will exercise our right to demonstrate and
protest given their undisputed actions. If this results in some people being
offended, that is unfortunate, but unavoidable.”

Representing 85,000 RNs in 50 states, the California Nurses
Association/National Nurses Organizing Committee is the largest and fastest-
growing association of direct-care RNs in the nation. Learn more at
http://www.calnurses.org.

SOURCE California Nurses Association/National Nurses Organizing Committee