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NLRB Judge Overturns Kaiser Service and Tech election

Today, Kaiser workers’ right to a fair election was vindicated by the NLRB. In a 34-page ruling, Judge Lana Parke overturned last fall’s Kaiser Service and Tech election for 43,000 healthcare workers due to SEIU-UHW’s reliance on the illegal conduct of Kaiser Permanente to intimidate workers from supporting NUHW. Judge Parke ruled that SEIU broke the […]

In the news: Huffington Post “As Kaiser Workers Face Cuts, Execs Have Enjoyed Lavish Benefits”

By Dave Jamieson, the Huffington Post

Despite strong profits and robust executive compensation at Kaiser Permanente, workers for the Calfornia-based health care giant say they’re facing down cuts to their health and retirement benefits in pending contract negotiations.

Proposed cuts include freezing employees’ defined-benefit pension plan and switching to a less desirable defined-contribution plan, according to a flier circulated by the National Union of Healthcare Workers. Workers are being asked to accept a more costly employee health insurance plan and cuts to their retirement health benefits, the union says.

While those cuts get debated, Kaiser executives have been living well. Pay and perks for high-ranking officials at the nonprofit have been generous in recent years, according to disclosure forms.

In the news: Monterey County Weekly “Get the Torches”

Find the leak, says SVMH. Everyone else: stop wasting cash.

By Mary Duan, Thursday, July 7, 2011
Monterey County Weekly

The hourly rate for a competent private investigator in Monterey County – the kind of guy a company might hire to run background checks – is about $125 an hour. The average hourly rate for a competent private investigator in Silicon Valley or the Bay Area – the kind of guy to investigate industrial espionage – is about $300 an hour.

Let’s split the difference. Let’s say that the board of Salinas Valley Memorial Hospital finds one who charges somewhere in the middle and has the wherewithal to ferret out exactly who leaked the super-secret contents of the super-secret 132-page report by the international consultancy McKinsey & Co. (you know, the report that cost the hospital about $930,000 and someone handed over to the Salinas newspaper) that says the community hospital needs to quickly position itself to make it a prettier merger or acquisition target. Or face death.

Say the investigation takes a minimum two weeks of full-time work. Round it out for administrative support for the investigator, mileage, etc., and that gets the cost to about $25,000.

For that much money, the hospital could have kept a licensed vocational nurse like Nelda Testa employed for another six months.

Local leaders call for investigation of SVMH Board’s secret privatization scheme

Letters to County District Attorney and State Attorney General allege violation of state law by Board Members meeting in closed session Salinas, California – Today, nine local labor and community leaders asked State Attorney General Kamala Harris and Monterey County District Attorney Dean Flippo to launch investigations into the Salinas Valley Memorial Healthcare District Board’s […]

In the news: Salinas Valley Memorial Hospital in a new game – transparency

Editorial page editorial, July 1, 2011 – The Salinas Californian

Since its first official meeting decades ago, the Salinas Valley Memorial Hospital board of directors has operated mostly out of public view. This comfort zone has served the board well — until recently.

Now that assorted controversies have thrust the SVMH board into the public spotlight, it behooves board members to keep the public district hospital’s business in the public eye.

Questionable board actions came to light in April when media reports disclosed that recently retired CEO Sam Downing received nearly $5 million in lump-sum payouts approved by the board, in addition to his annual pension of $150,000. Those payouts are well above what executives in comparable positions have received. In the midst of hospital cutbacks, including the layoffs of hundreds of employees, news of Downing’s windfall raised public outrage and questions about board spending. Adding to suspicion about the payout was the way it was structured so as not to trigger Internal Revenue Service attention. What the board did was legal, but secretive and unbefitting a board that reports, ultimately, to voters. Revelation of the payout led to the state Legislature appointing an auditor for the district. The auditor’s report is expected by year’s end.