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Statement by National Union of Healthcare Workers (NUHW) Interim President Sal Rosselli on the likely resignation of SEIU President Andy Stern

Stern’s legacy is that he took control of an organization built by more than a million hardworking janitors, healthcare workers, and public servants, and used their resources primarily to secure his own political power.

Instead of helping SEIU members fight for better jobs and better patient care, Stern gave himself the authority to cut secret deals with corporations and trade away members’ rights.

Instead of helping working people build their own organizations, he “restructured” existing unions, crushed democracy, and put his own loyalists in charge: appointees like Tyrone Freeman and Annelle Grajeda, who could always be trusted to vote with Stern, even if they couldn’t be trusted to keep their hands out of the till. Stern’s allies have been exposed for financial corruption and connected to the Blagojevich pay-to-play scandal.

Instead of uniting the labor movement’s strength, Stern tore apart the AFL-CIO and created the “Change to Win” federation, only to tear apart Change to Win four years later with an unprecedented raid on SEIU’s closest partner in the federation, Unite Here.

Last year, tens of thousands of SEIU healthcare workers in California realized that if they wanted to stand up for their patients and fight for their work to be valued, they would have to do it in an independent union outside SEIU. When Stern came to take control of their local union, they founded the National Union of Healthcare Workers.

San Francisco Business Times: U.S. jury orders damages

By Chris Rauber

The verdict in the civil lawsuit is a legal victory for SEIU, although the awards totaled far less than the $25 million in damages SEIU had sought and some observers believe that David pulled off an upset, or close to it, in this David vs. Goliath legal skirmish.

SEIU officials said the U.S. District Court jury found Rosselli and the other former SEIU-UHW officials “liable for their scheme to sabotage the union and use the resources of SEIU-UHW members to start their own rival organization,” referring to the National Union of Healthcare Workers.

Rosselli’s National Union of Healthcare Workers, meanwhile, counters that most of the claims against it were thrown out, and that the damages it’s been ordered to pay are just a fraction of what SEIU had demanded.

“SEIU’s central claims (were) abandoned, twelve defendants cleared of all charges, and a judgment for less than one-sixth of SEIU’s own legal costs (made),” NUHW said in its April 9 response. It said its attorneys will ask the judge to set aside the jury’s verdict, and — if the judge does not — will appeal the decision to the Court of Appeals.

In These Times: SEIU wins fraction of damages sought against NUHW, as both sides claim victory

By David Moberg

NUHW vice-president John Borsos said that the trial was a victory of sorts for NUHW despite the judgment, since the judge repeatedly affirmed in the trial and instructions to the jurors that UHW members and officers had the right to resist the trusteeship and to form a new union.

“They put democracy on trial,” he said, “and what rights workers had to resist trusteeship and create a new organization. All that was confirmed.” By contrast, he said, SEIU attorneys responded to a question from the judge by arguing that officers would not have the right to argue for disaffiliation of a local even if the international union were thoroughly corrupt.

Before the trial, SEIU offered to drop the lawsuit if NUHW disbanded, Borsos said. He argued that the suit was intended to chill opposition in the union. “They made it clear that they were doing everything they did to trample democracy in SEIU and to throw up any roadblocks they could to NUHW competing with SEIU,” he said.

KPFA Evening News on SEIU lawsuit

Click the play button above to hear the KPFA Evening News report on the outcome of SEIU’s lawsuit against 28 union reformers and NUHW. Includes an interview with Michael Torres, a respiratory therapist at USC University Hospital and NUHW supporter. Source: KPFA

Audio: KPFA Evening News on SEIU’s lawsuit

Click the play button above to hear the KPFA Evening News report on the outcome of SEIU’s lawsuit against 28 union reformers and NUHW. Michael Torres, a respiratory therapist at USC University Hospital and NUHW supporter, explains what really happened.