April 12th, 2010
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.
April 11th, 2010
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.
April 11th, 2010
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
April 11th, 2010
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.
April 10th, 2010
New York Times: Union wins damages
By Steven Greenhouse A federal jury in San Francisco awarded more than $1.5 million in damages to the Service Employees International Union on Friday in a lawsuit that accused a breakaway union local and its leaders of illegally undermining the S.E.I.U. The jury ordered the breakaway unit, the National Union of Healthcare Workers, to pay […]