Despite Negative Impact
on Members, Sal Rosselli and Others Tried to
Make their Former Union "Ungovernable," U.S. District Court Judge
Finds
OAKLAND, Calif., July 27 /PRNewswire-USNewswire/ -- A U.S. District Court judge
for the Northern District of California today
granted SEIU-UHW members a preliminary injunction against the local union's former
officers and agents, finding that they "filched" and "sabotaged" files, records,
and union property as part of their plan to form a new union.
After being ousted from the union for, among other things, transferring
$3 million in members' dues money to a bogus
non-profit organization for their own use, former SEIU-UHW President Sal Rosselli and other top union officials formed a new
organization, the National Union of Healthcare Workers (NUHW).
"Upon leaving UHW, the individual defendants took and reproduced UHW
property for use at NUHW and destroyed other UHW property in an effort to hamstring
their soon-to-be competitor," wrote U.S. District Judge William Alsup.
"The ousted officers purposely tried to undermine the very members they
now say they want to represent," said Dave Regan,
who was named trustee of SEIU-UHW when the former officers were removed. "They
stole documents. They destabilized contracts. They left a lot of hardworking
healthcare providers vulnerable at a time when California was in an economic crisis."
Judge Alsup found that Rosselli and the other officials had a scheme to
"disrupt union operations so as to make the situation ungovernable" and, as they
launched a new and competing union, "filch[ed] or sabotag[ed] UHW property and
information or aid[ed] and abett[ed] others in doing so."
The court also found that, in addition to this scheme, Rosselli and his
agents "deleted files on their UHW computers on a massive scale," and that
Rosselli -- in direct contradiction to his sworn testimony at a previous court
hearing -- himself deleted more than 12,000 files from his computer. The defendants
have still not returned essential bargaining, grievance and arbitration files to
the members of SEIU-UHW, the court found, particularly files relating to
bargaining and grievances among hospitals in the Sutter
and Kaiser hospital systems, and for nursing homes represented by SEIU-UHW.
The defendants charged by the order include Sal Rosselli, Jorge Rodriguez, Joan Emslie, John Borsos, John
Vellardita, Gabe Kristal, Paul Kumar, Martha Figueroa, Barbara Lewis, Phyllis Willett,
Daniel Martin, Laura
Kurre, Ralph Cornejo, Will Clayton, Glenn Goldstein, Fred Seavey, Mark Kipfer,
Aaron Brickman, Ian
Selden, Gail Buhler, Freja
Nelson, Andrew Reid, National Union of
Healthcare Workers.
SEIU-United Healthcare Workers West (SEIU-UHW) is the largest hospital
and healthcare union in the western United
States with more than 150,000 members. We unite every type of healthcare worker with
a mission to achieve high-quality healthcare for all. More at: www.seiu-uhw.org.
SOURCE SEIU United Healthcare Workers-West