Verdict: Labor and elected leaders vow to appeal limited award in SEIU’s lawsuit against union reformers

“Tens of thousands of healthcare workers are organizing with NUHW for a real voice at work and a democratic voice in their union, and that will continue in spite of this verdict. These reformers stood up for workers’ right to vote when SEIU tried to take it away, and that’s the only thing they’re guilty of.”
Dolores Huerta, United Farm workers co-founder

“Watching this trial has made me so proud to be part of NUHW. Our elected leaders took an oath to represent the members who elected them, not SEIU officials in Washington, D.C. They did exactly what the members asked them to do. They knew SEIU would target them personally and they still had the courage to do what was right.”
Brenda Washington, LVN, San Francisco Community Convalescent

Attorneys for the defendants will ask the judge to set aside the jury’s verdict, and if the judge does not, they will appeal the decision to the Court of Appeals.

NUHW was founded by former SEIU members in January 2009, after SEIU’s hostile takeover of it’s most successful California affiliate, United Healthcare Workers-West (UHW). Within months, more than 100,000 UHW members had petitioned for elections to quit SEIU and join NUHW. SEIU responded with a lawsuit against the new union and 28 former UHW staff and officers.

For more than a year, SEIU’s Washington, D.C. officials have publicly accused these union reformers of an ever-changing list of allegations that they claimed would be proven at trial. Instead, the trial showed most of SEIU’s claims were false. SEIU originally sued for $25 million but won just a tiny fraction of SEIU’s own legal costs from the jury, after spending more than $10 million in members’ dues on four separate law firms to make their case.

Read more about the claims that were abandoned by SEIU or rejected by the court, and the specific damages awarded by the jury.

Day 12: Trial ends with closing arguments

Kindred nursing homes’ lawyer Henry Telfeian showed up in court today on the last day of the trial. As usual, SEIU and the boss were on the same side. Telfeian sat on SEIU’s side of the courtroom right alongside SEIU’s lawyers, PR staff, and paid bloggers, as both sides presented their closing arguments.

In NUHW’s closing argument, attorney Dan Siegel explained that SEIU’s claims were like trying to make shapes out of stars in the night sky: “a feat of imagination.” Out of tens of thousands of documents that SEIU gained access to when they took over our union and sued our elected officers and staff, SEIU has picked a few disconnected emails written at very different times over the last several years, and tried to draw the shape of a conspiracy. They’ve asked the jury to imagine lines between them that don’t really exist, and for which they’ve provided no evidence.

After closing arguments, the jury was instructed on how to apply the law in the case. The judge reminded the jury that elected UHW officers and staff had the right to oppose SEIU’s Washington, D.C. officials and to work to prevent the trusteeship and the decision to force long-term care members out of UHW. As members, they even had the right to speak out against SEIU’s decisions once the decisions had been made, so long as they did not obstruct or frustrate the decisions.

For each of the defendants, the jury must decide whether to award any money to SEIU in four areas: defendants’ own salaries and benefits for January 2009, a portion of UHW’s operating expenses in January 2009, a portion of the cost of SEIU’s private security forces, and dues allegely lost when some nursing home contracts were not extended.

The jury will deliberate each day until they make their decision.

Day 11: We rest our case!

Ella Raiford, Sacramento Homecare, attended day 11 of the trial.NUHW’s last two witnesses contradicted two more significant parts of SEIU’s case today.

• First, John Borsos testified about petitions submitted to the NLRB. One of SEIU’s first witnesses was Denny Henriquez, who claimed he was given NUHW decert petitions before the trusteeship on Jan. 27, 2009. He also claimed the decert petitions didn’t have a blank for the date they were signed. But today, John showed the jury the actual decert petition Henriquez signed and circulated himself—dated Jan. 29, 2009. SEIU’s lawyer Gary Kohlman, in a frantic cross-examination using the few minutes he had remaining, tried to claim the petition was a forgery by saying Henriquez’s name was misspelled on the form. Kohlman was embarrassed when John pointed out he’d misread one of the letters.

• Nursing home worker Eloise Reese-Burns testified that the contract expirations at North American nursing homes were a democratic decision of the bargaining team. SEIU brought in a witness last week, who wasn’t even on the bargaining team, to say she hadn’t been informed about the contract expirations. Eloise testified that John Vellardita called her personally and asked her to poll the bargaining committee and decide whether to continue their month-to-month contract extensions or to allow them to expire and gain the right to strike.

Now, both sides have put up all their evidence and witnesses. SEIU has abandoned most of their claims for damages. On the claims that remain, the jury will begin deliberating after attorneys make their closing arguments tomorrow.

When we left the courtroom today, attorneys from both sides were going back and forth with the judge over the instructions the jury will get. The areas of law SEIU is using to sue are very complicated, so how the law is explained to the jury is very important.

As witness after witness has testified, UHW’s elected leaders did exactly what we on the executive board told them to do. They did their duty and did everything they could to protect members’ control of our union.

SEIU is arguing, as usual, that what members want doesn’t matter. They say that all that matters is “the rules” of SEIU—the rules we saw them change at the SEIU convention to take away our voice. SEIU’s lawyer told the judge today that local leaders are not paid primarily for their service to members, but that SEIU is “paying for their loyalty,” and that’s why SEIU should be allowed to sue them for their salaries.

Healthcare workers want a union where we elect our leaders and they’re accountable to us, not paid for their loyalty to SEIU officials who don’t know anything about our lives and our work.

As we get our elections, members are delivering the real verdict on SEIU.

In solidarity,
Ella Raiford, Sacramento Homecare
National Union of Healthcare Workers

P.S. I must also share the sad news of the passing of Sonoma County homecare leader Marie White, a fearless advocate and a dedicated caregiver. Those who didn’t know her personally may remember her from last October when she stood up to SEIU’s private security and demanded the right to vote on her union contract. She will be deeply missed.

Day 10: the citadel of our hopes and dreams

Ruth Calderon, LVN, Coastal Communities Hospital, Orange County attended day 10 of the trial.Today was an emotional day in the courtroom.

The most powerful moment was when Kaiser steward Emily Ryan took the stand. Together with other members, Emily slept in the Oakland office for three nights after our union was trusteed. Her testimony was important to me because my husband and I stayed in the Los Angeles office during the same period of time.

SEIU has tried to smear us as agents of “sabotage” who destroyed our union offices. Emily told the truth about why we were there.

In our hearts, she said, our union hall was our home—“It was the citadel of our hopes and dreams.” She held back tears as she explained to the jury why those buildings were so precious to us that we slept on floors to make our voices heard, and stayed in them right until SEIU took them away.

“We knew SEIU was coming and we wanted to be there to make our stand, and tell them that the members don’t want this, don’t want them to destroy our union.” By the time she was done, even the people sitting on SEIU’s side of the courtroom seemed affected.

It was upsetting to have all those emotions come flooding back, and think about the devastation we felt when our union was taken away. But I also felt that finally having it all out there in court was the beginning of healing.

Today, we have hope. We have our own member-led union-the fastest-growing union in California—and we’re winning from Santa Rosa to San Diego. When this trial is over on Tuesday, we’ll be able to say that SEIU said every nasty thing they could say about us, put all their evidence on the table, and all they proved is that we stood up for our rights.

Here’s more that happened today:

• SEIU lost a key part of their case when Sonoma County homecare provider Arin Stevens testified. SEIU claims that NUHW supporters stole member lists before the trusteeship, and one of their witnesses last week claimed she was given a list at an NUHW meeting that contained UHW member information. But Arin Stevens testified today that she is the person who provided that list, and that it was a list given to her by an SEIU-UHW rep in February 2009!

• The judge let SEIU present one more witness, since SEIU’s lawyer had promised all week that we’d hear from a witness who was supposedly violently threatened and intimidated by NUHW supporters. But when they played his video testimony, it turned out he wasn’t threatened at all. His whole story was that someone asked him “what are you doing.” Two other people walked over, and he said “don’t threaten me,” and they said they weren’t threatening him. He told them he was going to call the police, and everyone left. For this non-incident, SEIU is asking for the costs of their private security.

• John Vellardita explained UHW’s “pattern bargaining” strategy and why we turned up the pressure on some nursing home operators by not renewing contract extensions so members there would have the right to strike.

• Gloria Watkins, an SEIU rep after the trusteeship, testified that the managers from SEIU International weren’t interested in bargaining or grievances at all after they took over. They were only interested in stopping members from joining NUHW.

I’m glad I came to see all this for myself. It’s confusing for people who aren’t there, because we get emails from both sides and don’t know if it’s the whole story. I saw today that what SEIU is saying is not what’s happening at all. It’s just a story to try to justify what is unjustifiable.

If every SEIU-UHW member could be here in the courtroom there would be no doubt about it. I think when you make claims like SEIU has made, you have to put up or shut up. And from what I’ve seen so far, they haven’t put up.

When you’re wrong, you should admit it. But SEIU still has our money to spend on flyers and staff to say anything they want, and I’m sure they’ll keep saying their same tired slogans about our union.

It’s up to members like us to make sure the truth comes out.

In solidarity,

Ruth Calderon, LVN, Coastal Communities Hospital, Orange County

In the news: Trial coverage roundup

• In These Times: In San Francisco, Union Democracy Goes on Trial by Carl Finamore
• BeyondChron: When a Union Acts Like a Big Corporation by Carl Finamore
• Huffington Post: My View on SEIU’s Lawsuit Against Our Union by Shirley Nelson
• Calitics: A democratic union that we, the members control by Tyrone Dickens
• Counterpunch: NUHW Organizes, SEIU Files Lawsuits - Union Democracy on Trial by Carl Finamore