Labor Dept. Rules Randi Take Over of Nurses' Union Illegal

“The trusteeship appears to have been imposed to prevent disaffiliation,” according to the ruling. “It is the Department’s position that it is unlawful to impose a trusteeship for the purpose of preventing.”


But too late to help displaced union leaders.

Last year we reported on how Randi Weingarten sent in the AFT goons to invade the offices of a nurses local in Portland Oregon after they held a meeting to discuss disaffiliation from the AFT (see below for links). We had been contacted by one of the people in the Oregon Federation of Nurses and Health Professionals Local 5017 (OFNHP).

Now, this was beyond outrageous. Hold a meeting to discuss disaffiliation and get 20 people invade your union and put you under trusteeship.

(Included in the goon squad was the head of the UFT Nurses' chapter Ann Goldman, whose husband is Jerry, the former Manhattan borough office President - he was supposedly the only high level UFT employee ever fired though no one will talk about the reason. Their son was supposedly hired by the PR dept - the entire family was taking down around 400 grand in our dues money.)

Randi must have remembered the time when the AFT lost 40,000 members when the Puerto Rico teachers union left the AFT in 2003. The leader of that walkout was Rafael Feliciano, who called the AFT "dues sucking vampires" or something like that. (Feliciano is a pal of our own Angel Gonzalez and we have had the opportunity to meet him numerous times - Angel is in PR right now getting film and stories to bring back.) Search this blog for "puerto rico" and find all our stories.

 Diane Lund-Muzicant reports in her Oregon based Lund Report:

The American Federation of Teachers (AFT) took control of the Oregon Federation of Nurses and Health Professionals Local 5017 (OFNHP), establishing a trusteeship, after the union tried to hold a special membership meeting to consider disaffiliating from AFT by amending its constitution. 

To protest, Kathy Geroux, the deposed president, filed a complaint with the U.S. Department of Labor in Seattle.

On Aug. 10 – a year after receiving the complaint – the U.S. Department of Labor determined that the trusteeship violated Title III of the Labor-Management Reporting and Disclosure Act of 1959.

“The trusteeship appears to have been imposed to prevent disaffiliation,” according to the ruling. “It is the Department’s position that it is unlawful to impose a trusteeship for the purpose of preventing.”

Six months earlier, in February, the Department notified AFT of its findings, but decided not to file a lawsuit, according to Mike Shimizu, regional director of public affairs, who said, “The trusteeship was not recognized by us.”

Now here's the rub. The Labor Department withheld the ruling to protect Randi according to the people displaced. They claim the ruling came after the AFT convention in Seattle to keep it from becoming an issue. Shows you which side the ruling bodies are really on, which is what I tell my friends who want to got to court all the time.


Diane Lund continues

Yet lingering questions remain, particularly for Geroux, a cardiology nurse at Kaiser Sunnyside Hospital, who’s convinced the ruling was purposely withheld until after AFT’s national convention in Seattle last month.

“Had we known,” she said, “it would have been a big victory for us; we would have mustered hundreds of people to show up at that convention. They (AFT) would have been scared to face us. Up until then, they kept up the conversation about the bad things we had done. ”

Geroux considered running again for president, but feared she’d be demonized by AFT. “They (AFT) played this like a fine instrument,” she said. “They didn’t want me back in; that’s why this information was withheld from me.”

If the Department of Labor’s decision had been announced earlier, all the former officers would have walked right back in, said Carol Posluszny, who retired recently from Kaiser as a licensed clinical social worker. “What happened was illegal,” she said.

Bing Wong, a clinical lab scientist at Kaiser, is convinced the Department of Labor took sides by showing its non-partisan leanings.

But in the end, Geroux who was president for 8 ½ years feels victorious – the ruling, she said, proves she did nothing wrong by holding an emergency meeting last July to talk about disaffiliating.

“They wanted us out; it was all built on untruths and was a cover-up,” she believes. “Otherwise we would have created the domino effect and taken other unions with us. Now they’ve taken the union back in time; it will take them a decade to catch up. No way will they ever let the local disaffiliate.”

In the small world department, I was on a subway train in Manhattan in July 2009 and saw a couple and their daughter trying to decide what stop to get off. I offered to help. I asked where they were from. "Portland, Or" the woman said.

"Funny" I said, "I was just writing about takeover of a union by the AFT a few hours ago."

"Local 5017," she said. She was Diane Lund-Muzicant on a NY vacation with her family. She said she was going to try to interview Randi about the situation while in NY. She never got that interview.

Come on now, what starts were aligned for that? It turns out Diane is a leading health care writer and puts out the Lund Report. So I subscribed and that's how I heard about the Labor Department ruling, which of course you will not read about on any UFT/AFT or mainstream press.


Here are links to my reports on local 5017, including my July 20 '09 report of the subway meeting with Diane.

Randi Goes to Portland As AFT Threatens Local Considering ...

Jul 11, 2009

Portland OR--At 9am Tuesday July 7, approximately 20 representatives from American Federation of Teachers Healthcare national offices arrived at Oregon Federation of Nurses and Health Professionals Local 5017 and put the health care ...

Education Notes Online: AFT Hack Attack on Portland Local 5017

Jul 13, 2009

On July 7, 2009 Oregon Federation of Nurses and Health Professionals, Local 5017, a small healthcare local in Portland, Oregon was taken over by its parent union and put under trusteeship. We want Local 5017 back! ...

Randi In Portland (OR) and a Weird Subway Meeting

Jul 20, 2009

Kathy Geroux, who was removed as president of Local 5017, declined to comment. But she and union leaders released a statement defending their actions, saying the bylaws allow special meetings. "We believe that everyone on the executive ...

AFT Takeover Sanctioned By US Labor Department

Oct 21, 2009

I foresee road trips in my future, though Randi jokingly invited me to go to Oregon with her at the Ex Bd meeting the other day. My bags are packed, Randi. .. Education Notes Online: AFT Hack Attack on Portland Local 5017 (Jul 13, 2009) ...

Randi In Portland (OR) and a Weird Subway Meeting

If you followed our reports on the goings in Portland (AFT Hack Attack) where the leadership of AFT Local 5017 (sue me AFT) was removed and the union put in receivership for considering the very idea of disaffiliating from the AFT and looking elsewhere for another union, today is the day Randi went out to talk to the local. There's a report in Oregon Business News:

A three-member committee composed of three of AFT's 36 national vice presidents will conduct a hearing in about a week to decide whether the temporary takeover is warranted and to determine how local leadership should be restored.

Sure they will decide in the usual fair honest manner. Any takers on the outcome?

AFT locals have the right to break away, but they must follow proper procedures in doing so, said Weingarten in an interview with The Oregonian

Oh, yea! They have the right only when prove they are able to swim the English Channel with one arm.

Now, are you holding your sides?

"The goal here is to make sure members have a right to make a decision," said Weingarten, who just completed her first year as AFT president. "It is not about the leaders. It is about the members' democratic rights and their economic rights."

Excuse me a minute while the pain from the laughter goes away......

Thanks, I've recovered.

Kathy Geroux, who was removed as president of Local 5017, declined to comment. But she and union leaders released a statement defending their actions, saying the bylaws allow special meetings. "We believe that everyone on the executive board will be vindicated of all the charges made," Geroux wrote.

Kathy, I hate to tell you this, but the deal is done. You are experiencing what is known in NYC as "the Unity Caucus squeeze", where an "impartial" body from a UFT, a Unity Caucus controlled borough office rules a chapter election null and void when a non-Unity elected official breathes on a ballot.

Now, it is not impossible for Randi to offer you a deal to make things look good for the press. But there will be a packing of the Exec Bd that will make Roosevelt's attempt to pack the Supreme Court look like he was playing with toy soldiers. And, you vill not disaffiliate from the AFT. You never intended to disaffiliate from the AFT. And you vill never ever let such evil thoughts ever, ever, ever enter your brain case.


Now, in the totally weird department, MEETING ON A TRAIN:

I'm on the subway today heading up to the demo in Harlem at PS 123 when I see some people with luggage and a subway map looking a bit lost. I offer to help and it turns out they are heading to a hotel near Madison Sq Garden and are from Oregon. Portland.

"Oh," I say. "I've been writing about a situation in Portland about Local 5017 (just try and sue me you AFT goons for using this "copy written" term), a health care union.

The lady's eyes go wide. "I know all about it."

What! I meet some people on a subway who are trying to find their stop for their hotel and she knows the same obscure story that about 10 people in this country know?

"I write a blog on healthcare," she says. "I got a call from the AFT asking me if I wanted to interview Randi Weingarten while I'm in Manhattan. Is she an important person?"

"Nahhh," I answer.

"I heard she met with Obama," she said.

Well, they agree on so much about education: merit pay, charter schools, screwing teachers.

Well, it turns out my accidental friend is Diane Lund-Muzikant, editor-in-chief of THE LUND REPORT. She has spent the past two decades writing about our healthcare system. Her About Me says, "Diane is the founder and former executive director and editor of Oregon Health Forum/Oregon Health News, an organization she ran for 16 ½ years. Under her leadership, it became the leading resource for health policy issues in the Pacific Northwest. Earlier, as a freelance journalist her work appeared in Good Housekeeping, People Magazine, The Oregonian and national health policy journals."

"Send me some questions to ask Randi," Diane said, as we came to her subway stop and we exchanged cards. She seemed to be with her husband and possibly daughter,who was rolling her eyes by this point in the same manner my wife does when I get into blogging mentality mode.

They finally get Diane away to New York for a few days so the family will not be haunted by the obsessed of the blogosphere (and believe me, I saw the same light in Diane's eyes that I see in mine), they are not even at their hotel, and she meets another blogging nut.

On the subway, no less. (Well, where else would you meet a nut in New York?)

By the way, check out The Lund Report. Can't wait to read that Randi interview. Maybe Diane will take me along as a cub reporter. After all, Randi actually invited me to go to Portland with her at the UFT Ex Bd meeting recently.


Related news:
Can the UFT hold an election without Jeff Zahler, who has been in DC as AFT staff director practicing up on his hackism, to do some old-fashioned red baiting? Will Randi firm up the team to support Mulgrew? Or just make sure to keep an eye on him so he doesn't get that lean and hungry look. Et tu, Randi?

AFT Hack Attack on Portland Local 5017

Some of you may not be paying attention to this "small" story in Portland, Or. But the role being played by the AFT against a local daring to discuss leaving the AFT is indicative of the kinds of desperate attempts to keep people in line. Let's say an entire chapter at a school decided to withdraw from COPE. Will the UFT come in and depose the elected union officials? Don't be surprised.


Let's say you're a relatively small laid back union office in just as laid back Portland, Oregon and one day 20 guys in suits – and no one wears suits in Portland – barge in and take over your office, seizing all records and computers. They say they are from the national AFT (sent by Queen Randi) and are deposing the elected representatives of the Local. Having dealt with Unity Caucus goons for 40 years, what would I do? Call the cops and charge them with breaking and entry. But this is laid back Portland and people are polite.

Here's a follow-up on the Ed Notes report on the AFT takeover of Local 5017 in Portland, Oregon (Randi Goes to Portland As AFT Threatens Local Considering Disaffiliation).

There's a new blog for Local 5017: Take Back Local 5017

This blog is about union democracy. On July 7, 2009 Oregon Federation of Nurses and Health Professionals, Local 5017, a small healthcare local in Portland, Oregon was taken over by its parent union and put under trusteeship. We want Local 5017 back!

The first I knew something was up in Portland was when Randi facetiously asked me if I wanted to go with her to Oregon at her farewell speech to the UFT Ex Bd meeting, the one where Mike Mulgrew was crowned. Randi is due in Portland next week to try to put out the fire.

The Oregon Federation of Nurses and Health Professionals, Local 5017, has 3500 members, health care workers like lab techs and nurses. They have been in the AFT for 30 years, during which time their concerns have been mostly ignored by the AFT hierarchy. The more active members felt the AFT looked at them as a cash cow, sucking up their dues. One of them even showed up at an AFT convention dressed as a cow covered with cash.

The last straw came when the AFT pulled funding for an important lobbying campaign for a bill that would not allow hospitals to cut staff under a certain level, a lobbying campaign that received little support from the AFT all along. The Local had put much time and effort into the campaign and wasn't even informed by the Oregon AFT lobbyist that the bill had been dropped.

They had been watching from next door the effectiveness of the California Nurses Association led by Rose Ann DeMoro, a left progressive unionist and a dirty word to some union leaders, who is a VP on the AFL/CIO Exec Bd where she gets to rub elbows with Randi. (Hopefully, Randi's collaborationist agenda will not rub off on Rose Ann.) Dreams of actually having a union that would fight for them began to drift through Local 5017's Exec Bd and a decision was made in late May to explore their options, including disaffiliation from the AFT.

Some moles on the 5017 Exec Bd spilled the beans to AFT central and Randi sent a letter to the leaders, along the lines of "please come back, but if you don't, you're dead." Local 5017 elected leaders, upon legal advice, refused to talk to her. Off came the glove. One of the major charges? Their Constitution says they don't hold meetings in July and they called a general membership meeting to discuss - not vote - on the concept of whether disaffiliating from the AFT made sense and what were their other options. Wow! Another was misappropriation of union dues, a more serious charge – until you get the actual details. Like money spent to hold a meeting to discuss the issue of disaffiation. In the UFT, you see, discussing issues openly is considered subversive.

The AFT is like COPE in the UFT, or a black hole – once you get in, there is no getting back out. Ever.

It would be like ICE contacting the AFT and charging the UFT with a total lack of democracy, with manipulating school elections to assure Unity Caucus control wherever possible, for using member dues for personal political agendas, for running a massive patronage machine, etc. And having Randi Weingarten send in a team of AFT goons to take over the UFT and depose the union leadership – led by Randi Weingarten or her hand-picked successor Michael Mulgrew.

Never mind.

Now, we've been down this road before with the FMPR in Puerto Rico, whose 40,000 member actually did disaffiliate five years ago and was dragged into court (unsuccessfully by the AFT) for years. Ed Notes followed the story and used a bunch of stuff from Mike Antonucci at the Educational Intelligence Agency. Stories like this that make teachers unions look like goons make Antonucci salivate and he did a good job of covering the PR story over a period of time. (I collated the EIA stuff in chronological order. It is posted at Norm's Notes here. In addition, I posted more info - search using "FMPR" to find them all.)

Antonucci blogged about it today at EIA.

AFT Running the Puerto Rico Playbook in Oregon.

The officers and board of the Oregon Federation of Nurses and Health Professionals made the fatal mistake of planning to hold a meeting in July – something contrary to the union's bylaws. On the agenda was whether to ask the rank-and-file about remaining affiliated with the American Federation of Teachers.

A few former officers found out about the plan and went to AFT national headquarters with the news. AFT proceeded to remove the duly elected officers and the entire board, and establish a trusteeship. AFT tried this once before in Puerto Rico under similar cicumstances, but it didn't work so well.

Now we learn that the Oregon local officers haven't even seen the formal charges against them, and they claim the alleged unauthorized use of union dues has to do with the money spent to set up the meeting.

Supporters of the ousted officers have created a web site called Take Back Local 5017. My advice? First, get a good labor attorney. Second, contact the Association for Union Democracy. Third, get the members in the streets.

Get numbers in the streets? In laid back Portland? Our reports are that the AFT invaders (shades of Eva Moskowitz at PS 123) are using the Randi velvet fist, treating people real nice and trying to win enough people over to kill the insurgency. All in prep for Randi's visit next week (and wouldn't she be surprised to find me out front handing out Ed Notes).

Which will go like this:

All sweetness and feeling their pain and letting bygones be bygones. She will be like sugar and have almost everyone purring. Randi's brilliance is her understanding that you can buy most people with not much more than paying them some attention and promising more of the same (see New Action Caucus). Nothing much else will really change, but people will feel they are being listened to. Thus, the major insurgency will end, there will be a few months of being paid attention to and then it's back to the beginning.

My advice to Local 5017? Stay in the AFT (that I see as a fait accompli already) and join with other emerging dissidents to make Randi rue the day she bothered to try to lock you in.


Related
An earlier report from EIA: AFT Stages Coup (or Counter-Coup?) in Oregon.

Note his interesting final point: no member can be entirely comfortable with the summary removal of their elected officers based on the accusations of a handful of opponents. Exactly the tactic Unity Caucus uses to challenge chapter elections when they don't like the winning chapter leader or delegate.

... a small army of American Federation of Teachers officials and staff walked into the headquarters of the Oregon Federation of Nurses and Health Professionals (OFNHP) and took control of the union. The affiliate represents about 3,000 nurses and health care workers in both Washington and Oregon.

AFT put the union under a “protective order,” removing from office OFNHP President Kathy Geroux, three other officers, and the entire 16-member executive board.

“OFNHP’s leaders forgot what business they are in,” said AFT-appointed trustee Mark Richard. Richard previously served as an AFT-appointed trustee over the United Teachers of Dade after the Pat Tornillo scandal. ”They were supposed to protect members rights, create democracy in the workplace and the union hall and ensure that contractual language were protected. Instead, they engaged in a campaign of falsehoods, ignored members rights, violated their fiduciary responsibilities and placed their contract with Kaiser at risk.”

AFT asserts it was “approached by several members of the Oregon affiliate, including former elected officers, who presented a petition asking for assistance from the national union.” The current OFNHP leadership team was accused of “using union dues without proper authorization and taking actions in violation of the union’s local and national constitutions to change the bargaining status of OFNHP’s members and possibly switch union affiliations.”

“There was no other avenue left, so we acted,” said AFT spokesman Jamie Horwitz. “This is a rare circumstance triggered by a large number of local members contacting us and saying their local was out of control. The local has every right to leave the AFT, they just have to follow the rules.”

The situation may be exactly as AFT describes, but we should reserve judgment until we hear from the ousted union officers. AFT action’s are eerily similar to those it took in Puerto Rico in 2005, but the FMPR defied the trusteeship and successfully seceded from the national union.

AFT has the responsibility to protect members from the actions of unscrupulous local leaders – something it has had difficulty doing in the past – but no member can be entirely comfortable with the summary removal of their elected officers based on the accusations of a handful of opponents.

There will be more to come.

Yes there will. We're efforting to get ahold of Randi's letter to Local 5017 elected officials and hope to have reports on her visit.