| ... |
Emma Leheny, Esq. to be
CTA Chief Council
April 2010
At the April Board meeting
Emma Leheny was hired to be our
new Associate Executive Director/
Chief Counsel replacing Alice
O’Brien who is has gone to NEA.
Ms. Leheny is currently a Partner at
Rothner, Segall, Greenstone & Leheny,
one of our Group Legal Services
firms. She has represented CTA
members in dismissal and layoff
proceedings,
filed writs and complaints
to enforce Education Code provisions,
regularly advised teachers, and pursued
labor board charges for CTA
chapters. Ms. Leheny has also prepared
draft legislation for various
public sector unions and provided
legal trainings for CTA staff and leaders
as well as presentations at UCLA
School of Law and Colorado Law
School on legal ethics and labor law.
CTA Chief Council
April 2010
At the April Board meeting
Emma Leheny was hired to be our
new Associate Executive Director/
Chief Counsel replacing Alice
O’Brien who is has gone to NEA.
Ms. Leheny is currently a Partner at
Rothner, Segall, Greenstone & Leheny,
one of our Group Legal Services
firms. She has represented CTA
members in dismissal and layoff
proceedings,
filed writs and complaints
to enforce Education Code provisions,
regularly advised teachers, and pursued
labor board charges for CTA
chapters. Ms. Leheny has also prepared
draft legislation for various
public sector unions and provided
legal trainings for CTA staff and leaders
as well as presentations at UCLA
School of Law and Colorado Law
School on legal ethics and labor law.
Why This Website
Stutz Artiano Shinoff
& Holtz v. Maura
Larkins defamation
SDCOE
CVESD
Castle Park
Elementary School
Law Enforcement
CTA
CVE
Stutz Artiano Shinoff
& Holtz
Silence is Golden
Schools and Violence
Office Admin Hearings
Larkins OAH Hearing
Stutz Artiano Shinoff
& Holtz v. Maura
Larkins defamation
SDCOE
CVESD
Castle Park
Elementary School
Law Enforcement
CTA
CVE
Stutz Artiano Shinoff
& Holtz
Silence is Golden
Schools and Violence
Office Admin Hearings
Larkins OAH Hearing
Emma Leheny Chief Counsel
Legal Services, Summer
program UCLA
Legal Services, Summer
program UCLA
Chief Counsel Alice O’Brien
aobrien@cta.org replaced by
Emma Leheny in 2010 (served
briefly after Beverly Tucker
retired).
aobrien@cta.org replaced by
Emma Leheny in 2010 (served
briefly after Beverly Tucker
retired).
Emma Leheny supported Elizabeth
Schulman in suit regarding Maura
Larkins' case
Schulman in suit regarding Maura
Larkins' case
Settlements reached
in reality TV labor
suits
By Steve Gorman
Jan 21, 2009
(Reuters) - Several major U.S. TV
networks and the producers of
such reality shows as "Trading
Spouses" and "The Bachelor"
have agreed to pay over $4
million to settle two lawsuits
claiming violations of California
wage rules.
The settlement will benefit more
than 400 workers who were part
of the 3-year-old class-action
cases, and some of those
individuals stand to reap tens of
thousands of dollars, a lawyer for
the plaintiffs, Emma Leheny, said
on Wednesday.
In addition to "Trading Spouses"
and "The Bachelor," the shows
covered by the suits included
"The Will," "Are You Hot?", "Joe
Millionaire" and "My Big Fat
Obnoxious Fiance."
The litigation coincided with a
broader ongoing effort by the
Writers Guild of America to obtain
a labor contract for the creative
workers behind unscripted TV
productions as a whole, such as
"American Idol" and "Survivor."
Some of those programs rank
among the biggest hits on U.S.
television and are far cheaper to
produce than traditional prime-
time dramas and sitcoms.
The suits claimed reality show
employees routinely put in as
much as 80 hours a week
without overtime, were denied
work breaks for meals and
were forced to falsify their
time cards, all in violation of
state wage and hour laws.
"We really found pervasive
violations," Leheny told Reuters.
"It seems to be a system based
on the underpayment of workers
in an industry where employers
are looking to save money and
speed up production, create very
profitable shows, and the people
who are shortchanged are these
employees."
A spokeswoman for lawyers
representing the defendant
companies declined comment.
Defendants included the networks
CBS, ABC and Fox, and the
production companies Rocket
Science Laboratories and Next
Entertainment.
A Writers Guild spokesman, Jeff
Hermanson, said the violations
cited in the two class-action cases
"were just the tip of the iceberg."
"There are literally thousands of
people suffering the same
abuses," he said. "Not only do
they not receive overtime and
meal breaks, they don't have
health insurance or pensions,
credits or residuals."
In addition to the legal settlement,
some reality TV workers have
collected hundreds of thousands
of dollars through separate
complaints filed with the California
Division of Labor Standards
Enforcement, Hermanson said.
The Writers Guild sought to gain
union jurisdiction over reality
shows in its last round of contract
negotiations but dropped that
demand in settling its 14-week
strike against major studios.
The WGA says roughly 1,000
reality TV "story-tellers" have
signed authorization cards asking
for union representation.
Industry executives deny those
employees act as writers because
they do not, for the most part, pen
conventional scripts or dialogue.
But the union says they serve the
functional equivalent of writers by
working to create dramatic
tension -- and the artifice of
spontaneity -- by helping to stage
interactions of contestants and
editing hundreds of hours of tape
into coherent, compelling story
lines.
(Editing by Dan Whitcomb and
Cynthia Osterman)
Guild Lawyers Can
Represent Writers in
‘Reality’ TV Suits—C.
A.
By KENNETH OFGANG, Staff
Writer
Metropolitan News-Enterprise
May 30, 2008
A Pasadena law firm does not
have a disqualifying conflict in
representing non-union television
writers who are suing for labor law
violations, while also representing
the union that is trying to organize
those writers, this district’s Court
of Appeal has ruled.
Div. Three Wednesday affirmed
Los Angeles Superior Court
Judge Conrad R. Aragon’s denial
of a motion to disqualify the firm
of Rothner, Segall & Greenstone
from representing 21 writers who
have brought a class action
against producers of “reality”
television shows. The plaintiffs
claim that producers failed to pay
wages and overtime, and to
provide meal and rest breaks,
among other things.
The plaintiffs’ lead counsel is
Emma Leheny of the Rothner
firm. A name partner in the firm,
Anthony Segall, also serves as
general counsel for the Writers
Guild of America.
In 2005, Segall and Leheny
began discussions with writers
about the possibility of wage-and-
hour suits against producers and
networks, which the guild would
finance. Each of the writers who
agreed to become class action
plaintiffs acknowledged in writing
that the guild would be paying
their legal costs and that the
attorneys representing them also
represented the guild.
Motion to Disqualify
In moving to disqualify the
Rothner firm, the defendants
argued that they had an
irreconcilable conflict because the
writers, in particular those who
were not named as plaintiffs, had
an interest in resolving their
differences with the defendants
that was incompatible with the
guild’s interest in unionizing them.
The firm responded that all
plaintiffs had signed waivers; that
the guild had acknowledged that
the plaintiffs controlled the
litigation and that for purposes of
suit, the plaintiffs and not the
guild were the firm’s clients; that
Segall was not involved in the
litigation and had not discussed it
with the attorneys handling it; and
that independent co-counsel, who
would not be paid by the guild,
had been associated.
In addition, all counsel working on
the suits declared in writing that
they would not do guild work while
the litigation was pending.
Aragon ruled that as long as
ethical walls were maintained, the
firm could continue to work on the
case. He also denied the
defendants’ related motion to
disqualify the plaintiffs from
representing the class.
Justice Richard Aldrich, writing for
the Court of Appeal, said Aragon
was correct as a matter of law.
Consistent With Rule
The measures taken to avoid
conflicts were consistent with Rule
3-310 of the Rules of Professional
Conduct, and the waivers signed
by the plaintiffs were sufficient,
Aldrich said.
He wrote:
“The motion to disqualify here is
not brought by one of the parties
who may suffer because of a
purported conflict, but by
opposition parties who are not
directly touched by the purported
conflict. Disqualification of the
Rothner firm may impose a
significant hardship on plaintiffs,
who will bear the burden on
finding replacement counsel with
the skills and knowledge of the
Rothner firm, a firm that already
has expended more than 1,000
hours on the case, including the
review of more than 8,000 pages
of documents over seven
months...As such, we must be
skeptical of the impetus and
purpose of defendants’ motion to
disqualify the Rothner firm
because it poses the very threat
to the integrity of the judicial
process that it purports to
prevent.”
As for whether the named
plaintiffs can effectively represent
the absent class members, the
justice went on to say, that issue
must be resolved in connection
with a motion for class
certification, not by a preemptive
motion to disqualify.
The case is Sharp v. Next
Entertainment, Inc., B194374.
in reality TV labor
suits
By Steve Gorman
Jan 21, 2009
(Reuters) - Several major U.S. TV
networks and the producers of
such reality shows as "Trading
Spouses" and "The Bachelor"
have agreed to pay over $4
million to settle two lawsuits
claiming violations of California
wage rules.
The settlement will benefit more
than 400 workers who were part
of the 3-year-old class-action
cases, and some of those
individuals stand to reap tens of
thousands of dollars, a lawyer for
the plaintiffs, Emma Leheny, said
on Wednesday.
In addition to "Trading Spouses"
and "The Bachelor," the shows
covered by the suits included
"The Will," "Are You Hot?", "Joe
Millionaire" and "My Big Fat
Obnoxious Fiance."
The litigation coincided with a
broader ongoing effort by the
Writers Guild of America to obtain
a labor contract for the creative
workers behind unscripted TV
productions as a whole, such as
"American Idol" and "Survivor."
Some of those programs rank
among the biggest hits on U.S.
television and are far cheaper to
produce than traditional prime-
time dramas and sitcoms.
The suits claimed reality show
employees routinely put in as
much as 80 hours a week
without overtime, were denied
work breaks for meals and
were forced to falsify their
time cards, all in violation of
state wage and hour laws.
"We really found pervasive
violations," Leheny told Reuters.
"It seems to be a system based
on the underpayment of workers
in an industry where employers
are looking to save money and
speed up production, create very
profitable shows, and the people
who are shortchanged are these
employees."
A spokeswoman for lawyers
representing the defendant
companies declined comment.
Defendants included the networks
CBS, ABC and Fox, and the
production companies Rocket
Science Laboratories and Next
Entertainment.
A Writers Guild spokesman, Jeff
Hermanson, said the violations
cited in the two class-action cases
"were just the tip of the iceberg."
"There are literally thousands of
people suffering the same
abuses," he said. "Not only do
they not receive overtime and
meal breaks, they don't have
health insurance or pensions,
credits or residuals."
In addition to the legal settlement,
some reality TV workers have
collected hundreds of thousands
of dollars through separate
complaints filed with the California
Division of Labor Standards
Enforcement, Hermanson said.
The Writers Guild sought to gain
union jurisdiction over reality
shows in its last round of contract
negotiations but dropped that
demand in settling its 14-week
strike against major studios.
The WGA says roughly 1,000
reality TV "story-tellers" have
signed authorization cards asking
for union representation.
Industry executives deny those
employees act as writers because
they do not, for the most part, pen
conventional scripts or dialogue.
But the union says they serve the
functional equivalent of writers by
working to create dramatic
tension -- and the artifice of
spontaneity -- by helping to stage
interactions of contestants and
editing hundreds of hours of tape
into coherent, compelling story
lines.
(Editing by Dan Whitcomb and
Cynthia Osterman)
Guild Lawyers Can
Represent Writers in
‘Reality’ TV Suits—C.
A.
By KENNETH OFGANG, Staff
Writer
Metropolitan News-Enterprise
May 30, 2008
A Pasadena law firm does not
have a disqualifying conflict in
representing non-union television
writers who are suing for labor law
violations, while also representing
the union that is trying to organize
those writers, this district’s Court
of Appeal has ruled.
Div. Three Wednesday affirmed
Los Angeles Superior Court
Judge Conrad R. Aragon’s denial
of a motion to disqualify the firm
of Rothner, Segall & Greenstone
from representing 21 writers who
have brought a class action
against producers of “reality”
television shows. The plaintiffs
claim that producers failed to pay
wages and overtime, and to
provide meal and rest breaks,
among other things.
The plaintiffs’ lead counsel is
Emma Leheny of the Rothner
firm. A name partner in the firm,
Anthony Segall, also serves as
general counsel for the Writers
Guild of America.
In 2005, Segall and Leheny
began discussions with writers
about the possibility of wage-and-
hour suits against producers and
networks, which the guild would
finance. Each of the writers who
agreed to become class action
plaintiffs acknowledged in writing
that the guild would be paying
their legal costs and that the
attorneys representing them also
represented the guild.
Motion to Disqualify
In moving to disqualify the
Rothner firm, the defendants
argued that they had an
irreconcilable conflict because the
writers, in particular those who
were not named as plaintiffs, had
an interest in resolving their
differences with the defendants
that was incompatible with the
guild’s interest in unionizing them.
The firm responded that all
plaintiffs had signed waivers; that
the guild had acknowledged that
the plaintiffs controlled the
litigation and that for purposes of
suit, the plaintiffs and not the
guild were the firm’s clients; that
Segall was not involved in the
litigation and had not discussed it
with the attorneys handling it; and
that independent co-counsel, who
would not be paid by the guild,
had been associated.
In addition, all counsel working on
the suits declared in writing that
they would not do guild work while
the litigation was pending.
Aragon ruled that as long as
ethical walls were maintained, the
firm could continue to work on the
case. He also denied the
defendants’ related motion to
disqualify the plaintiffs from
representing the class.
Justice Richard Aldrich, writing for
the Court of Appeal, said Aragon
was correct as a matter of law.
Consistent With Rule
The measures taken to avoid
conflicts were consistent with Rule
3-310 of the Rules of Professional
Conduct, and the waivers signed
by the plaintiffs were sufficient,
Aldrich said.
He wrote:
“The motion to disqualify here is
not brought by one of the parties
who may suffer because of a
purported conflict, but by
opposition parties who are not
directly touched by the purported
conflict. Disqualification of the
Rothner firm may impose a
significant hardship on plaintiffs,
who will bear the burden on
finding replacement counsel with
the skills and knowledge of the
Rothner firm, a firm that already
has expended more than 1,000
hours on the case, including the
review of more than 8,000 pages
of documents over seven
months...As such, we must be
skeptical of the impetus and
purpose of defendants’ motion to
disqualify the Rothner firm
because it poses the very threat
to the integrity of the judicial
process that it purports to
prevent.”
As for whether the named
plaintiffs can effectively represent
the absent class members, the
justice went on to say, that issue
must be resolved in connection
with a motion for class
certification, not by a preemptive
motion to disqualify.
The case is Sharp v. Next
Entertainment, Inc., B194374.
Northeastern University School of
Law
400 Huntington Avenue
Boston, Massachusetts 02115
Summer 2005 issue
Class of 1997
Emma Leheny has been named a
partner at the Pasadena, Calif.,
office of Rothner, Segall &
Greenstone. The firm specializes
in representing public and private
sector labor unions and plaintiffs
in civil rights and employment
litigation.
Law
400 Huntington Avenue
Boston, Massachusetts 02115
Summer 2005 issue
Class of 1997
Emma Leheny has been named a
partner at the Pasadena, Calif.,
office of Rothner, Segall &
Greenstone. The firm specializes
in representing public and private
sector labor unions and plaintiffs
in civil rights and employment
litigation.
Emma Leheny
Rothner Segall Greenstone & Leheny
History
B.A. with honors, Brown University,
1992
Extern, Hon. Thelton Henderson,
(then) Chief Judge, N.D. Cal., 1995
J.D., Northeastern University School
of Law, 1997
Judicial Clerk, Hon. Warren Ferguson,
(then) Senior Judge, 9th Circuit,
1997-98
Skadden Fellow, Western Center on
Law and Poverty, 1998-2000
Associate, Rothner, Segall &
Greenstone, 2000-2004
Partner, Rothner, Segall &
Greenstone, 2005-2008
Partner, Rothner, Segall, Greenstone
& Leheny, 2009
Memberships
Member, Labor & Employment Exec.
Comm'ee, L.A. County Bar Ass'n,
2007-Present
Presenter, ABA Labor & Employment
Section (2009), California Teachers
Association (2008), California Public
Employment Relations (2007),
AFL-CIO Lawyers Coordinating
Committee (2006), and California
Labor & Employment Section (2004)
Featured as subject of book chapter
in Beyond the Big Firm: Profiles of
Lawyers Who Want Something More,
ed. Stanford Law School professors
Alan Morrison and Diane Chin (2007)
Contributor, Labor & Employment
Journal (2003-2007)
Contributor, Developing Labor Law
(2002)
Rothner Segall Greenstone & Leheny
History
B.A. with honors, Brown University,
1992
Extern, Hon. Thelton Henderson,
(then) Chief Judge, N.D. Cal., 1995
J.D., Northeastern University School
of Law, 1997
Judicial Clerk, Hon. Warren Ferguson,
(then) Senior Judge, 9th Circuit,
1997-98
Skadden Fellow, Western Center on
Law and Poverty, 1998-2000
Associate, Rothner, Segall &
Greenstone, 2000-2004
Partner, Rothner, Segall &
Greenstone, 2005-2008
Partner, Rothner, Segall, Greenstone
& Leheny, 2009
Memberships
Member, Labor & Employment Exec.
Comm'ee, L.A. County Bar Ass'n,
2007-Present
Presenter, ABA Labor & Employment
Section (2009), California Teachers
Association (2008), California Public
Employment Relations (2007),
AFL-CIO Lawyers Coordinating
Committee (2006), and California
Labor & Employment Section (2004)
Featured as subject of book chapter
in Beyond the Big Firm: Profiles of
Lawyers Who Want Something More,
ed. Stanford Law School professors
Alan Morrison and Diane Chin (2007)
Contributor, Labor & Employment
Journal (2003-2007)
Contributor, Developing Labor Law
(2002)
Emma Leheny
The State Bar of California.
Bar Number:
196167
California Teachers Association
1705 Murchison Dr
Burlingame, CA 94010
(650) 552-5413
Fax (650) 552-5019
County: San Mateo
Undergraduate School:
Brown Univ; Providence RI
Sections: Labor &
Employment
Law School: Northeastern
Univ SOL; Boston MA
6/29/1998 Admitted to The
State Bar of California
The State Bar of California.
Bar Number:
196167
California Teachers Association
1705 Murchison Dr
Burlingame, CA 94010
(650) 552-5413
Fax (650) 552-5019
County: San Mateo
Undergraduate School:
Brown Univ; Providence RI
Sections: Labor &
Employment
Law School: Northeastern
Univ SOL; Boston MA
6/29/1998 Admitted to The
State Bar of California
Kaiser demands cuts in nursing
staff and wages--despite $5.7
BILLION profit since 2009
(and so does Sutter Health San Francisco
with $200,000,000 profit in 2012)
JANUARY 15, 2013
What's more important than consumer
health? A 20% profit rate by a "non-profit".
Who helped punish nurses for forming a
new union? Lawyer Emma Leheny, who
has done work for CTA for many years and
is now head counsel of CTA, California
Teachers Association (see below).
Eric Banks, PERB board member, was
powerful at SEIU--but it seems to have been
before the notorious Kaiser dealings at right.
"The state’s huge hospital chains and
health corporations are demanding
concessions on very front: staffing levels,
health and welfare, pensions, even wages,
and this at a time when these corporations
(all ‘non-profits’) have rarely been more
profitable."
--Cal Winslow
An Alliance in Healthcare
By Cal Winslow
Zcommunications.org
January 05, 2013
Cal Winslow's ZSpace Page
In a giant step forward for California
healthcare workers, two of the nation’s most
militant unions have joined forces in the battle
against Kaiser Permanente, the giant
California based healthcare corporation. It is
a battle of enormous proportion, one with
implications for the entire industry, almost
certainly beyond.
The alliance joins the California Nurses
Association (CNA) with the new National Union
of Healthcare Workers (NUHW); it was
formally announced January 3, at CNA
headquarters in Oakland, CA. It comes in the
face of a set of interrelated challenges, each
crucial, first of all of healthcare workers of
course, but equally important for patients, for
workers nationwide, for us all.
“This is an affiliation whose time has come,”
NUHW president Sal Rosselli told the
assembly of healthcare workers, union staff
and members of the press. “Employer attacks
are on the rise, nowhere more so than at
Kaiser Permanente. NUHW members at
Kaiser, with RN co-workers from CNA have
already engaged in repeated statewide
strikes to stand their ground against
threatened reductions to wages, benefits and
job protections that other unions at Kaiser
have already agreed to in spite of four years
of record profits for Kaiser.”
Other unions? Here, already, the plot
thickens, for this alliance is not just to battle
Kaiser; it is also to fight Kaiser’s incumbent
union, the Service Employees International
Union’s (SEIU) California affiliate, United
Healthcare Worker West (UHW). Zenei
Cortez, RN, who chairs CNA’s Kaiser
bargaining team, also CNA co-president,
explained, “Uniting together, CNA and NUHW
are taking a huge step forward in achieving
our joint goal of upholding standards for
workers and patients.” She made it quite
clear, however, that the fight was also with
SEIU’s UHW. “We will have to fight Dave
Regan /UHW’s imported, thug extraordinaire
president/ as well. We will fight Reagan and
his cronies, it is disheartening to say that he
has undermined our fight, but we will fight him
every step of the way.”
It will be an uphill fight. California healthcare
workers face an employer’s assault
unprecedented in recent history. The state’s
huge hospital chains and health corporations
are demanding concessions on very front:
staffing levels, health and welfare, pensions,
even wages, and this at a time when these
corporations (all ‘non-profits’) have rarely
been more profitable. Kaiser, the country’s
largest healthcare corporation, has made
$5.7 billion since 2009; it pays its CEO
George Halvorson $8 million a year (along
with a dozen pensions). Kaiser has twenty top
executives who receive annually more than $1
million each.
Sutter Health, another huge Northern
California hospital chain, last year alone
made 200 million dollars at its San Francisco
complex, an astounding feat – as Bay Area
labor writer Carl Finamore points out, it
presents a profit rate of 20%, far above
industry averages. In the past year Sutter
RNs have repeatedly struck, defying demand’
s for concessions, most recently December
24. Sutter, like Kaiser, sits on huge reserves...
California’s Health Care Wars
Counterpunch
by CAL WINSLOW
June 19, 2012
California’s healthcare workers’ wars
continue, in the streets, in collective
bargaining and in the courts, at a level of
conflict not often matched in the US today.
More, in these California conflicts, healthcare
workers and their unions are as often as not
on the offensive.
The new National Union of Healthcare
Workers (NUHW) has struck the huge
healthcare chain Kaiser Permanente four
times now in the past year, twice with support
from California Nurses Association (CNA-NNU)
RNs. These two walk-outs (in September
2011 and January 2012), involving 20,000
strikers plus each, rank as the largest but one
(the Verizon strike) on the table of recent
strikes. At the same time, this spring, the
NUHW has won first contracts – with wage
increases and no concessions – at hospitals
including Keck Medical Center, University of
Southern California; Sutter Health’s California
Pacific Medical Center in San Francisco;
Santa Rosa Memorial Hospital; the Salinas
Valley Memorial Hospital; and Doctors Medical
Center in San Pablo.
At Kaiser, NUHW members are refusing to
accept demands in deliberately stalled
negotiations for concessions by a (non-
profit?) corporation that “profited” $2.1 billion
last year and pays its CEO George Halvorson
$9 million annually (eight pension plans
thrown in). And they are doing this while the
rival Service Employees International
Union (SEIU) has caved in to Kaiser yet
again, this time signing a backroom deal
that includes concessions demanded by
Kaiser in particular in healthcare
benefits.
The union has agreed to a “Wellness
Program” that commits members to (among
other things) “holding down the costs of care
at KP” and “enhancing the effectiveness and
productivity of the organization” –an
agreement that sets a very dangerous
precedent for unions in California and a
primary reason the Kaiser nurses have
already been out – in solidarity strikes,
supporting NUHW – twice. All this comes as
NUHW members prepare for the upcoming
rerun of the big Kaiser election (43,000
service and technical workers) of 2010 – the
results of that election, won by SEIU in
collusion with Kaiser, having been thrown out
by an NLRB judge, based on evidence of
widespread misconduct by SEIU.
At the same time, NUHW’s fight with SEIU has
gone through another round in the courts. On
Wednesday, June 13, in a San Francisco
courtroom packed with NUHW members and
supporters, NUHW lawyers presented oral
arguments in the appeal of sixteen former
United Healthcare Workers West (UHW)
elected officers and leaders and the NUHW.
They appealed damages awarded in the 2010
civil suit brought by the SEIU.
The 2010 San Francisco civil case was a
sordid episode, another low in SEIU’s most
recent low road adventures. SEIU, to the
surprise of few, had trusteed its militant,
progressive, 150,000 member California local,
UHW.
SEIU seized the assets of UHW, fired its
officers, removed its elected executive board
and purged its stewards. Not content with
trusteeship, SEIU was determined, in the
words of its then vice president, “Wall Street”
Dave Regan, now UHW president, “to drive a
stake through the heart” of the new union,
and, more, to see that the former, elected,
UHW leaders and staff would “never again
work in the labor movement.”
SEIU’s goal, then, was not just to wreck UHW
(which it now has done), but to punish its
leaders and staff. In the extraordinary trial in
Federal Court, 28 NUHW leaders were sued
for “damages” – SEIU, in a civil lawsuit,
demanded of the defendants $25 million. It
was astonishing, an assault on a group of
working class organizers, all the more vicious
given lifestyles of SEIU’s top leaders (Regan:
salary $300,000 plus), not to mention their
millionaire lawyers. It charged that these
people, all union men and women, had
“conspired” (for “personal power and profit”) –
for years and all on “company” time – to leave
SEIU and found a new union. It claimed they
were responsible for an array of alleged
offences including alleged illegal actions.
They were charged with “theft, violence, and
sabotage;” they “left contacts open,”
“neglected grievances,” were guilty of
“fiduciary malfeasance.”
But all these were dropped, and the pursuit of
damages was reduced to $4 million. The case
essentially came down to the charge that the
UHW leaders were working – for two or three
weeks in January, 2009 – against SEIU while
still on the payroll. The judge, William Alsup,
clearly agreed and the he instructed the jury
to fix awards accordingly.
The jury – which included not a single union
member – found against sixteen of the
defendants, all former UHW leaders and held
them liable for $725,000. NUHW was also
found liable for $725,000, though this too was
extraordinary; NUHW had no “fiduciary duty”
to SEIU and did not exist in the weeks at issue.
$1.5 million, nevertheless, was awarded, a far
cry from the $25 million first demanded, but
cruel punishment for sixteen working men and
women.
The appeal was argued before a three judge
panel of the US Court of Appeals, Ninth
Circuit. Oakland attorney Dan Siegel
contested the awards in the 2010 trial. Siegel
challenged the basis for these findings,
focusing on the alleged “fiduciary
malfeasance.” –the charge that the UHW
leaders had defied “fiduciary obligations” to
SEIU leadership. In addition, he argued that
the judge had erred in his instructions to the
jury. In the 2010 trial, Alsup had repeatedly
hectored the jurors, explaining at one point
that this case – this conflict between a
national union and its members in a local –
was analogous to a dispute between the Bank
of America and a branch office. A sort of
corporate affair, an internal conflict within a
corporation. He prohibited any discussion of
any of the issues in the dispute within SEIU.
No one on the jury was a union member.
Siegel insisted that the then elected officers
and leaders of UHW had the right to contest
the trusteeship, including the right to oppose
the SEIU national leadership’s forced transfer
of 65,000 long-term care workers from UHW
to another local California, the key issue at
the time, the one that ultimately was decisive
in SEIU’s case for the trusteeship. The then
UHW leadership had insisted that these
workers had the right to decide the local of
their choice – including the right to vote on
the transfer.
Siegel argued that these officers’
responsibilities, then, were not simply to the
SEIU‘s national leadership, led at the time by
Andy Stern, but also to the members of UHW
(including the 65,000), the people who had
elected them, who determined the local union’
s policies and paid the bills. Indeed they had
an obligation to abide by the member’s
decisions.
He contended that this fact invalidated the
award of damages – these officers and
leaders, even as SEIU members, had every
right to explain to the local union’s members
what rights they had in the weeks between to
decision to transfer the 65,000 and, three
weeks later, the imposition of the trusteeship
when they were all summarily fired.
They were exercising protected speech, free
speech, Siegel argued, when they organized
meetings to inform UHW members of these
rights and choices – including their right to
dissent, to decertify, even the right to form a
new union. SEIU lawyers had responded that
the UHW leaders had no such rights and the
case was essentially reduced to charge that
the UHW leaders were working against SEIU
while still on the payroll.
Siegel also argued that there were larger
issues, issues just as important in the long
run. What were the responsibilities of local
union officers, not just to national leaders but
to their members, again, the workers who
elected them, set policy, etc., in particular
when these members were in disagreement
with national policies?
SEIU lawyer, Leon Dayan, repeated that there
was a long-term conspiracy, something the
jury had not found in 2010, and argued that
the duties of the UHW officers and staff to the
national and the local were one and the same
– hence asserting that the elected local union
officers and leaders were essentially no more
than an administrative arm of the national
union.
Speaking after the hearing, Siegel said the
outcome was important for two reasons, first
“to remove these entirely unfair judgments,
still hanging over the heads of the sixteen
defendants.” In this he said he was optimistic.
Second, on the larger issues, he said he was
worried that the case raised issues that could
prove “very dangerous for union activists. It
took a law – Landrum Griffin Act, 1959 – in
part designed to protect rank-and-file
workers, and turned it on its head, using it as
a vehicle for payback against dissenting local
union officers and members.”
Back to the streets. At the same time these
workers were in court – fighting for the right to
have a union, one of their own choosing –
nurses at Sutter Health were on strike at ten
northern California hospitals. Their walkout,
the fourth strike at Sutter since September,
came as union officials and Sutter
management continued to clash over sick
leave, retirement benefits, health care
payments, patient care conditions and other
issues.
“Nurses at Sutter facilities are facing an
unprecedented attack on their practice the
scope of which we have not seen in over 20
years,” said Zenei Cortez, co-president of
CNA/NNU. “Nurses everywhere are unifying to
resist Sutter’s policies of unprecedented cuts
in vital patient services for our communities
and deterioration of patient care standards in
our hospitals.”
The strike affected 4,400 RNs , as well as
hundreds of respiratory, X-ray and other
technicians at three Alta Bates Summit
Medical Center facilities in Berkeley and
Oakland, Mills-Peninsula Health Services
hospitals in Burlingame and San Mateo, Eden
Medical Center in Castro Valley, San Leandro
Hospital, Sutter Delta in Antioch, Sutter
Solano in Vallejo, Novato Community Hospital.
“We don’t believe that Sutter needs to be
demanding these onerous and unwarranted
cuts from nurses because they are an
extremely profitable operation that operates
as what I call J.P. Morgan West,” said a
California Nurses Association spokesperson.
Sutter Health has made over $4.2 billion in
profits since 2005, according to CNA. “They’
re making decisions on what provides the
best return for their shareholders, not for
patient care,” he said.
Following the San Francisco hearing, a
delegation of NUHW members, clad in red tee-
shirts, headed for a noon rally across the Bay
at Alta-Bates Summit. June, of course, has
not been a good month for labor in the US,
particularly in Wisconsin where the electoral
turn into a (predictable) catastrophe. It’s far
from all over, however. The fight-back
continues, including here, in California’s
booming healthcare industry.
Cal Winslow is the author of Labor’s Civil War
in California, PM Press, 2012 (second edition,
revised and expanded), an editor of Rebel
Rank and File: Labor Militancy and Revolt
From Below during the Long Seventies
(Verso, 2010), and an editor of West of Eden,
Communes and Utopia in Northern California
(PM Press, 2012). He is a Fellow at UC
Berkeley, Director of the Mendocino Institute
and associated with the Bay Area collective,
Retort. He can be reached at
cwinslow@berkeley.edu
staff and wages--despite $5.7
BILLION profit since 2009
(and so does Sutter Health San Francisco
with $200,000,000 profit in 2012)
JANUARY 15, 2013
What's more important than consumer
health? A 20% profit rate by a "non-profit".
Who helped punish nurses for forming a
new union? Lawyer Emma Leheny, who
has done work for CTA for many years and
is now head counsel of CTA, California
Teachers Association (see below).
Eric Banks, PERB board member, was
powerful at SEIU--but it seems to have been
before the notorious Kaiser dealings at right.
"The state’s huge hospital chains and
health corporations are demanding
concessions on very front: staffing levels,
health and welfare, pensions, even wages,
and this at a time when these corporations
(all ‘non-profits’) have rarely been more
profitable."
--Cal Winslow
An Alliance in Healthcare
By Cal Winslow
Zcommunications.org
January 05, 2013
Cal Winslow's ZSpace Page
In a giant step forward for California
healthcare workers, two of the nation’s most
militant unions have joined forces in the battle
against Kaiser Permanente, the giant
California based healthcare corporation. It is
a battle of enormous proportion, one with
implications for the entire industry, almost
certainly beyond.
The alliance joins the California Nurses
Association (CNA) with the new National Union
of Healthcare Workers (NUHW); it was
formally announced January 3, at CNA
headquarters in Oakland, CA. It comes in the
face of a set of interrelated challenges, each
crucial, first of all of healthcare workers of
course, but equally important for patients, for
workers nationwide, for us all.
“This is an affiliation whose time has come,”
NUHW president Sal Rosselli told the
assembly of healthcare workers, union staff
and members of the press. “Employer attacks
are on the rise, nowhere more so than at
Kaiser Permanente. NUHW members at
Kaiser, with RN co-workers from CNA have
already engaged in repeated statewide
strikes to stand their ground against
threatened reductions to wages, benefits and
job protections that other unions at Kaiser
have already agreed to in spite of four years
of record profits for Kaiser.”
Other unions? Here, already, the plot
thickens, for this alliance is not just to battle
Kaiser; it is also to fight Kaiser’s incumbent
union, the Service Employees International
Union’s (SEIU) California affiliate, United
Healthcare Worker West (UHW). Zenei
Cortez, RN, who chairs CNA’s Kaiser
bargaining team, also CNA co-president,
explained, “Uniting together, CNA and NUHW
are taking a huge step forward in achieving
our joint goal of upholding standards for
workers and patients.” She made it quite
clear, however, that the fight was also with
SEIU’s UHW. “We will have to fight Dave
Regan /UHW’s imported, thug extraordinaire
president/ as well. We will fight Reagan and
his cronies, it is disheartening to say that he
has undermined our fight, but we will fight him
every step of the way.”
It will be an uphill fight. California healthcare
workers face an employer’s assault
unprecedented in recent history. The state’s
huge hospital chains and health corporations
are demanding concessions on very front:
staffing levels, health and welfare, pensions,
even wages, and this at a time when these
corporations (all ‘non-profits’) have rarely
been more profitable. Kaiser, the country’s
largest healthcare corporation, has made
$5.7 billion since 2009; it pays its CEO
George Halvorson $8 million a year (along
with a dozen pensions). Kaiser has twenty top
executives who receive annually more than $1
million each.
Sutter Health, another huge Northern
California hospital chain, last year alone
made 200 million dollars at its San Francisco
complex, an astounding feat – as Bay Area
labor writer Carl Finamore points out, it
presents a profit rate of 20%, far above
industry averages. In the past year Sutter
RNs have repeatedly struck, defying demand’
s for concessions, most recently December
24. Sutter, like Kaiser, sits on huge reserves...
California’s Health Care Wars
Counterpunch
by CAL WINSLOW
June 19, 2012
California’s healthcare workers’ wars
continue, in the streets, in collective
bargaining and in the courts, at a level of
conflict not often matched in the US today.
More, in these California conflicts, healthcare
workers and their unions are as often as not
on the offensive.
The new National Union of Healthcare
Workers (NUHW) has struck the huge
healthcare chain Kaiser Permanente four
times now in the past year, twice with support
from California Nurses Association (CNA-NNU)
RNs. These two walk-outs (in September
2011 and January 2012), involving 20,000
strikers plus each, rank as the largest but one
(the Verizon strike) on the table of recent
strikes. At the same time, this spring, the
NUHW has won first contracts – with wage
increases and no concessions – at hospitals
including Keck Medical Center, University of
Southern California; Sutter Health’s California
Pacific Medical Center in San Francisco;
Santa Rosa Memorial Hospital; the Salinas
Valley Memorial Hospital; and Doctors Medical
Center in San Pablo.
At Kaiser, NUHW members are refusing to
accept demands in deliberately stalled
negotiations for concessions by a (non-
profit?) corporation that “profited” $2.1 billion
last year and pays its CEO George Halvorson
$9 million annually (eight pension plans
thrown in). And they are doing this while the
rival Service Employees International
Union (SEIU) has caved in to Kaiser yet
again, this time signing a backroom deal
that includes concessions demanded by
Kaiser in particular in healthcare
benefits.
The union has agreed to a “Wellness
Program” that commits members to (among
other things) “holding down the costs of care
at KP” and “enhancing the effectiveness and
productivity of the organization” –an
agreement that sets a very dangerous
precedent for unions in California and a
primary reason the Kaiser nurses have
already been out – in solidarity strikes,
supporting NUHW – twice. All this comes as
NUHW members prepare for the upcoming
rerun of the big Kaiser election (43,000
service and technical workers) of 2010 – the
results of that election, won by SEIU in
collusion with Kaiser, having been thrown out
by an NLRB judge, based on evidence of
widespread misconduct by SEIU.
At the same time, NUHW’s fight with SEIU has
gone through another round in the courts. On
Wednesday, June 13, in a San Francisco
courtroom packed with NUHW members and
supporters, NUHW lawyers presented oral
arguments in the appeal of sixteen former
United Healthcare Workers West (UHW)
elected officers and leaders and the NUHW.
They appealed damages awarded in the 2010
civil suit brought by the SEIU.
The 2010 San Francisco civil case was a
sordid episode, another low in SEIU’s most
recent low road adventures. SEIU, to the
surprise of few, had trusteed its militant,
progressive, 150,000 member California local,
UHW.
SEIU seized the assets of UHW, fired its
officers, removed its elected executive board
and purged its stewards. Not content with
trusteeship, SEIU was determined, in the
words of its then vice president, “Wall Street”
Dave Regan, now UHW president, “to drive a
stake through the heart” of the new union,
and, more, to see that the former, elected,
UHW leaders and staff would “never again
work in the labor movement.”
SEIU’s goal, then, was not just to wreck UHW
(which it now has done), but to punish its
leaders and staff. In the extraordinary trial in
Federal Court, 28 NUHW leaders were sued
for “damages” – SEIU, in a civil lawsuit,
demanded of the defendants $25 million. It
was astonishing, an assault on a group of
working class organizers, all the more vicious
given lifestyles of SEIU’s top leaders (Regan:
salary $300,000 plus), not to mention their
millionaire lawyers. It charged that these
people, all union men and women, had
“conspired” (for “personal power and profit”) –
for years and all on “company” time – to leave
SEIU and found a new union. It claimed they
were responsible for an array of alleged
offences including alleged illegal actions.
They were charged with “theft, violence, and
sabotage;” they “left contacts open,”
“neglected grievances,” were guilty of
“fiduciary malfeasance.”
But all these were dropped, and the pursuit of
damages was reduced to $4 million. The case
essentially came down to the charge that the
UHW leaders were working – for two or three
weeks in January, 2009 – against SEIU while
still on the payroll. The judge, William Alsup,
clearly agreed and the he instructed the jury
to fix awards accordingly.
The jury – which included not a single union
member – found against sixteen of the
defendants, all former UHW leaders and held
them liable for $725,000. NUHW was also
found liable for $725,000, though this too was
extraordinary; NUHW had no “fiduciary duty”
to SEIU and did not exist in the weeks at issue.
$1.5 million, nevertheless, was awarded, a far
cry from the $25 million first demanded, but
cruel punishment for sixteen working men and
women.
The appeal was argued before a three judge
panel of the US Court of Appeals, Ninth
Circuit. Oakland attorney Dan Siegel
contested the awards in the 2010 trial. Siegel
challenged the basis for these findings,
focusing on the alleged “fiduciary
malfeasance.” –the charge that the UHW
leaders had defied “fiduciary obligations” to
SEIU leadership. In addition, he argued that
the judge had erred in his instructions to the
jury. In the 2010 trial, Alsup had repeatedly
hectored the jurors, explaining at one point
that this case – this conflict between a
national union and its members in a local –
was analogous to a dispute between the Bank
of America and a branch office. A sort of
corporate affair, an internal conflict within a
corporation. He prohibited any discussion of
any of the issues in the dispute within SEIU.
No one on the jury was a union member.
Siegel insisted that the then elected officers
and leaders of UHW had the right to contest
the trusteeship, including the right to oppose
the SEIU national leadership’s forced transfer
of 65,000 long-term care workers from UHW
to another local California, the key issue at
the time, the one that ultimately was decisive
in SEIU’s case for the trusteeship. The then
UHW leadership had insisted that these
workers had the right to decide the local of
their choice – including the right to vote on
the transfer.
Siegel argued that these officers’
responsibilities, then, were not simply to the
SEIU‘s national leadership, led at the time by
Andy Stern, but also to the members of UHW
(including the 65,000), the people who had
elected them, who determined the local union’
s policies and paid the bills. Indeed they had
an obligation to abide by the member’s
decisions.
He contended that this fact invalidated the
award of damages – these officers and
leaders, even as SEIU members, had every
right to explain to the local union’s members
what rights they had in the weeks between to
decision to transfer the 65,000 and, three
weeks later, the imposition of the trusteeship
when they were all summarily fired.
They were exercising protected speech, free
speech, Siegel argued, when they organized
meetings to inform UHW members of these
rights and choices – including their right to
dissent, to decertify, even the right to form a
new union. SEIU lawyers had responded that
the UHW leaders had no such rights and the
case was essentially reduced to charge that
the UHW leaders were working against SEIU
while still on the payroll.
Siegel also argued that there were larger
issues, issues just as important in the long
run. What were the responsibilities of local
union officers, not just to national leaders but
to their members, again, the workers who
elected them, set policy, etc., in particular
when these members were in disagreement
with national policies?
SEIU lawyer, Leon Dayan, repeated that there
was a long-term conspiracy, something the
jury had not found in 2010, and argued that
the duties of the UHW officers and staff to the
national and the local were one and the same
– hence asserting that the elected local union
officers and leaders were essentially no more
than an administrative arm of the national
union.
Speaking after the hearing, Siegel said the
outcome was important for two reasons, first
“to remove these entirely unfair judgments,
still hanging over the heads of the sixteen
defendants.” In this he said he was optimistic.
Second, on the larger issues, he said he was
worried that the case raised issues that could
prove “very dangerous for union activists. It
took a law – Landrum Griffin Act, 1959 – in
part designed to protect rank-and-file
workers, and turned it on its head, using it as
a vehicle for payback against dissenting local
union officers and members.”
Back to the streets. At the same time these
workers were in court – fighting for the right to
have a union, one of their own choosing –
nurses at Sutter Health were on strike at ten
northern California hospitals. Their walkout,
the fourth strike at Sutter since September,
came as union officials and Sutter
management continued to clash over sick
leave, retirement benefits, health care
payments, patient care conditions and other
issues.
“Nurses at Sutter facilities are facing an
unprecedented attack on their practice the
scope of which we have not seen in over 20
years,” said Zenei Cortez, co-president of
CNA/NNU. “Nurses everywhere are unifying to
resist Sutter’s policies of unprecedented cuts
in vital patient services for our communities
and deterioration of patient care standards in
our hospitals.”
The strike affected 4,400 RNs , as well as
hundreds of respiratory, X-ray and other
technicians at three Alta Bates Summit
Medical Center facilities in Berkeley and
Oakland, Mills-Peninsula Health Services
hospitals in Burlingame and San Mateo, Eden
Medical Center in Castro Valley, San Leandro
Hospital, Sutter Delta in Antioch, Sutter
Solano in Vallejo, Novato Community Hospital.
“We don’t believe that Sutter needs to be
demanding these onerous and unwarranted
cuts from nurses because they are an
extremely profitable operation that operates
as what I call J.P. Morgan West,” said a
California Nurses Association spokesperson.
Sutter Health has made over $4.2 billion in
profits since 2005, according to CNA. “They’
re making decisions on what provides the
best return for their shareholders, not for
patient care,” he said.
Following the San Francisco hearing, a
delegation of NUHW members, clad in red tee-
shirts, headed for a noon rally across the Bay
at Alta-Bates Summit. June, of course, has
not been a good month for labor in the US,
particularly in Wisconsin where the electoral
turn into a (predictable) catastrophe. It’s far
from all over, however. The fight-back
continues, including here, in California’s
booming healthcare industry.
Cal Winslow is the author of Labor’s Civil War
in California, PM Press, 2012 (second edition,
revised and expanded), an editor of Rebel
Rank and File: Labor Militancy and Revolt
From Below during the Long Seventies
(Verso, 2010), and an editor of West of Eden,
Communes and Utopia in Northern California
(PM Press, 2012). He is a Fellow at UC
Berkeley, Director of the Mendocino Institute
and associated with the Bay Area collective,
Retort. He can be reached at
cwinslow@berkeley.edu
| San Diego Education Report |
| SDER |
San Diego
Education Report
Education Report
| SDER |
| SDER |
| SDER |
Attorney Emma Leheny, California Teachers
Association
Association
TEACHERS versus NURSES????
See who was on the SEIU team!
Head Counsel Emma Leheny, the real
decision-maker for California Teachers
Association? CTA head counsel Emma
Leheny represented the union that caved
in to Kaiser, SEIU, allowing cuts for
nurses, and affirming the power of union
officials over their members. Leheny is
exactly the type of lawyer that CTA's
corrupt officials like to have.
SEIU v. NUHW
Click to see entire decision affirming
lower court judgment
FOR PUBLICATION
UNITED STATES COURT OF APPEALS
FOR THE NINTH CIRCUIT
No. 09-15855
D.C. No. 3:09-cv-00404-WHA
SERVICE EMPLOYEES INTERNATIONAL
UNION; DAVID REGAN; ELISEO
MEDINA, as Trustees for SEIU
United Healthcare Workers West
and fiduciaries of the SEIU United
Healthcare WorkersWest and
Joint Employer Education Fund;
SEIU UNITED HEALTHCARE
WORKERSWEST, an unincorporated
association and fiduciary of the
SEIU United Healthcare Workers
West and Joint Employer
Education Fund; REBECCA COLLINS,
as a participant in the SEIU
United Healthcare WorkersWest
and Joint Employer Education
Fund,
Plaintiffs-Appellees,
v.
NATIONAL UNION OF HEALTHCARE
WORKERS; JOHN BORSOS; AARON
BRICKMAN; GAIL BUHLER; WILL
CLAYTON; JOAN EMSLIE; GLENN
GOLDSTEIN; MARK KIPFER; GABRIEL
KRISTAL; PAUL KUMAR; BARBARA
LEWIS; FREJA NELSON; FRED
SEAVEY; IAN SELDEN; SAL ROSSELLI;
JOHN VELLARDITA; PHYLLIS
WILLETT,
Defendants-Appellants.
______________________________
SEIU v. NATIONAL UNION OF
HEALTHCARE
Appeal from the United States District
Court
for the Northern District of California
William H. Alsup, District Judge, Presiding
Argued and Submitted
January 14, 2010--San Francisco,
California
Filed March 15, 2010
Before: Myron H. Bright,* Michael Daly
Hawkins, and Milan D. Smith, Jr., Circuit
Judges.
Opinion by Judge Bright
*The Honorable Myron H. Bright, Senior United
States Circuit Judge for the Eighth Circuit, sitting
by designation.
______________________________
SEIU v. NATIONAL UNION OF
HEALTHCARE
COUNSEL
Jeffrey B. Demain (argued), Stephen P.
Berzon, Peter D.
Nussbaum, Jonathan Weissglass, San
Francisco, California,
Robert M. Weinberg, Leon Dayan,
Washington, DC, Glenn
Rothner, and Emma Leheny, Pasadena,
California, for the
plaintiffs-appellees.
Daniel Siegel (argued), Jose Luis
Fuentes, and Dean Royer,
Oakland, California, for the
defendants-appellants.
...For the reasons explained
below, we conclude that the TRO
is an appealable interlocutory
order in the nature of a preliminary
injunction, that this appeal is not
moot, and that the district court
possessed jurisdiction under
section 301(a).
We therefore affirm...
See who was on the SEIU team!
Head Counsel Emma Leheny, the real
decision-maker for California Teachers
Association? CTA head counsel Emma
Leheny represented the union that caved
in to Kaiser, SEIU, allowing cuts for
nurses, and affirming the power of union
officials over their members. Leheny is
exactly the type of lawyer that CTA's
corrupt officials like to have.
SEIU v. NUHW
Click to see entire decision affirming
lower court judgment
FOR PUBLICATION
UNITED STATES COURT OF APPEALS
FOR THE NINTH CIRCUIT
No. 09-15855
D.C. No. 3:09-cv-00404-WHA
SERVICE EMPLOYEES INTERNATIONAL
UNION; DAVID REGAN; ELISEO
MEDINA, as Trustees for SEIU
United Healthcare Workers West
and fiduciaries of the SEIU United
Healthcare WorkersWest and
Joint Employer Education Fund;
SEIU UNITED HEALTHCARE
WORKERSWEST, an unincorporated
association and fiduciary of the
SEIU United Healthcare Workers
West and Joint Employer
Education Fund; REBECCA COLLINS,
as a participant in the SEIU
United Healthcare WorkersWest
and Joint Employer Education
Fund,
Plaintiffs-Appellees,
v.
NATIONAL UNION OF HEALTHCARE
WORKERS; JOHN BORSOS; AARON
BRICKMAN; GAIL BUHLER; WILL
CLAYTON; JOAN EMSLIE; GLENN
GOLDSTEIN; MARK KIPFER; GABRIEL
KRISTAL; PAUL KUMAR; BARBARA
LEWIS; FREJA NELSON; FRED
SEAVEY; IAN SELDEN; SAL ROSSELLI;
JOHN VELLARDITA; PHYLLIS
WILLETT,
Defendants-Appellants.
______________________________
SEIU v. NATIONAL UNION OF
HEALTHCARE
Appeal from the United States District
Court
for the Northern District of California
William H. Alsup, District Judge, Presiding
Argued and Submitted
January 14, 2010--San Francisco,
California
Filed March 15, 2010
Before: Myron H. Bright,* Michael Daly
Hawkins, and Milan D. Smith, Jr., Circuit
Judges.
Opinion by Judge Bright
*The Honorable Myron H. Bright, Senior United
States Circuit Judge for the Eighth Circuit, sitting
by designation.
______________________________
SEIU v. NATIONAL UNION OF
HEALTHCARE
COUNSEL
Jeffrey B. Demain (argued), Stephen P.
Berzon, Peter D.
Nussbaum, Jonathan Weissglass, San
Francisco, California,
Robert M. Weinberg, Leon Dayan,
Washington, DC, Glenn
Rothner, and Emma Leheny, Pasadena,
California, for the
plaintiffs-appellees.
Daniel Siegel (argued), Jose Luis
Fuentes, and Dean Royer,
Oakland, California, for the
defendants-appellants.
...For the reasons explained
below, we conclude that the TRO
is an appealable interlocutory
order in the nature of a preliminary
injunction, that this appeal is not
moot, and that the district court
possessed jurisdiction under
section 301(a).
We therefore affirm...
| CTA. |
Emma Leheny leaves her job as head counsel at CTA;
Priscilla Winslow steps in again as temp chief counsel
Feb. 2, 2013
I discovered the following on the CTA website:
"The Legal Services Division is directed by Associate
Executive Director and Acting Chief Counsel Priscilla
Winslow."
Priscilla Winslow also acted as temporary Chief Counsel
when previous head counsel Beverly Tucker retired in
2008. Then Winslow went back to being Assistant Chief
Counsel. On behalf of CTA, Winslow represented child
molester Charles Bateman, helping him keep his credential
for six years. CTA spent far more on Bateman than it was
obliged to spend. CTA has refused to pay to defend teachers who refuse to be quiet
about illegal actions by union officials and school administrators who are in league
with them. (See next news item below.)
Why did Emma Leheny leave her position so soon, after less than three years? Why
isn't anyone saying anything? In fact, Leheny is still listed by the State Bar
Association as working for CTA.
Priscilla Winslow steps in again as temp chief counsel
Feb. 2, 2013
I discovered the following on the CTA website:
"The Legal Services Division is directed by Associate
Executive Director and Acting Chief Counsel Priscilla
Winslow."
Priscilla Winslow also acted as temporary Chief Counsel
when previous head counsel Beverly Tucker retired in
2008. Then Winslow went back to being Assistant Chief
Counsel. On behalf of CTA, Winslow represented child
molester Charles Bateman, helping him keep his credential
for six years. CTA spent far more on Bateman than it was
obliged to spend. CTA has refused to pay to defend teachers who refuse to be quiet
about illegal actions by union officials and school administrators who are in league
with them. (See next news item below.)
Why did Emma Leheny leave her position so soon, after less than three years? Why
isn't anyone saying anything? In fact, Leheny is still listed by the State Bar
Association as working for CTA.
| CTA. |
FEB. 2013
Emma Leheny is back as CTA chief counsel!
CTA head counsel Emma Leheny
The California Teachers Association's website
has (once again) been changed to say,
"The Legal Services Division is directed
by Chief Counsel Emma Leheny."
Emma Leheny recently stepped away from the helm of CTA's Legal Services,
apparently during some kind of a power play by Priscilla Winslow (perhaps with the
assistance of former head counsel Beverly Tucker and Executive Director Carolyn
Doggett?)
It looks like Governor Jerry Brown stepped in to help. He appointed Priscilla Winslow to
PERB, the Public Employee Relations Board. Now that Winslow has gone to PERB,
Emma Leheny has resumed her position.
Emma Leheny is back as CTA chief counsel!
CTA head counsel Emma Leheny
The California Teachers Association's website
has (once again) been changed to say,
"The Legal Services Division is directed
by Chief Counsel Emma Leheny."
Emma Leheny recently stepped away from the helm of CTA's Legal Services,
apparently during some kind of a power play by Priscilla Winslow (perhaps with the
assistance of former head counsel Beverly Tucker and Executive Director Carolyn
Doggett?)
It looks like Governor Jerry Brown stepped in to help. He appointed Priscilla Winslow to
PERB, the Public Employee Relations Board. Now that Winslow has gone to PERB,
Emma Leheny has resumed her position.
CALIFORNIA TEACHERS ASS'N v. DAVIS
64 F.Supp.2d 945 (1999)
CALIFORNIA TEACHERS ASSOCIATION, et
al., Plaintiffs,
v.
Gray DAVIS, et al., Defendants.
No. CV 98-9694 ER(CWX).
United States District Court, C.D. California.
September 8, 1999.
Beverly Tucker, Priscilla S Winslow, Diane
Ross, California Teachers Association,
Burlingame, CA, Glenn Rothner, Julia
Harumi Mass, Rothner Segall &
Greenstone, Pasadena, CA, Elliot M Mincberg,
Lawrence S Ottinger, Nabe Amae & Cafapbe,
Washington, DC, for California Teachers
Association, Norma Steiner, Irella Perez, Kristin
Worthman, plaintiffs.
Glenn Rothner, Julia Harumi Mass, Rothner
Segall & Greenstone, Pasadena, CA, Elliot M
Mincberg, Lawrence S Ottinger, Nabe Amae &
Cafapbe, Washington, DC, for Association of
Mexican American Educators, California
Association for Asian-Pacific Bilingual
Education, National Association of Bilingual
Educators, plaintiffs.
Karl Manheim, Loyola Law School, Los Angeles,
CA, Glenn Rothner, Rothner Segall &
Greenstone, Pasadena, CA, Elliot M Mincberg,
Lawrence S Ottinger, Nabe Amae & Cafapbe,
Washington, DC, for Emily Palacio, Association
of California, School Administrators, plaintiffs.
Charlton G Holland, III, John Hideki Sugiyama,
Donald P Cole, CAAG Office of Attorney
General of California, San Francisco, CA, for
Pete Wilson, State Board of Education, and its
members, Yvonne W Larson, Robert L Trigg,
Timothy C Draper, Kathryn Dronenberg, Marion
Joseph, Megan Kephart, Marion McDowell,
Janet Nicholas, Gerti B Thomas, Marina Tse,
defendants.
Charlton G Holland, III, John Hideki Sugiyama,
Donald P Cole, CAAG Office of Attorney
General of California, San Francisco, CA,
Michael E. Hersher, Allan Keown, California
State Department of Education, Sacramento,
CA, for Delaine Eastin, defendant.
Mark T Gallagher, Sharon Browne, Pacific
Legal Foundation, Sacramento, CA, for Ron
Unz, Sylvia NMI Martinez, Angelina Morfin,
Center for Equal Opportunity, intervenor
defendants.
Mark T Gallagher, Sharon Browne, Eric Grant,
Pacific Legal Foundation, Sacramento, CA, for
Sarina Frias, intervenor defendant.
MEMORANDUM OPINION
RAFEEDIE, Senior District Judge.
The Court has read and considered the papers
filed in connection with the motion to dismiss
brought by the Defendant State Board of
Education and its members, and the motion for
summary judgment brought by the Plaintiffs,
and has considered the arguments of counsel
at the hearing on the matter, and now HEREBY
GRANTS the Defendant's motion to dismiss,
construed as a motion for summary judgment,
and HEREBY DENIES the Plaintiffs' motion for
summary judgment, for the following reasons:
...
E. Due Process Challenge Based on Lack of
Procedural Safeguards
The Plaintiffs also raise other due process
challenges to the law. The Plaintiffs contend
that the statute violates due process because
(1) it does not specify an intent to override the
common law immunity for "educational
malpractice;" (2) it is silent on the standard for
measuring damages; and (3) it lacks procedural
safeguards
[ 64 F.Supp.2d 957 ]
against arbitrary and bad-faith lawsuits.
No State shall "deprive any person of life,
liberty, or property, without due process of law."
U.S. CONST. amend. XIV, § 1. The fundamental
requirement of due process of law is the
opportunity to be heard. See Goldberg v.
Kelly,397 U.S. 254, 90 S.Ct. 1011, 1020, 25
L.Ed.2d 287 (1970).
A statute may override the common law if it
does so in clear and unambiguous terms. See
California Ass'n of Health Facilities v. Dept. Of
Health Serv.,16 Cal.4th 284, 65 Cal.Rptr.2d
872, 880, 940 P.2d 323 (1997). Under previous
California common law, school authorities did
not owe students any duty of care in the
process of their academic education. See Peter
W. v. San Francisco Unified Sch. Dist.,60
Cal.App.3d 814, 131 Cal.Rptr. 854, 855 (1976).
The Plaintiffs claim that the statute violates due
process because it does not use clear and
unambiguous terms to effect a significant
departure from the California's common law rule
which does not allow a tort for "educational
malpractice." However, it is California law which
requires a clear and unambiguous statement
when a statute alters common law, and
therefore this question is one of state law, not a
question of constitutional due process.
California Ass'n of Health Facilities,16 Cal.4th
284, 65 Cal.Rptr.2d 872, 940 P.2d 323 (1997).
Moreover, the statute does clearly state that
teachers are now open to personal liability for
failure to implement the terms of the statute.
This alteration of California's common law by
statute does not rise to the level of a due
process violation. Instead, the question of how
far the Proposition goes in abrogating the
common law is a question of statutory
interpretation, which is a matter of state law not
properly before the Court.
The Plaintiffs next claim that the statute violates
due process because it does not provide a
standard for assessing damages. The statute
allows teachers to be "held personally liable for
fees and actual damages." Cal.Educ.Code §
320. The statute does not allow for punitive
damages. The Plaintiffs claim there is no
definition for what actual damages entail.
However, the right to a trial includes the right to
have these "actual damages" supported by
proof at trial. The due process clause requires
that these damages not be awarded arbitrarily,
but does not require that the statute authorizing
them spell out in detail what can constitute
"actual damages." The Plaintiffs cite to Honda
Motor Co. v. Oberg,512 U.S. 415, 114 S.Ct.
2331, 2335, 129 L.Ed.2d 336 (1994) in support
of their proposition that the due process clause
prohibits damages which are assessed in an
arbitrary manner. However, Honda concerned
excessive punitive damages, not actual
damages. 114 S.Ct. at 2335.
The Plaintiffs also claim that the statute violates
due process because it lacks procedural
safeguards against arbitrary and bad-faith
lawsuits. However, they cite no support for the
proposition that such safeguards need to exist.
The statute leaves teachers in the same
position as that of all other potential litigants,
who are free to defend themselves against
non-meritorious suits. Due process is not
violated by failing to give teachers and
administrators special safeguards in this
situation.
IV. CONCLUSION
The Court concludes the Plaintiffs have not
shown that the private enforcement
provision of Proposition 227 is facially
unconstitutional. For the reasons stated
above, the Court DENIES Plaintiffs' motions for
summary judgment and GRANTS the Defendant
State Board of Education's motion to dismiss,
construed as a motion for summary judgment.
IT IS SO ORDERED.
64 F.Supp.2d 945 (1999)
CALIFORNIA TEACHERS ASSOCIATION, et
al., Plaintiffs,
v.
Gray DAVIS, et al., Defendants.
No. CV 98-9694 ER(CWX).
United States District Court, C.D. California.
September 8, 1999.
Beverly Tucker, Priscilla S Winslow, Diane
Ross, California Teachers Association,
Burlingame, CA, Glenn Rothner, Julia
Harumi Mass, Rothner Segall &
Greenstone, Pasadena, CA, Elliot M Mincberg,
Lawrence S Ottinger, Nabe Amae & Cafapbe,
Washington, DC, for California Teachers
Association, Norma Steiner, Irella Perez, Kristin
Worthman, plaintiffs.
Glenn Rothner, Julia Harumi Mass, Rothner
Segall & Greenstone, Pasadena, CA, Elliot M
Mincberg, Lawrence S Ottinger, Nabe Amae &
Cafapbe, Washington, DC, for Association of
Mexican American Educators, California
Association for Asian-Pacific Bilingual
Education, National Association of Bilingual
Educators, plaintiffs.
Karl Manheim, Loyola Law School, Los Angeles,
CA, Glenn Rothner, Rothner Segall &
Greenstone, Pasadena, CA, Elliot M Mincberg,
Lawrence S Ottinger, Nabe Amae & Cafapbe,
Washington, DC, for Emily Palacio, Association
of California, School Administrators, plaintiffs.
Charlton G Holland, III, John Hideki Sugiyama,
Donald P Cole, CAAG Office of Attorney
General of California, San Francisco, CA, for
Pete Wilson, State Board of Education, and its
members, Yvonne W Larson, Robert L Trigg,
Timothy C Draper, Kathryn Dronenberg, Marion
Joseph, Megan Kephart, Marion McDowell,
Janet Nicholas, Gerti B Thomas, Marina Tse,
defendants.
Charlton G Holland, III, John Hideki Sugiyama,
Donald P Cole, CAAG Office of Attorney
General of California, San Francisco, CA,
Michael E. Hersher, Allan Keown, California
State Department of Education, Sacramento,
CA, for Delaine Eastin, defendant.
Mark T Gallagher, Sharon Browne, Pacific
Legal Foundation, Sacramento, CA, for Ron
Unz, Sylvia NMI Martinez, Angelina Morfin,
Center for Equal Opportunity, intervenor
defendants.
Mark T Gallagher, Sharon Browne, Eric Grant,
Pacific Legal Foundation, Sacramento, CA, for
Sarina Frias, intervenor defendant.
MEMORANDUM OPINION
RAFEEDIE, Senior District Judge.
The Court has read and considered the papers
filed in connection with the motion to dismiss
brought by the Defendant State Board of
Education and its members, and the motion for
summary judgment brought by the Plaintiffs,
and has considered the arguments of counsel
at the hearing on the matter, and now HEREBY
GRANTS the Defendant's motion to dismiss,
construed as a motion for summary judgment,
and HEREBY DENIES the Plaintiffs' motion for
summary judgment, for the following reasons:
...
E. Due Process Challenge Based on Lack of
Procedural Safeguards
The Plaintiffs also raise other due process
challenges to the law. The Plaintiffs contend
that the statute violates due process because
(1) it does not specify an intent to override the
common law immunity for "educational
malpractice;" (2) it is silent on the standard for
measuring damages; and (3) it lacks procedural
safeguards
[ 64 F.Supp.2d 957 ]
against arbitrary and bad-faith lawsuits.
No State shall "deprive any person of life,
liberty, or property, without due process of law."
U.S. CONST. amend. XIV, § 1. The fundamental
requirement of due process of law is the
opportunity to be heard. See Goldberg v.
Kelly,397 U.S. 254, 90 S.Ct. 1011, 1020, 25
L.Ed.2d 287 (1970).
A statute may override the common law if it
does so in clear and unambiguous terms. See
California Ass'n of Health Facilities v. Dept. Of
Health Serv.,16 Cal.4th 284, 65 Cal.Rptr.2d
872, 880, 940 P.2d 323 (1997). Under previous
California common law, school authorities did
not owe students any duty of care in the
process of their academic education. See Peter
W. v. San Francisco Unified Sch. Dist.,60
Cal.App.3d 814, 131 Cal.Rptr. 854, 855 (1976).
The Plaintiffs claim that the statute violates due
process because it does not use clear and
unambiguous terms to effect a significant
departure from the California's common law rule
which does not allow a tort for "educational
malpractice." However, it is California law which
requires a clear and unambiguous statement
when a statute alters common law, and
therefore this question is one of state law, not a
question of constitutional due process.
California Ass'n of Health Facilities,16 Cal.4th
284, 65 Cal.Rptr.2d 872, 940 P.2d 323 (1997).
Moreover, the statute does clearly state that
teachers are now open to personal liability for
failure to implement the terms of the statute.
This alteration of California's common law by
statute does not rise to the level of a due
process violation. Instead, the question of how
far the Proposition goes in abrogating the
common law is a question of statutory
interpretation, which is a matter of state law not
properly before the Court.
The Plaintiffs next claim that the statute violates
due process because it does not provide a
standard for assessing damages. The statute
allows teachers to be "held personally liable for
fees and actual damages." Cal.Educ.Code §
320. The statute does not allow for punitive
damages. The Plaintiffs claim there is no
definition for what actual damages entail.
However, the right to a trial includes the right to
have these "actual damages" supported by
proof at trial. The due process clause requires
that these damages not be awarded arbitrarily,
but does not require that the statute authorizing
them spell out in detail what can constitute
"actual damages." The Plaintiffs cite to Honda
Motor Co. v. Oberg,512 U.S. 415, 114 S.Ct.
2331, 2335, 129 L.Ed.2d 336 (1994) in support
of their proposition that the due process clause
prohibits damages which are assessed in an
arbitrary manner. However, Honda concerned
excessive punitive damages, not actual
damages. 114 S.Ct. at 2335.
The Plaintiffs also claim that the statute violates
due process because it lacks procedural
safeguards against arbitrary and bad-faith
lawsuits. However, they cite no support for the
proposition that such safeguards need to exist.
The statute leaves teachers in the same
position as that of all other potential litigants,
who are free to defend themselves against
non-meritorious suits. Due process is not
violated by failing to give teachers and
administrators special safeguards in this
situation.
IV. CONCLUSION
The Court concludes the Plaintiffs have not
shown that the private enforcement
provision of Proposition 227 is facially
unconstitutional. For the reasons stated
above, the Court DENIES Plaintiffs' motions for
summary judgment and GRANTS the Defendant
State Board of Education's motion to dismiss,
construed as a motion for summary judgment.
IT IS SO ORDERED.