Union behind billionaire tax acted like the mob in felony racketeering shakedown scheme: suit
Dave Regan and SEIU-United Healthcare Workers West, the California union behind a proposed billionaire tax, facing allegations of mob-like “shakedown” tactics in an explosive lawsuit that claims the organization used a ballot measure in order to “extort” small heath care organizations.The 67-page civil lawsuit, filed Sept.
18 in the U.S.District Court for the Eastern District of California, accuses the union and its boss of “unlawful and extortionist practices” in spending millions in union dues on divisive ballot measures in order to extract concessions from community health centers and others across the state.
The suit cites Prop.44 as a primary example of the union’s alleged bad-faith tactics.
The prop, pushed by the union after a similar legislative effort failed last year, would require clinics to spend 90% of their revenues on patient care, allowing the state to fine clinics that don’t comply.The lawsuit alleges the union offered to drop the measure “in exchange for an agreement on union election procedures at clinics, including demanding clinics provide SEIU-UHW with 25,000 new union members,” according to a press release.The plaintiffs, who include several small clinics across the state, claim the behavior amounts to violations of the Racketeer Influenced and Corrupt Organizations Act, known as RICO — a “sustained racketeering scheme,” they said.
The union’s tactics fit a pattern, according to critics, of using costly and controversial ballot measures as leverage to obtain “to obtain money, property, access rights, confidential information, and control over core business functions and labor-relations policies—interests that constitute “property” under federal and California law,” per the complaint.“It’s inexcusable that Dave Regan and UHW have orchestrated a multi-year campaign of threats and bullying that would inflict crippling damage on health centers like ours and the patients we treat,” said Brandon Thorno...