Open Letter to SEIU Local 1021 V.P. Larry Bradshaw "Concessions & Kangaroo Courts"

An Open Letter to SEIU Local 1021 Vice President Larry Bradshaw

Dear Veep Bradshaw (I forgot to add your e-mail address),

At some point last October, you left a message on my home answering machine that I now wish I had not deleted. You called asking me to return your call about the potential for me to assist Local 1021 with some data analysis, which I may have agreed to help with. But you started out your message on my machine saying something to the effect that you’d wrapped up Local 1021 efforts on the “ridiculous” member opposition to Proposition C on San Francisco’s November ballot, and was just finding time to contact me, or words to that effect.

I knew before then that Local 1021 was going to support Mayor Ed Lee’s Proposition C, but I was so shocked that Officers of the Local had concluded member opposition to Prop C was “ridiculous” that I decided right then and there not to donate my personal time to do research for SEIU Local 1021, and was so pissed by your flippant phone message that I deleted it (I now wish I had saved that message).

But now, I’m even more shocked by reports that you staged, or allowed, some sort of “mob action” during Local 1021’s November Executive Board meeting by bringing charges against our duly-elected CEO, Sin Yee Poon, over her choice to use her personal time and her First Amendment right to speak out against Proposition “C.”

While you pay lip service, Mr. Bradshaw, to “democratic union principles,” it appears you don’t believe that your members live in an actual democracy, and have First Amendment rights to take positions that may be in stark contrast to the propaganda Local 1021 so often shoves down the throats of its dues-paying members. Not only do we have First Amendment rights which apparently you haven’t heard of, we also have rights to express our individual opinions under LMRDA — without retaliatory actions being taken against us by our own Union for exercising our rights.

I’ve been on the brunt of spurious Kangaroo Court proceedings conducted by this Local in the past for my involvement in the 2006 decertification campaign against SEIU Local 790, the precursor to Local 1021. I don’t recognize this Executive Board’s misguided use of Kangaroo Court proceedings, but I am officially requesting that if you are going to bring these ridiculous charges against Ms. Poon, that you also level the same charges against me, even though I hold no elected office in the Local.

After all, I, too, refused to “honor” the decisions of Local 1021 regarding Proposition C; I, too, “attacked” Local 1021 political programs publicly; and I, too, have long questioned the “integrity” of many of Local 1021’s so-called “leaders” as not being in the best interests of our members throughout Northern California.

Just one recent example is Local 1021 “leader” Maria Guillen, who reportedly slandered Herb Meiberger, a candidate for re-election to the San Francisco Retirement Board, during an endorsement session of the San Francisco Labor Council. Ms. Guillen has the same axe to grind against Mr. Meiberger as you seem to have with Sin Yee: Herb’s opposition to Prop C cost him the endorsement of Local 1021.

Apparently, Ms. Guillen, and Local 1021 itself, would rather endorse “safety” candidate Deborah Landis, the CFO at the SF Police Department, to throw Meiberger off of the Retirement Board where he has served admirably for over 20 years as the only elected “miscellaneous” representative on the Board. Handing over the three elected voting members of the Retirement Board to “safety” (police and fire) employees — something safety has been trying to do for over a decade — is NOT in the best interest of Local 1021 members, or other “miscellaneous” members represented by other Unions, but in the infinite wisdom of Local 1021’s so-called “leaders” you’re again asking the members to ignore their own best interests by shooting themselves in the foot again, just two short months after shooting themselves in the foot over Prop C.

Like Sin Yee, I, too, do not want to be remembered by the rank and file as someone who supported Prop C when the members learn the full extent of the economic damage brought against them by their own Local, because in many ways, the members will see their paychecks grow significantly smaller under Prop C.l Most significantly, the single Prop C change of giving up an elected seat to the Health Services Board so that “management” will now have a four-seat majority is going to lead directly to massive increases in health care co-pays, deductibles, and premiums taking an ever larger share of our dwindling paychecks to pay for health care costs spiraling out of control due to the greed of the pharmaceutical and insurance industries, and the inability of Congress to implement true health care reforms.

I didn’t sit idly by while Local 1021 was urging its members to shoot themselves in the foot by voting for Prop C; instead, I took out an $800 voter guide ballot argument against both Prop C and Prop D, and I did so out of my own pocket. Worse, I wrote two articles in the Westside Observer newspaper in its October and November 2011 issues, urging conservative West Side families — and union members — to vote against both Props C and D. And you know what? It was $800 well spent, which I’d do again!

Sin Yee is right: Our Union spent member dues money to campaign for Prop C, and you didn’t bother informing the membership of the critical negative consequences of what will now happen since Prop C passed. And you didn’t tell the membership in San Francisco that Prop C has set the stage for even further “concession bargaining” this coming spring.

Our members deserve to be told crucial facts to make informed decisions. You and I both know, Larry, that Prop C is NOT in our members’ best interests, and you should be ashamed of the propaganda Local 1021 cranked out urging members to shoot themselves in the foot — or worse, to shoot themselves in their own wallets.

It’s disturbing that five years after SEIU’s mob actions in 2006, this Union is still at it, using mob action against Ms. Poon, and to intimidate our members in order to quell First Amendment dissent.

So I am officially requesting that if you are going to bring these ridiculous charges against Ms. Poon, that you also level the same charges against me.

But don’t stop there: Perhaps Local 1021 can get some of its thugs to hack into San Francisco’s elections department database to identify any and all SEIU “traitor” members who may have voted on a secret ballot last November AGAINST Prop C, and against the “decisions” of Local 1021 leaders. Out of the approximate 13,000 members Local 1021 represents in San Francisco, I’m sure there are hundreds and hundreds of members who voted “No on Prop C.”

They should be punished at a Kangaroo Court trial at the E-Board, too, along with me. Will you throw them all into Local 1021’s Kanagroo Jail, too? Or just Sin Yee and I?

After all, until Local 1021 routs out any and all “dissident” members, you are always going to have to fear that the members will not be driven by the Local’s fear-driven propaganda. And you’ll have to forever watch over your shoulder in fear, always wondering about Margaret Mead’s famous quote: “Never doubt that a small group of thoughtful, committed citizens can change the world. Indeed, it’s the only thing that ever does.” We may be a small group in your eyes, Larry, but we’re committed and thoughtful, and one day we’ll change this rotten-to-the-core Union!

Just so you know, I will not honor the decision of Local 1021 to stab Herb Meiberger in the back after he has so honorably served us, by following Local 1021’s recommendation to vote for Landis. I’ll strongly be advocating with the membership to ignore Local 1021’s recommendation, and am actively urging them to vote only for Mr. Meiberger, instead.

There’s your gauntlet, Larry. I hope you fall, or choke, on it.

In Solidarity, (but only with Democratic Trade Unionists like Sin Yee Poon),


Patrick Monette-Shaw
Immediate Past President, Laguna Honda Hospital Chapter, SEIU Local 790

(Proud son of the first elected woman President of [an un-named] Union in Wisconsin, un-named because I don’t want Local 1021 thugs hunting down an 82-year-old gravely-ill woman to harass.)