You knew I was a snake!

Whatever happened to the genuine mutual respect and appreciation we saw in the staff meeting video just a few weeks ago?

Perez hears that SEIU might be back to staff-union-busting business as usual at UHW in Southern California, and aren't showing a whole lot of gratitude to the scab UHW field staff. It's sad and ironic given that the help many scabs provided to The International before the trusteeship included jamming attempts to merge and strengthen the northern and southern UHW staff unions.

Perez hears that The International managers are now trying to bargain with UHW staff over a couple of points not covered by the union contract, and of course, they want take-aways. Looks like UHW scabs' work for the trusteeship has been valuable, but not valuable enough to help them make their car payments if they get sick!

New staff union president Lorena Vellanoweth ("It's not SEIU Lorena, it's not SEIU Sal...") explained the main issue to staff in an email...

"The old 399 practice was that we got it. UHW is trying to change it. Last year we bargain with Dan and we agreed with uhw and the 399 staff union in 2008 to provide and continue to pay for a car allowance up to 3 months. Now UHW is proposing to eliminate the 3 month provision completely if we're out on un-paid leave for more than one (1) week."

Even scabs deserve respect from their bosses, but Perez has to point out that this was kind of predictable.