In 2019, SEIU ran a blog post chronicling the story of an airline worker who was sexually harassed on the job and implying the incident(s) would not have happened had the workplace been organized under the auspices of the union.
Either no one at the union read the piece before it was published or the folks at SEIU have a high threshold for hypocrisy.
In fact, a major branch of the Service Employees Internal Union (SEIU) recently settled an explosive sexual harassment lawsuit that implicated the union’s national leadership. SEIU-UHW (United Healthcare Workers) represents nearly 100,000 workers in California
The lawsuit was filed by Mindy Sturge, a former employee of SEIU, and claims the union’s West Kaiser Division Director Marcus Hatcher assaulted her, leaving her with a head injury that required medical attention to remedy.
Hatcher was fired from his position late in 2017.
On top of an already troubling story, Sturge alleges Hatcher put something in her drink, causing her to black out and lose memory about some aspects of the incident.
According to affidavits from former SEIU-UHW employees, this is just one piece of a horrific workplace culture. Former employees paint a dire picture of a workplace saturated with alcohol, sexual misconduct and misogyny.
Implicated in these affidavits were SEIU-UHW President Dave Regan and Vice President Stan Lyles, with Regan being accused of drunkenness at union functions and Lyles as his enabler.
True to form, SEIU-UHW responded to these allegations by filing a lawsuit against one accuser. In an interview with the Payday Report, Steve Trossman, a spokesman for SEIU-UHW, claims she “… slandered the union with false statements”.
He added that the union decided to settle the lawsuit only because it would be cheaper than litigating. The dollar amount of the settlement has not been disclosed.
So what’s being done to stop something like this from happening again in the future?
According to SEIU-UHW, it is revamping its sexual harassment protocol and training methods for staff members.
Mind you, they already have sexual harassment training and a protocol for reporting instances of these grave offenses.
In the meantime, its leaders feel qualified to lecture others on their insensitivity.
