Editorial How undue union influence works

Culver City’s City Council on Monday will consider an ordinance to impose a $5-anhour “hero pay” increase for all hospital workers within the city for the next 120 days. This proposal will spark a lively public discussion about the challenges faced by front-line healthcare workers during the pandemic, but it should also highlight a disturbing political dynamic.

In cities throughout our region, public-sector unions engage in backdoor arm-twisting, as they use the legislative process to secure benefits they’ve been unable to negotiate at the bargaining table. The Culver City ordinance illustrates this process in stark detail, as revealed by a series of emails between union lobbyists and council members.

We oppose these wage-hike laws because they boost costs by fiat, but our biggest concern here is the dubious process by which this ordinance came about. The Service Employees International UnionUnited Healthcare Workers West represents workers at the Southern California Hospital at Culver City, which is the only hospital in the city.

The measure claims to help all hospital workers — but it’s targeted at one hospital in particular and a group of employees that is represented by the union. That union recently secured what it termed a “great contract” with the hospital for three years, but then it turned to the City Council to force the hospital to increase pay even further.

How to have your say:

In a May 21 email to Vice Mayor Daniel Lee, the lead organizer for SEIU’s political department complained that Mayor Alex Fisch “still seems to have very cold feet. We have agreed to take on all legal responsibility, have shot down all legal arguments, and have agreed to formally rebuttal (sic) the arguments being made.”

The union drafted the ordinance, drafted an op-ed for Lee promoting it and agreed to take legal responsibility for defending it in court. After reading the string of emails, obtained through a public records request by the hospital’s attorney, we’re left with this troubling question: Is the Culver City council or an outside union running the government?

The biggest obvious concern is the union’s offer to handle any legal blowback.

“First, it suggests a quid pro quo,” argued hospital attorney David Schwarz, in a recent letter to the city. He questions whether the offer amounts to a reportable political contribution. He also wondered, “whether, as a result of SEIU’s interest and role in coordinating (if not engineering) the legislative and public relations strategy for the ordinance, the union entwinement is so pervasive as to constitute ‘state action’ by a private union.”

We’ll let the courts untangle that matter, but we hope Monday’s public meeting focuses attention on the seedy origins of this “hero pay” proposal.