Today's Wall Street Journal and Fresno Bee report that SEIU engaged in illegal threats, ballot-tampering, and other serious violations of election rules during a June union election for 10,000 homecare providers in Fresno, according to voters and union staff who worked for SEIU during the election and have now come forward.A sworn declaration from an SEIU whistleblower says that senior SEIU officials instructed organizers to violate election rules during the mail-in, secret-ballot vote, and then destroyed evidence of the violations. Statements from two former SEIU staff and several homecare providers were recently submitted to the California Public Employment Relations Board (PERB) as evidence accompanying a request to overturn the election results.
Among the illegal tactics reported:
- SEIU staff tampered with workers' ballots, by voiding the ballots of workers who marked their ballot for NUHW, and by collecting ballots directly from workers' mailboxes.
- Senior SEIU officials instructed staff to handle ballots in violation of election rule, and advised staff on how to do so in a way that was legally deniable.
- SEIU organizers threatened Latino caregivers that SEIU would "call immigration" and have them deported in retaliation unless they voted for SEIU.
- SEIU officials instructed staff to threaten and lie to voters that they would lose their wages, their health insurance, and even their jobs unless they voted for SEIU.