Tag Archives: Bob Schoonover

SEIU hires additional security to protect Bob Schoonover & Members

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After receiving Over 30 threatening phone calls directed at Local 721 President Bob Schoonover after a radio interview on a local talk radio show SEIU 721 has taken several security measures including hiring additional security officers.

According to several staff members, several of the phone calls were credible and all of them have been forwarded to several Law Enforcement agencies.

As many times as I have disagreed with Bob, threats of violence are not acceptable in any way shape or form.

I trust law enforcement sources will quickly identify and prosecute those responsible.

Members should be alert when approaching the local and report any suspicious activity immediately.

Suspects are anti-labor radicals and not SEIU Local  721 members.

 

RAMON RUBALCAVA Drinks and drives Costing SEIU members Huge!

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Ramon Rubalcava of SEIU Local 721 provided public comment on behalf of SEIU Local 721 President Bob Schoonover supporting an asset smoothing period of 7 years with a 60% – 140% Market Value of Assets (MVA) corridor.

ramon rubalcava

But who is this ramon? He likes to drink and drive and cost seiu members money! He is now somehow a pension expert??

This is ridiculous and one of the many reasons SEIU should stop setting policy. Read how he cost the members money!

Case Summary – Marotta Settlement Report (December 10, 1997) Hon. Ricardo Torres, Judge, Superior Court – Los Angeles Central Personal Injury: Auto v. Pedestrian

Settlement Amount: $250,000.00

Case Name: Matthew Marotta v. Ramon Rubalcava, Local 660 SEIU.

Attorneys: Plaintiff’s Counsel: Robert F. Brennan, Esq., Glendale
Defendant’s Counsel: David Werner, Esq., Ron Wisniewski, Esq., LAW OFFICES OF DAVID WERNER, Irvine, for defendant RUBALCAVA; Bradford Miller, Esq., Susan Westover, Esq., John Browning, Esq., MURTAUGH, MILLER, MEYER & NELSON, Costa Mesa, for defendant LOCAL 660 SEIU.

FACTS:
On March 8, 1996 at approximately 10:30 p.m., plaintiff MATTHEW MAROTTA was crossing Fountain Avenue towards his apartment. He had not been drinking. Five eyewitnesses placed MAROTTA in the crosswalk at the time of the collision. Two or three eyewitnesses placed him outside of the crosswalk. Defendant RAMON RUBALCAVA was driving eastbound on Fountain at approximately 35 miles per hour. The street is zoned for 30 miles per hour. Some of the witnesses placed RUBALCAVA’S speed at a higher rate, but skid marks at the scene suggested a speed of between 35 mph and 40 mph. RUBALCAVA admitted that he had had one to two beers some hours before the incident, but maintained that he was not drunk at the time and in fact passed field sobriety tests administered by police officers shortly after the accident. RUBALCAVA’s car struck MAROTTA while MAROTTA was about half-way across the street. MAROTTA’s face went through the car’s windshield, and his body flew from 5 feet to 20 feet in the air. RUBALCAVA’S car left 57 feet of skid marks before coming to a rest at the east end of the intersection. MAROTTA underwent surgery to repair the open fractures of his left tibia and fibula, the laceration on the right side of his face and under his nose and the fracture of his left shoulder. He also had some skin grafts for his left leg. He had a cast applied to his left leg, and his left arm was placed in a special sling/strap. He was bound in a wheelchair upon his discharge at the end of March of 1996. Two to three months later, he underwent a hip-bond graft procedure for support of his left leg. He underwent physical therapy for about seven months for rehabilitation of his left leg and shoulder. MAROTTA incurred approximately $75,000.00 in medical and therapy expenses. Future medical expenses were estimated at $20,000.00. Although his injuries healed substantially, he yet faces residual pain and limitations as a consequence of this collision.

CONTENTIONS:
Defendants contended that MAROTTA was outside of the crosswalk. Defendants also contend that MAROTTA “darted” into the street without adequately looking both ways. The Los Angeles Police Officers who investigated the collision in fact cited MAROTTA’s careless crossing of the street as the primary collision factor. Plaintiff contended that RUBALCAVA had been drinking and had been travelling at an excessive rate of speed. Defendants denied both contentions. Defendant LOCAL 660 SEIU also contended that RUBALCAVA was not in the course and scope of his employment at the time of the accident. Plaintiff contended that RUBALCAVA was coming from a job-related political event on his way to a dinner with his boss and an influential political contact from the east coast. His boss had personally invited him to this dinner, at which union business matters would be discussed. Thus, RUBALCAVA’S presence at the earlier political fundraiser was related to his job, and his attendance was job-related, and the dinner to which he was heading was job-related and at the specific request of his supervisor.

DAMAGES:
Plaintiff suffered $75,000.00 in past medical expenses, with about $20,000.00 in future medical expenses.

OTHER INFORMATION:
The settlement was reached approximately one and one-half years after the suit was filed. The $100,000.00 paid by RAMON RUBALCAVA represented his policy limits. The balance of the settlement, $150,000.00, was paid by LOCAL 660 SEIU.

 


COPE, SEIU, and the LA County Federation of Labor

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This e-mail was forwarded to me today and thought I should share it, take it for what it’s worth. Author remains anonymous unless he allows me to publish his name.
As background information, before the merger in early 2007, the Local 660 Committee On Political Education Committee discussed and voted on nearly every expenditure of COPE dollars collected.  Sometimes, because of expediency (that’s what we were told) and other time constraints, money was forwarded without our pre-approved consent.  More often then not, discussions were had which included having to present justification and making the case for each request for an expenditure.
Although the LA County COPE committee continues to meet monthly, since the merger, rarely are any expenditures voted upon by the committee members.  The only time we are now made aware of the members money being spent is to see the political expenditures listed in the Executive Board Meetings minutes. Who is making the decisions, now, is only known to the insiders and if you don’t know then at least, now, you know where you stand, in this Local.  Is there anyone reading this that still thinks this is a democratically run Local, transparent and totally accountable to its members? If you do, someone will soon be reporting on how the Local has been or will be soon compensating/paying you, from other members collected dues money, for your loyalty.
Not so well known is that this Local pays dues to the LA County Federation of Labor.  They often times co-opt our political expenditures and redirect them or even more often are the source of the requests for political contributions.  This Local has almost always cooperated with the County Fed’s wishes.  You may remember that this is the same organization that previously cooperated with Alejandro Stephens, former long-time President of Local 660 and whose cooperation resulted in Mr. Stephens being sentenced to serve time in a Federal penitentiary.
Another entity that directs our members political expenditures is the SEIU California State Council.  Their executive board directs their activities.  The number of Council staff members is always floating as are the position titles and salaries.  My very good guess is that, currently, Bob Schoonover and John Tanner are members of this executive board.
They may be our only representatives on this executive board.  Guess who pays for these Council’s members operating budget?  Come on down!  Yeah you’re right!  WE DO! A portion of each California SEIU members dues money, each month, is forwarded to this State Council.  Unlike most other executive boards within labor, and I’m not sure how or why this is, but, at least, according to the annual LM-2 reports that this organization is required to file, the executive board members of this Council do not receive additional monetary compensation.  If executive board minutes of these meetings exist, they don’t seem to be available to any of us members.  The right question is WHY NOT!

It is my wish that some among you, reading this background, will further research these entities and further share their findings with all of us.

Good luck and good hunting!

SEIU721 MOU 08 & 17 Impasse. IBEW Always Wins.

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SEIU 721, The Bigger Better Union has found itself in quite a bind.

It can not under any circumstances surrender on health care or it would lose the Coalition of City unions support and it would cement it’s future & decertification of members would not be able to wait.

Miguel Santana, our CAO, has managed to catch a DUI in a City Vehicle, get arrested, convicted, go to treatment and still manage to beat down every union who comes to the Table.

Well Except IBEW who’s massive organization and turnout along with business reps who took none to kindly to the Councils weak attempt at playing with their pensions left the LA City Council with it’s tail between it’s legs.

Mayor Hopeful and Civilian, Sworn, Part-time and full time workers nemesis Eric Garcetti lead the way attacking pensions like they were the spawn of satan.

IBEW has from what I understand Black balled his future Mayoral run, he is finished in LA politics for now.

MOU 08 & 17 has had impasse declared on them and SEIU has remained virtually silent on the matter.

Many employees had no idea very shortly they will lose important benefits and/or pay large amounts of money to their medical care.

Open & Transparent, that is what they seeked when they came over and that is what they were promised.

Many of the loudest critics are blaming the CAO, the Mayor, the governor and some actually embarrassed themselves by blaming “big oil”.

Well I would like to point out the following:

Mayor Villaraigosa, the CAO, and the Council have not kept the intentions they hold for Public Employees secret.

This is NOT news to me or anyone who reads my blogs, follows us on twitter, or is within 20 miles of my worksites.

SEIU chose the following in order to fight for it’s members.

Protest Mayors  Oscar Party, while having the media Relations person whose salary we pay demand we stop chanting anything that would actually upset the mayor or anyone in the area.

Nothing vulgar was said, she is incompetent and I demand she be fired and so do hundreds of other employees she should resign in order to save her future career.

SEIU also chose to push budget blame onto others.

Parking lot owners, Banks, and Wall Street.

Claiming uncollected debt would save the city from what I understand very little if any media attention was given to these events.

Mayor, and CAO said thanks we need to do better at collecting, promptly looked at outsourcing collections, and created a headache for ASCFME who had to fight that due to SEIU’s insistence that we need to do better collecting. $0.00 of the future collected debt will be credited towards the budget shortfall in favor of the unions.

SEIU has refused to purchase a single advertisement, Dan Mariscal has been pushing for SEIU to purchase advertising since at least March of this year.

Idea after Idea has been ignored and they have fallen flat on their face.

MOU 089 & 17 Members have vowed to decertify SEIU if they don’t begin doing something other then the third grade demonstrations they have so far failed at.

Many of the reps agree that the direction the union is going is miserable and have been getting louder and louder.

SEIU is second to none in organizing, they fail at representing. They also fail to recognize when they have made mistakes instead burying their head in the sand and staying the course similar to our fight on terror, that’s working out well too.

SEIU was recently emailed a laundry list of suggestions and possible job actions etc.

A new course of action, Detailed action plans.

John Tanner, Julie Butcher, Charles Leone, Bob Schoonover,  and J.J. Straight were all recipients of this email, each was asked for thier opinion and how those ideas could help the members succeed.

Each was asked to respond, Each one read the email, each one failed to respond.

If SEIU is doing so good with it’s course of actions why is the Mayor releasing in a few days his new budget plans continuing his attack on public service workers?

Why is Miguel Santana  preparing his departmental outline asking for more cuts coming second week of November?

Why is SEIU not representing the members in the manner they deserve?

In fairness to J.J. Straight she has been the only one of the above mentioned employees to actually respond to phone calls and she has made an attempt to work with us in carrying out the work that needs to be done and she has actually been a surprising breath of fresh air for SEIU members looking for change!

She has found herself under attack though as some people are hell bent on keeping the old regime in power.

This is another story for another time, right now the entire membership is under attack and SEIU needs to be accountable because by this time next year MOU 08 & 17 will be an Association affiliated with AFT if they don’t Get things done and quickly.

HAD SEIU actually taken our ideas to heart and paid attention to the members instead of sending members to Arizona to protest, or to Washington D.C. in these troubled times, MOU 08 & 17 along with other employees would not have been in this situation.

Detention Officers have Demonstrated a No Confidence vote in SEIU hiring an outside party to negotiate on behalf of them, Paying out of pocket.

General Services Police Officers have Demonstrated a No Confidence vote in SEIU hiring an outside party to negotiate on behalf of them, Paying out of pocket.

Who will be the next to go?

Remember when I said, “the grass isn’t always greener on the other side”

MOU 8-17 are hearing those words ring true now.

See for yourself the documents declaring impasse.

DOWNLOAD THE MOU 08 & 17 PACKAGE DOCUMENTS HERE!

MOU 8-17 Package