With both sides resting their cases, a milestone has been reached in the federal lawsuit against ousted SEIU-UHW President Sal Rosselli and his 25 co-defendants. The case is being tried in federal court in San Francisco before U.S. District Court Judge William Alsup.

Ms. “Ungovernable Situation” Takes The Stand:



Barbara Lewis, author of the now infamous “Ungovernable Situation” memo, which plotted out leaving our union in chaos after they were ousted from power, took the stand. From her we learned how she spent $41, 871 at Kinko’s to print decertification petitions. When asked if she put her staff on “Code Orange,” she replied that she could not recall. However, a January 22, 2009 memo was shown where she instructed trusted staff to:

–     Always be accessible by phone

–     Not to plan for any sleep – OUCH!

–     Be on 24 hour standby

And yes, she did say “Code Orange.” She was asked if as high ranking officer of UHW how she felt about trusteeship being imposed to which she said very saddened by the whole situation. Mr. Kohlman then showed a video clip where she called it “A great day for our union.” Ooops.



“Define Forming”

NUHW co-founder John Borsos was one of the final witnesses in the case. Despite his lack of recollect, the jury was shown a memo where lawyers advised him to “lay low” about active resistance to the international. He was told to “launder” it through an intermediary. At one point Mr. Kohlman asked him if one still works for one union and uses the resources of that union to start forming a new union, would he consider that stealing. His answer “depends on how you define forming.” He then insisted that despite the similarities between this case and the Colcord case of 2005, it’s a different situation. Different, apparently, because he’s the one on the hot seat.

(Colcord case: In 2005 three organizers while still employed by UHW used union resources such as the member database among other stuff to form a new union to organize EMT workers at AMR. Rosselli and UHW sued the three and won a judgment against them. In this trial, UHW makes the same claim, that Rosselli and the other defendants used UHW resources to form NUHW while they were still the top officers/employees of UHW.)

Tomorrow we will hear the closing arguments and the judge will give the jury instructions they will use for their deliberations.