Dave Regan’s alleged bullying should bring down – Latest News
Union boss Dave Regan allegedly makes use of poll initiatives to bully people into doing what he needs.
That’s the accusation on the coronary heart of a new lawsuit by a group of neighborhood health clinics who say that Regan tried to make use of one of this yr’s poll initiatives, Proposition 44, to “extort” them (within the criticism’s phrases) and power them to unionize.
Proposition 44 would require neighborhood health clinics to spend no less than 90% of their budgets on precise health care.
SEIU-UHW President Dave Regan is pictured during a Kaiser bargaining replace in 2023. youtube/@SEIU-UHW
It sounds cheap, till you begin asking the place the quantity 90 got here from.
According to the lawsuit, the 90% threshold would put most of the neighborhood health clinics in California out of business.
And that’s the purpose.
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Regan, who’s president of the Service Employees International Union (SEIU) – United Healthcare Workers (UHW) West, needed the clinics to permit him to unionize 25,000 staff.
According to the lawsuit, Regan threatened the clinics: If they refused his phrases, he would file a poll initiative to destroy them.
And when talks broke down, that’s what he allegedly did.
SEIU-United Healthcare Workers West President Dave Regan attends a summit hosted by Politico in Sacramento, Calif., Tuesday, Aug. 11, 2026. AP Photo/Annie Barker
It’s not the primary time Regan has been accused of being a bully.
The lawsuit lays out related efforts by Regan, going back more than a decade, through which he used the menace of poll initiatives to intimidate people.
And corporations weren’t his solely targets. Unions, too.
Earlier this month, Regan’s colleagues on the SEIU filed complaints claiming that he had tried to intimidate different labor leaders into supporting Proposition 40, the so-called “billionaire tax,” which he’s spearheading.
They accused Regan of intimidating labor officers, threatening them with federal investigations and even assaulting one of them — who occurred to be feminine.
An impartial investigation concluded that many of the allegations have been substantiated.
An impartial investigation concluded that many of the allegations have been substantiated. Bloomberg through Getty Images
Regan denied all of it, and stated that his accusers have been simply attempting to stop the “billionaire tax.”
But the people who spoke out in opposition to Regan’s allegedly abusive conduct are labor leaders with ironclad credibility.
One of them, David Huerta, was arrested final yr during a protest in opposition to Immigrations and Customs Enforcement (ICE). He’s hardly a company shill or a MAGA plant.
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Yes, some union leaders in California are cautious of Proposition 40.
They know that seizing 5% of the wealth of the richest Californians has already led many tech entrepreneurs to depart the state. California would possibly even finish up shedding money within the long run.
They additionally know that Regan’s own union stands to benefit immediately from Proposition 40, since 90% of the money collected can be earmarked for health care spending.
They have the best to have a totally different view. That’s what Regan can’t appear to tolerate.
Dave Regan in Sacarmento, Calif., on Friday, Sept. 11, 2026. CA Post
Regan has confronted related accusations earlier than.
In 2016, he was accused of assaulting a course of server who got here to his home. At the time, his lawyer denied the allegation and claimed the method server had intimidated Regan and his daughter. Ultimately, no prices have been filed.
In 2018, Assembly member Richard Bloom, a Democrat from Santa Monica, reported Regan to the state Assembly Rules Committee, saying that the union chief had shoved him outdoors a restaurant. A union spokesperson who witnessed the confrontation stated that Regan by no means touched Bloom, and no prices have been filed.
Regan additionally denied any wrongdoing. But he clearly likes bare-knuckle ways of the political kind.
For years, Regan has bossed his manner round California, drawing on his coaching in New York state and his expertise within the Rust Belt.
He arrived in California and instantly noticed the state’s poll initiative course of because the gentle underbelly of democracy.
In election after election, he has organized initiatives on his pet priorities. He doesn’t at all times win them. But he has turned poll initiatives into weapons to increase the political energy of his union — regardless of the results.
The lawsuit by the neighborhood health clinics lays all of it out, chapter and verse.
Dave Regan, president of SEIU-UHW. Bargaining 2021
Regan’s ways have unusual Californians feeling powerless, on the mercy of a highly effective union paperwork that has turn out to be a law unto itself.
Yes, there’s a Big Tech oligarchy. There can also be a Big Labor oligarchy. And Dave Regan has been utilizing Proposition 40 as his energy play among the many union elites.
But even the unions have had enough. Union leaders don’t like being bossed round by Dave Regan any more than business homeowners or health clinics do.
The accusations in opposition to Regan are severe enough to derail Proposition 40.
No one should vote for a poll initiative that relies on the varieties of thuggish ways that Regan is alleged to have used.
It’s time to stand up to Dave Regan, and deal Proposition 40 the defeat it deserves.
Joel Pollak is Opinion editor of the California Post.
