Non-Medically Trained Control Over Hospital Staffing Growing
And, the United Nurses and Allied Professional is one example.
While the union keeps a nurse as president, the union is actually run by two brothers: a lawyer and a labor activist.
Two brothers, who have no medical management experience, appeared to be looking for a target rich environment to build a union. They focused on nurses to build their union called the United Nurses and Allied Professional (UNAP). One brother is an attorney, Christopher Callaci, and the other is a career labor official, John “Jack†Callaci.
The Callaci brothers knew that nurses make ideal targets for union organizers because their jobs are very stressful job and they often work long hours in an open 24/7 hospital situation. Inevitably, this kind of high stress and long hours creates inevitable personal conflict.
And conflict is like oil and gas to a union organizing machine. Union organizing techniques consist of targeting employees, creating dissatisfaction, building conflict, and recruiting a few insiders provide internal workplace information to organizers and lead the union’s talking points push from inside.
Since 2009, the Callaci’s union harassed Nurse Jeanette Geary and refused to properly restrict her forced union fees from the union’s political activities. Recently, the union lost the 10-year-old case before the National Labor Relations Board. Now, Jack and Christopher Callaci want to drag Jeanette’s case out further by appealing the recent NLRB ruling.
So, we decided to look at the union’s financial disclosures, past and present. First, a quick UNAP history.
According to the UNAP union’s website, UNAP evolved from eight health care workers’ unions that ended their affiliation with the American Federation of Teachers (AFT). By 1999, three more unions left the AFT and joined UNAP.
UNAP organization drives have since added the following:
In 1999, UNAP organized a small group of public school nurses in Putnam, Connecticut. In 2004, UNAP organized social service workers in Youth Services, and in 2005 it organized clinicians at Health Care and Rehabilitative Services—both in Brattleboro. In January 2006, the union won an election for employees working in the adult services at Seven Hills RI (formerly the Homestead Group and the Association for Retarded Citizens of Northern Rhode Island). In 2008, the UNAP organized 650 Registered Nurses at Kent Hospital, the second largest hospital in Rhode Island. The UNAP also organized large numbers of members in residual bargaining units at Landmark Medical Center, Kent Hospital, Rehabilitation Hospital of RI, Westerly Hospital, Visiting Nurse Home Care and Brattleboro Retreat.[i]
UNAP
Union Financial Reports (Click to download zip file of UNAP reports)
No union officer and employee conflict-of-interest reports[ii] were filed by either Callaci brother or union president Linda McDonald.
In the most recent union disclosure report (2018) with the Department of Labor, the union lists John “Jack†Callaci as Director and Chris Callaci as Chief Legal Counsel.
The consistently largest union costs are the two brothers: John and Christopher Callaci. During the time period analyzed[iii], the disbursements (not including benefits) to the two Callaci brothers totaled $4,091,243. During the same time period, the union reported spending $7,044,618 for all the other employees and officers of the union.
UNAP membership peaked in 2013 with 4,917 members with wages greater than $16.87/hour and 847 members with wages less than $16.87/hour. In the union’s most recent report for the year 2018, membership fell to 4,221 making wages greater than $17.46/hour and 1,390 making ages less than $17.46/hour.
UNAP officials reported no (zero) Agency Fee Payers on their 2005-18 U.S. Department of Labor (USDOL) financial reports. Several of these reports were signed by UNAP President Linda McDonald[iv]. However, in a form letter to Agency Fee Payers signed by UNAP President Linda McDonald, she acknowledges that UNAP represented employees requested to be made Agency Fee Payers and she provided the reduced fee amounts. (See UNAP Agency Fee Payer Notice Letter September 30, 2009 NLRB exhibit.)
In 2017, the UNAP union disbursed $86, 207 for legal fees to a law firm located in San Diego, California.
Early in UNAP’s history, financial records show that union donated its members’ money to the discredited ACORN organization. In 2017, the union donated $5,000 to AFL-CIO political activists called the Working Families Organization.
Please look over the linked LM
reports and let us know (or the USDOL) of any discrepancy that you may notice
or any additional information that we should include to update this UNAP
information on the NILRR.org site.
[i] UNAP union website History
[ii] “Every officer and every employee (other than an employee performing exclusively clerical or custodial services) of a labor organization must file an Officer & Employee Report, Form LM-30, if he, or his spouse or minor child, directly or indirectly, had certain economic interests during the past fiscal year.†U.S. Department of Labor instructions.
[iii] 2005-2018 LM-2 reports, T-1 reports, and UNAP union constitutions
[iv] Each of the undersigned, duly authorized officers of the above labor organization, declares, under penalty of perjury and other applicable penalties of law, that all of the information submitted in this report (including the information contained in any accompanying documents) has been examined by the signatory and is, to the best of the undersigned’s knowledge and belief, true, correct, and complete. (See Section VI on penalties in the instructions.) (Source: USDOL Form LM-2)