It was announced yesterday that UNITEHERE President John Wilhelm has sent a letter of apology to Sutter Health along with a check for $6M. This brings to an end a legal saga that began in 2005 when the union mailed 11,000 postcards to northern California residents that falsely attacked the cleanliness of Sutter maternity wards. The union was attempting to organize Angelica Textile Services. Sutter, the secondary target, won its original lawsuit against the union in 2006. 
The $6M was not paid from Wilhelm’s personal fortune of course, or that of Bruce Raynor, disgraced acting president of the union at the time of the unlawful mailing. Instead the settlement will be paid out of dues forcibly collected from hotel maids, food handlers and other service workers, who will each pay about $27, or roughly four hours average take home, for the screwup. Sutter was originally awarded $17.2M, the largest award against a union in history. (or roughly $77 per UNITE HERE member) The award was thrown out in 2010 by a California superior court on a technicality and sent back for retrial. (The legal costs per maid are hard to calculate or imagine.) The postcards said, in part, “you may be bringing home more than your baby if you deliver at a Sutter birthing center” suggesting the hospitals’ linens were not being properly laundered. In his apology letter to Sutter, Wilhelm wrote the mailing was “offensive and in poor taste.” Wilhelm also noted that the postcards were not sent by the current leadership and the “individuals responsible for this publication have left our union.” No mention was made by Wilhelm if the union intends to address the type of organizer over-zealousness and lack of reasoned oversight that results in such shameful squandering of members’ hard earned dues dollars.
