By Doug Cunningham

SEIU's Andy McDonald says after being served with a lawsuit, the union’s United Healthcare West California local officers have returned $2.8 million from a special fund that they had been created. But SEIU says that still leaves $245,000 to be returned.

[McDonald]: “We want to wrap this up quickly. We want to get this money returned to UHW members and back under the financial safeguards of the constitution and federal law. We want to make sure that members have a full accounting of what happened. That should be able to happen quickly. We’re hopeful.”

United Healthcare West says the lawsuit is a “PR circus”
and “a hoax being perpetrated on the press and, most shamefully, upon SEIU members, in order to smear us and shut down the Stern team's political opposition.”

SEIU’s McDonald says this is not retribution for UHW’s internal political dissent, and is not a step toward SEIU International taking over UHW.

[McDonald]: “I think what we’re seeing is a healthy debate that makes our union stronger and that makes the labor movement stronger. This whole notion of actions that SEIU could potentially take is really a manufactured issue that’s only being talked about by people, by I would say maybe even a small group of people, within UHW.”