My name is Oscar Medina and I've worked as a transporter at Summit Alta Bates Hospital in Oakland, California for seven years.
I'd like to share our experience at Alta Bates Summit Medical Center since SEIU took over our local union. In particular, I would like to explain what has happened with our contract and why we are choosing to organize with a new union, the National Union of Healthcare Workers (NUHW).
I've been a respiratory therapist at Saint Louise Regional Hospital for 18 years. I want to tell our community the truth about what's been going on in our hospital over the last year, and why things are about to get better.
RNs at Kaiser Sunset LAMC voted 746 to 36 to join NUHW
Kaiser SoCal Psychsocial Professionals voted 717 to 192 to join NUHW
Kaiser SoCal Healthcare Professionals voted 189 to 29 to join NUHW
Our votes, joined with those of our brothers and sisters at Santa Rosa Memorial Hospital, Los Alamitos Medical Center, The Sequoias-Portola Valley and Doctors Medical Center San Pablo, send a message to every healthcare worker seeking a voice in their workplace and a union that they control: in election after election, workers are choosing NUHW.
Workers at Santa Rosa Memorial hospital voted to join the National Union of Healthcare Workers (NUHW) last Friday after a six-year effort to form a union at their hospital.
The ballot count, in an election where 50%+1 of the votes were needed to win outright was:
or six years caregivers at Santa Rosa Memorial Hospital have worked to form a union. After petitioning for an election this spring and waiting months for the NLRB to clear SEIU's blocking charges, Memorial workers will have the chance to form their union with NUHW this Thursday and Friday.
The election at Santa Rosa has been an uphill battle featuring a David, the workers at Memorial, versus two Goliaths: St. Joseph Health System and an anti-NUHW campaign by SEIU...
Last June, in advance of a union election for 10,000 homecare workers in Fresno County, NUHW had built relationships with thousands of homecare providers through months of door-to-door organizing and the leadership of caregivers who had built the union in Fresno and who supported NUHW.
In response, on the eve of the election, SEIU brought 1,000 organizers to Fresno to conduct a "blitz" of home visits to overturn NUHW's advantage.
Now, according to newly released sworn testimony from workers and SEIU staff whistleblowers who worked on the campaign in Fresno, SEIU staff committed serious violations of the rules in the Fresno at the direction of their superiors, including harassing, intimidating and threatening voters and handling workers' ballots in violations of election law.
Per reports from Randy Shaw from the UNITE-HERE convention in Chicago, the entire labor movement has allied with UNITE-HERE in opposition to SEIU's raids into UNITE-HERE's jurisdictions.
Laborers President Terrence O'Sullivan described SEIU's conduct as "deplorable," and said "we didn't join Change to Win to raid and hijack another union's members." Change to Win leaders James Hoffa of the Teamsters and Joe Hansen of the United Food and Commercial Workers also pledged support, while Randi Weingarten of the American Federation of Teachers (one of the only two international presidents that SEIU claimed back its position) now supports UNITE HERE. UNITE HERE President John Wilhelm defiantly castigated SEIU as "the bosses union," and said that his workers are now in a "two headed fight: a fight with the boss and a fight with the boss's lackey union." Wilhelm said there has been "real widespread revulsion" throughout the labor movement against SEIU's conduct, and the UNITE HERE convention has announced a new labor movement unity, with SEIU alone on its own.
Today represents the official count of the ballots cast by Fresno homecare providers in an election that took place between June 1st and 15th in.Fresno County. The outcome of this election will determine whether NUHW or SEIU represents 10,000 Fresno homecare providers...
Dave Regan, executive vice-president of SEIU and appointed trustee of SEIU-UHW gave a speech last night to hundreds of SEIU organizers who have been shipped into Fresno from around the country.
Dave Regan is the public face of SEIU in Fresno County where 10,000 homecare workers are voting in an election to leave SEIU and join their own union, NUHW. Here's a sample of what SEIU's top spokesperson in Fresno had to say:
Local California blogger Adios Andy has a great post up about how workers from all over California are volunteering in the upcoming June election in which 10,000 Fresno County homecare workers are seeking to leave SEIU and join NUHW.
For the last month, Andy Stern's SEIU has been trying to stop worker activists at Doctors Medical Center in San Pablo from organizing to win an election and build their own union, NUHW. Today they counted the votes.
158 workers voted for NUHW.
24 workers voted for SEIU.
There's a story behind this David vs. Goliath victory, and it has implications for everyone who cares about the labor movement and grassroots efforts to build workers' power. Let me tell you why...
Sometimes in the midst of a broader organizing effort there's a moment that clarifies exactly what you're fighting for. NUHW activist and union member Eloise Reese-Burns has just such a moment to share with us tonight.
Eloise Reese-Burns has worked as a certified nursing assistant at Cottonwood Healthcare in Woodland California for 39 years. This month, along with 350 of her co-workers, she become one of the first official members of NUHW, a member-led union of healthcare workers formed just this year.
Building NUHW will not be easy. But Eloise Reese-Burns explains why it is necessary...
When Alec MacGillis of the Washington Post noted last Wednesday that this is "an awkward moment for the SEIU," he alerted readers to a reality those following the labor movement have recognized for some time.
Andy Stern, President of SEIU, viewed as "a possible savior of labor" per MacGillis, has led SEIU into a pattern of activity that calls into question whether SEIU's leaders really believe in the principles they claim to stand for.
The simplest way to understand the gap between SEIU's words and its actions is to understand that, for Andy Stern, the consolidation of power has consistently trumped principle. While supporting Stern and SEIU once seemed like 'one stop shopping' for progressives looking to support workers, that support increasingly comes at the price of turning a blind eye to a troubling pattern of hypocrisy.
My name is Lisa Tomasian and I'd like to tell you the story behind a letter I wrote to the trustees of SEIU-UHW.
Having worked at Kaiser Hospital as a Radiology Technologist as well as having served as an elected union shop steward for the past 18 years, I believe that workers' rights are human rights. I've come to believe that labor unions are the vehicle and voice for workers to advocate for social justice.
In my previous posts, United Healthcare Workers Holding our Ground and We are the Union. SEIU who are you? I shared my experience of the trusteeship SEIU International imposed on SEIU-UHW and the birth of our new union, NUHW. What I'd like to do today is share with you why this experience has been a defining moment for me and my sisters and brothers building NUHW...
In the five weeks since SEIU International trusteed California's SEIU-UHW West something enormous has transpired in our state: California's healthcare workers have spoken.
What those workers have said is crystal clear: We choose NUHW.
I hear the chants in my head. When I need them, they come to me.
This line is especially true right now for the former members of United Healthcare Workers-West. We are the union. A week and a half ago, many of my sisters and brothers and I slept in our union hall, before the hostile takeover by our International, SEIU. As we held our hall, my sisters and I worked to maintain our union. We fended off anyone SEIU sent to weasel their way in without warrants. We planned how we'd move forward during an imminent occupation: how we'd communicate with each other; how we would reach deep into our membership to take our union back.
It occurred to me that night hunched over the bare desks in the communication department office, the union solidarity posters hanging behind me, that though we had been member leaders up to that point, stewards and activists for union democracy, something had changed. This was a sort of matriculation, graduation day.
