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…

“My name is Eloise Reese-Burns and I’ve worked as a certified nursing assistant at Cottonwood Healthcare in Woodland, California for over 39 years. I’ve been involved in caring for patients and building my union for most of my life.

Today I can say that I and 350 other workers at four nursing homes have joined together to become the first members of the National Union of Healthcare Workers (NUHW). We are proud to be the first members of our own union. After nursing home workers and homecare workers struggled for so long to stop SEIU from dividing us, we are even prouder that long-term care workers are the ones who broke this door open for thousands of others to follow.

If you have a minute, I’d like to tell you a story that may give you some perspective on why we at Cottonwood Healthcare decided to join NUHW.

After SEIU trusteed our old union, SEIU-UHW, and removed its elected leaders against the wishes of our members, SEIU sent a representative to Cottonwood to meet with workers and try to get us “on board.”

When this young gentleman talked with the administrator here, he asked a question that surprised me. He asked the administrator, “Is this a 24-hour operation?”

I guess he thought our residents check out every night.

It’s a shame that SEIU chose to use our own dues money on “representatives” who don’t represent healthcare workers at all, and who need to ask if a nursing home is a 24-hour operation. But, truly, that comes as no surprise to those of us who are working together to build NUHW. More than 90,000 workers all over California have voted to join NUHW because of just that kind of experience with SEIU.

SEIU is out of touch. That’s what happens when you meet with corporations more than you listen to union members.

NUHW is a member-led union where workers are involved at every level, and it shows in our leadership and our activism. In fact, just after joining NUHW, Cottonwood nursing home workers went to the State Capitol in Sacramento to support the Employee Free Choice Act. We stand in solidarity with all workers seeking to join a union of their choice.

We at Cottonwood may be the first to join NUHW, but we will not be the last. Thank you for reading my story.”

Eloise Reese-Burns

Eloise are her fellow caregivers are not alone. More than 92,000 California healthcare workers have petitioned to leave SEIU and join the member-led NUHW.

Among them are 1,500 members of SEIU local 1021 at Alameda County Medical Center who have rejected SEIU’s effort to railroad them into an incomplete contract just to lock them into a union where they don’t have a voice. And 500 homecare workers at San Francisco’s IHSS Consortium petitioned on Monday with the NLRB to leave SEIU-UHW and join NUHW, a union that will respect their democratic rights and fight to get them the contract and benefits they deserve.

Activists like Eloise Reese-Burns and the workers at Alameda County Medical Center are choosing NUHW because they want a union that will listen to their voices and include them in every aspect of the life of their union, from bargaining, to organizing, to running political campaigns. NUHW is the union that knows these workers, their facilities and their contracts.

Caring for patients in a nursing home is a 24-hour operation. Everyone who knows healthcare knows that. Eloise Reese-Burns and her co-workers deserve a union that will fight for them 24/7.

That’s why they chose NUHW.

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Here’s how you can help: support NUHW

JOIN our mailing list (by going to the sidebar and signing up for updates). TELL your elected representatives that you support California healthcare workers’ freedom of choice to form NUHW through fast, free and fair elections, without harassment and intimidation from their employers or from SEIU. (Enter your zip in box and hit enter.) VISIT our website and DONATE to support our movement. And, most importantly, if you have friends or family who are healthcare workers and would like to join our movement to build a vibrant, member-led National Union of Healthcare Workers, please SPREAD THE WORD.

{Paul Delehanty is an employee of the National Union of Healthcare Workers.}