(Posted by Steve Smith, California Labor Federation)

Sen. Dianne Feinstein is going to hear from both sides in the debate over the Employee Free Choice Act this week, but there couldn’t be a more stark contrast in the messenger.

Corporate executives from around the country are attending a lobbying junket to DC on Wednesday organized by the Chamber of Commerce in hopes of persuading Feinstein to join them in opposing labor law reform.

Meanwhile, in San Francisco, workers who have been fired or intimidated simply for trying to join a union will gather to begin a two-day fast Wednesday morning at Feinstein’s office to implore her to stand with them by supporting the Employee Free Choice Act.

As the negotiations and wrangling over the bill continue, Feinstein has emerged as a key player. While initially expressing skepticism about the bill (even though she was a co-sponsor of identical legislation in 2007), Feinstein is working with Sen. Harkin and others on seeking a solution that would garner the 60 votes needed for cloture. While political viability is important, the real consideration here must be on how the legislation would help the millions of workers who want a union to better their lives and the lives of their families.

To that end, we must have a bill that would do three things:

Ensure workers have the freedom to join a union, without harassment and intimidation;

Increase penalties on corporations that violate the law by firing or threatening workers;

Provide a timely and fair process for a first contract.

Without meeting those principles, the bill won’t be worth the paper it’s printed on. The next few weeks are critical. With Al Franken expected to be seated soon (knock on wood), the negotiations over the Employee Free Choice Act are headed into overdrive. And that means corporate honchos are going to be leaning heavily on key Senators like Feinstein in a last-ditch effort to derail the bill. And while Washington is a lot bluer than it used to be, make no mistake, corporations still have a stranglehold on power in our nation’s capitol.

CEOs like Lee Scott of Wal-Mart have said they’ll do whatever it takes to prevent the Employee Free Choice Act from passing. They’re spending hundreds of millions of dollars on a dishonest campaign to defeat the bill. We can’t let them succeed because the fate of this bill is intrinsically tied to the fate of the middle class. While CEOs are fighting to protect their multi-million dollar perks and lavish contracts, workers are fighting for health care, a living wage and safety on the job.

What can you do? Now that we’re in the home stretch of what has been a generation-long struggle for fairness in the workplace, I urge all progressives to take a stand in support of the Employee Free Choice Act. In California, more than 50,000 hand-written letters have already been delivered to Feinstein. Tens of thousands of calls have been made to her offices. Hundreds of impacted workers have visited with her staff across the state. But we must do more to counter the corporate onslaught.

Call Sen. Feinstein and tell her you support the bill. Send a message of support on our Facebook page to the workers who are fasting this week for their rights or, better yet, if you’re in the Bay Area stop by Wednesday or Thursday to show your support.  Let friends and family know that Feinstein needs to hear from them too.

We’ll be out in front of Feinstein’s office Wednesday and Thursday – rain or shine. Hope to see (or hear from) you then.

(Always nice to see Los Angeles City Council President Eric Garcetti stop by. – promoted by Dante Atkins (hekebolos))

(originally posted at my blog)

I recently sponsored a resolution in the Los Angeles City Council to express support for the Employee Free Choice Act (EFCA) and I am proud to report that on April 28th, the resolution passed the council 13-1.

EFCA, when it becomes law, will make joining a union easier for millions of Americans, a necessity if we are to raise workers’ wages, ensure healthcare coverage for all and rebuild the middle class. The case for it is clear, which makes it all the more frustrating that the bill appears stalled in the US Senate.

As our resolution states, in part:

WHEREAS, the free choice to join with others and bargain for better wages and benefits is essential to economic opportunity and good living standards; and

WHEREAS, unions benefit communities by strengthening living standards, stabilizing tax bases, promoting equal treatment and enhancing civic participation; and

WHEREAS, states in which more people are union members are states with higher wages, better benefits and better schools; and

WHEREAS, union workers receive better wages and benefits, with union workers earning 29 percent more than workers without a union, 35 percent more likely to have access to health insurance and four times more likely to have access to a guaranteed defined-benefit pension; and

WHEREAS, unions help raise workers’ pay and narrow the income gap for minorities and women by increasing median weekly earnings by 31 percent for union women workers, 31 percent for African-American workers, 50 percent for Latino workers and 9 percent for Asian American workers…

It concludes:

NOW, THEREFORE, BE IT RESOLVED, with the concurrence of the Mayor, that by the adoption of this Resolution, the City of Los Angeles hereby includes in its 2009-2010 Federal Legislative Program SUPPORT of HR 1409/S 560, the Employee Free Choice Act of 2009, which would restore workers’ freedom to join a union and, more specifically, amend the National Labor Relations Act to establish an efficient system to enable employees to form, join, or assist labor organizations, to provide for mandatory injunctions for unfair labor practices during organizing efforts, authorize the National Labor Relations Board to certify a union as the bargaining representative when a majority of employees-voluntarily sign authorizations designating that union to represent them, provide for first contract mediation and arbitration, and establish meaningful penalties for violations of a worker’s freedom to choose a union.

My grandfather on my mom’s side owned a union factory, and like Henry Ford, he understood the importance of decent wages and benefits for his employees. During my tenure on the Los Angeles City Council, time and time again, we’ve seen the widespread benefits of unionization. It’s true that a rising tide can lift all ships and unionization is that rising tide.

Take the fight to unionize L.A. security officers. While the business community was convinced they’d be irreparably harmed by the unionization of these workers, on the contrary, they are thriving, the security officers have better wages and benefits AND Los Angeles is a more secure city as a result. By paying a wage that allows workers to actually support a family, there is lower turnover, the applicants are better trained, emergency response times are faster and as a result our downtown highrises are safer and more secure.

I believe that it is incumbent upon cities – as centers of progressivism, as hubs of social change and, let’s face it, where the people live – to exert whatever pressure we can bring to bear on our leaders to do the right thing. While this resolution is strictly symbolic, I believe it sends a strong message not only to the elected leaders in California but to other local governing bodies around the country to step up and fight for progressive change. It’s like our president said during his historic run for the White House: real change can only come from the bottom up. Well here we are at the bottom urging those at the top to do what’s right and pass the Employee Free Choice Act.

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.

My story

I grew up in a politically right-leaning household where we were told that Jimmy Hoffa was a mobster and that unions are corrupt.  Being the daughter of a cop, I guess thinking about questions of social justice is ingrained in me. I’m not sure where I got the “question everything” from, but ask questions I do.  That may be why my co-workers initially encouraged me to run in our department to be their shop steward.  I asked a lot of questions and then I ran. I have been repeatedly re-elected over the last 18 years.  And my co-workers have elected me to serve as an elected chief steward, chair for our Steward Council, delegate to the Kaiser Division state council, delegate to the Coalition of Kaiser Unions, elected to serve on bargaining teams to negotiate our contracts.

Reform, Retaliation and Trusteeship

For the last two years, I’ve worked with many of my fellow workers trying to reform SEIU to be more democratic–only to have our local union hit with retaliation after retaliation for standing up for our member’s voices.

At the end of January, as the final act of retaliation against my union’s reform efforts, SEIU President Andy Stern took over my union in a process called trusteeship. He removed all the elected leaders and replaced them with two appointed “trustees,” Eliseo Medina and Dave Regan.

As members of SEIU-UHW we had given our best effort over two years to reform SEIU. But Andy Stern’s trusteeship was his final attempt to silence our voices, and it became clear that the only way to keep workers in charge of our own union is to be out of SEIU. So we formed our own union, the National Union of Healthcare Workers (NUHW), to keep control of the democratic union we built in our facilities.

After trusteeship, the first letter I received from Dave Regan and Eliseo Medina  stated that there would be no changes to our elected Shop Steward structure.  The most recent letter I’ve received, however, said:

“We understand that you no longer share our commitment to build a stronger union and win a strong contract for 2010. Therefore, we have no other recourse than to remove you from your position as an SEIU-UHW Steward.”

I found that interesting, to say the least, since neither of them has ever talked about this with me!

In the old days, pre-trusteeship, the only way an elected steward could be removed was through a recall by the members, the same people who elect us and who we’re accountable to. Not anymore!

After I was removed from my elected position as a shop steward, more letters went out to other advocates for NUHW. The Trustee’s appointee Greg Maron started assessing shop stewards in Northern California. If shop stewards don’t toe the SEIU line or if they say they support NUHW, they receive a letter removing them from their democratically elected positions.  Greg has even stepped it up a bit by going to Steward Council meetings and if they don’t agree with him he suspends the meeting until further notice.  Greg then follows up with letters removing them as shop stewards.

In the face of this, a majority of my 50,000 Kaiser co-workers across California have signed petitions saying they want NUHW to be their union.  The petition should result in a scheduled vote within 45 days.  But, SEIU has been filing NLRB charges (even against their own trustees, believe it or not) to delay our right to vote. One of their charges is the trustees are not representing the workers. Do you think that might have something to do with letting shop stewards go?  In the mean time they are bargaining away our pensions with Kaiser.

My letter to SEIU

The letter I got from the trustees removing me as a shop steward came a week after the appointed SEIU UHW Kaiser director Greg Maron colluded with my boss to announce to them they removed me as a shop steward.  In response, I sent Greg the following letter:

Dear Greg Maron,

We understand that it is your current misunderstanding that you have the power to “remove” Shop Stewards because we want to join another union, we don’t toe the SEIU line, we don’t do what you say, we argue with your scab staff you’ve assigned to our facility, and we don’t respect you, the trustees or SEIU’s “leadership.”

Sadly for you, our members are well educated and empowered to understand that our power comes from the workers, not from some failed attorney who gets to temporarily play “Kaiser Director” while the workers decertify SEIU. They understand that they elected Shop Stewards and that nothing you do or say or write will change that. Ours is a democratic union and of course, your trying to “remove” Shop Stewards because they disagree with you just highlights why 50,000 Kaiser workers will very soon no longer be a part of SEIU’s dictatorship.

But the real point of this letter is not the lost cause of trying to educate you on union democracy. The real point is to make sure you understand the impact of our having filed a petition by the majority of Kaiser workers two weeks ago. The impact of that means that SEIU is no longer the union of Kaiser workers and you are no longer the Kaiser Director.

As such, you are hereby notified that you are no longer recognized by the Kaiser workers as the Kaiser Division Director. Further, Ken Krause and Linda Erickson are no longer recognized as union representatives to the workers of Santa Clara Kaiser.

Respectfully,

The Kaiser Workers

Lisa Tomasian CRT/ARRT

Kaiser Santa Clara

NUHW Shop Steward

A new beginning

You might have noticed I signed my letter NUHW Shop Steward.  That happened this last week.  My co-workers were so upset about how the trustees removed their elected steward, we posted a 7 day vote notice and held an election on the seventh day. My department unanimously elected me as their NUHW shop steward.  

If you believe in democracy and believe that the Employees Free Choice Act is for workers to be able to choose without fear or intimidation, call your elected Assembly, Senate and Congress political leaders and tell them that 91,000 healthcare workers at nursing homes and hospitals across California have signed petitions to leave SEIU and join NUHW, and we want to vote without delay. Our elected leaders oversee the National Labor Relations Board and they have the power move the board in the fair and right direction in support of the right of California’s healthcare workers to choose NUHW.

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Here’s how you can help:

JOIN our mailing list (by going to the sidebar and signing up for updates). TELL your elected California 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.

(Fabulous news.  The labor movement needs unity as much as its individual workplaces need it.  Steven Greenhouse of the NYT has a story about this. – promoted by David Dayen)

Today the California Nurses Association/National Nurses Organizing Committee (CNA/NNOC) and the Service Employees International Union (SEIU) announced an accord to work together to bring union representation to all non-union RNs and other healthcare employees in the US.

As Registered Nurses, we know all too well that working in a hospital these days means engaging in a daily struggle to provide care in an industry more concerned about it’s bottom-line than about providing patient care.

Registered Nurses struggle day in and day out to provide care without adequate staffing and resources. Non-RN hospital staff are struggling to fulfill essential hospital functions with ever decreasing numbers of staff, while worrying that they’ll be the next to be laid off.

Our patients, left to wonder if a nurse will be available to help if they ring their call-lights and whether their hospital bills will bankrupt their families are likely the most affected.

Under the pact, SEIU and CNA/NNOC, the largest unions in the nation representing healthcare workers and registered nurses, respectively, will work together to bring union representation to all non-union RNs and other healthcare employees and step up efforts to enact Employee Free Choice Act.

The resulting massive increase in unionization will improve the experience of providing and receiving care in US hospitals—and the resulting movement will change the whole nature of how health care is provided in the US.

READ THE PRESS RELEASE HERE

In the words of Rose Ann DeMoro, the Executive Director of CNA/NNOC, the nation's largest organization of direct care RNs with 85,000 members in all 50 states:

“This is an exciting new day for nurses and patients across the nation. This agreement provides a huge spark for the emergence of a more powerful, unified national movement that is needed to more effectively challenge healthcare industry layoffs and attacks on RN economic and professional standards and patient care conditions. It will also strengthen the ability of all direct-care RNs to fight for real healthcare reform and advocate for improved patient care conditions and stronger patient safety legislation from coast to coast.”

In the words of Andy Stern, President of SEIU, the nation’s largest healthcare union:

“This marks the beginning of a new future for nurses and other healthcare workers and their patients throughout this nation. We are lining up to make sweeping changes to this country’s broken healthcare system, and as we wait for the starting gun it is imperative that we put the past behind us and move forward by putting all healthcare workers in the strongest possible position to define reform, move legislation, and make the new healthcare system operational. Is this accord surprising? Perhaps, but those who recognize our shared value of making sure registered nurses and other healthcare workers have not only a say but a critical role in helping reshape a failed system into something that actually helps people know that this is the right step to help us meet the challenge and the call of this moment.”

Among key elements of the pact:

• The two unions will work together to organize non-union hospital workers throughout the country, with CNA/NNOC as the leading voice for RNs, and SEIU as the leading voice for all other hospital workers.

• The unions will launch an intensive national organizing campaign with an initial focus on the nation’s largest hospital systems. • In addition to organizing, SEIU and CNA/NNOC will coordinate on a broad range of other issues from bargaining with common employers to the campaign to enact the Employee Free Choice Act.

• SEIU and CNA/NNOC publicly endorse measures that allow states to adopt single-payer health care systems.

• Both parties will refrain from “raiding,” seeking to displace the existing members of the other's organization, or from interference in the other's internal affairs.

• The two unions will create a new joint RN organization in Florida to represent current and future RNs of both unions. In all other states, SEIU will continue to represent their current RN members in collective bargaining.

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…

Reaching out

Since I joined SEIU-UHW I’ve gone through a kind of consciousness raising, to borrow a term from the 1960’s.  I used to simply be concerned with my own benefits, my wages, my office space.  I wasn’t selfish, just short sighted.  I could only see what was in my world:  my smallish world.

I’m a Medical Social Worker which means that I help patients with their psychosocial needs in the hospital.  When my former local joined SEIU-UHW, I volunteered to take part in a two-week UHW campaign organizing other professionals at HCA hospitals in San Jose. Through that experience, I learned that my problems were really small compared to workers with no representation.  I was exposed to the struggles of homecare workers, and long-term care workers and learned how very fortunate I was as a Kaiser UHW member.

In joining SEIU-UHW and reaching out to organize my fellow healthcare workers, I had joined the larger world of healthcare workers, organized and unorganized, and I realized my problems and my efforts were on a continuum with other workers.  We had the same desires for fair wages, good working conditions, and most importantly, a voice in our workplaces.  I experienced the power of joining with my sisters and brothers in collective struggles:  I saw how much further I got in my own workplace when we stood with the workers in the larger bargaining unit in collective actions. With this larger worldview, I saw what we could accomplish together.  

I learned that unions were by definition workers bonded together for a common cause: endorsing a vision of collective struggle for collective gain.  As I got involved in political campaigns, in Iowa and New Mexico working to elect our new president, I was part of SEIU-UHW’s efforts to make change in one-to-one conversations, at the workplace, at the doors, and in Sacramento, in Washington, D.C.  

One of the reasons SEIU-UHW was so successful was that we knew we couldn’t just be about fighting bad bosses, we had to be working to build the union at every level: to define ourselves beyond what we were fighting against, to define what we were fighting for, what we stood for.

A new union

I hate speaking and writing about SEIU-UHW in the past tense.  But though it is no longer, our vision prevails in our work building NUHW. We still embody that vision and we are creating the new union.  That new union lives in the present and the future, but to fully create our new union, we each have to stand up for what matters most right now.  That means asking ourselves:  what’s worth preserving beyond a paycheck, beyond benefits?

I believe union democracy is worth standing for because I have seen the power of these values embodied in UHW: putting workers first, empowering us to stand up for ourselves in our workplaces, and to stand for issues that affect patient care in Sacramento, to stand for electing a Democratic president, for the Employee Free Choice Act.

I believe in union democracy because I was and am part of it.   Union democracy is a living, breathing organism.   In the former UHW, union democracy wasn’t just an ideal it was a driving principle.  I’m not suggesting SEIU-UHW was perfect, it was made of people and we’re never perfect.  But its leaders had 20/20 vision in terms of seeing what mattered most, and ensuring that our actions were consistent with those values.

I had an epiphany in line at the first trusteeship hearing in San Mateo, while waiting behind my sisters and brothers to say my 2 minute’s worth to Ray Marshall, to SEIU’s attorneys.  I was nervous, furious, so much was in my heart and so much was at stake.  My legs shook, and I felt sick.  Then it came to me.  I didn’t have to say everything.  It wasn’t about me, not me alone.  I would be preceded by my sisters and brothers and succeeded by my sisters and brothers.  Some of them were ranting and cursing, some of them were crying at the mic.  Mine would be one of the voices speaking in support of my union and all that it meant. All I had to be was a drop of water in this great river headed to the delta.  I could do that, and I could do it really well, I decided.   I could be a fine droplet.  And that would be plenty.  Because the river was so much bigger and more powerful than I could ever be alone.

-Homecare workers’ rally, Fresno, California, March 2009

A defining moment

I keep hearing the phrase “defining moment” to describe this period of time in the labor movement, and it’s a true description.   What impresses me every day is witnessing this moment defining us as people.  As a social worker, I’ve seen these moments come to families when their sister/brother, mother/father is dying, I see families laugh their loudest, scream and rant and act out, attack others or wail and lay hopeless.  I also experience people at their absolute kindest and most loving, their most vunerable and their strongest.  

Moments like this where our gains are all in question, when all that we have worked to create is being threatened, our relationships with bosses, our pensions, even our trust in one another, bring out the best and the worst in us.   Our stewards are being “fired” for refusing to let go of their allegiance to their sisters and their brothers, allegiance to their own beliefs. These moments have defining questions wrapped up into them:  What we are willing to commit ourselves to? What are we willing to risk?  What in us is unwavering?  What won’t we give up?  Where will we put our resources?  Yes our money, but also our time and our energy. These moments show us who we are.  

When I have doubt, or feel afraid, or am not sure that we’ll succeed, I look to my sisters and brothers, and I know who I am.  I’m one of the big wide body of  healthcare workers, the collective, and together, we are our most powerful, and our very best.

–Amy Thigpen, Medical Social Worker, Kaiser Fremont

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Here’s how you can help:

JOIN our mailing list (by going to the sidebar and signing up for updates). TELL your elected California 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.

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.

A majority of the workers from 350 healthcare facilities…representing over 91,000 California healthcare workers…have petitioned to be represented by the National Union of Healthcare Workers (NUHW) in just five weeks time. That includes an absolute majority of the 50,000 healthcare workers in the Kaiser network of hospitals and clinics. It also includes homecare workers in Fresno County who collected almost twice the number of the petition signatures necessary to trigger an election that will allow 10,000 homecare workers in Fresno county to secure representation by NUHW. That total also includes numerous workers at smaller facilities like those working at Orange County’s Western Medical Center in Anaheim and Coastal Communities Hospital in Santa Ana who gathered petitions from an absolute majority of the 500 healthcare workers at their two facilities.

A remarkable development: 91,000 Healthcare Workers, 350 Facilities, 5 weeks

All told, this dramatic development tells a powerful underlying story that goes beyond describing the initial organizing success of the newly-born National Union of Healthcare Workers, NUHW. This outcome would simply not have been possible outside of the context of thousands of California union members rising up to forge their own democratic response to SEIU’s trusteeship. Winning majority petitions from 91,000 workers at 350 facilties in five weeks is the kind of organizing victory that is possible only when members have built a powerful culture of member leadership and activism. Make no mistake, these thousands of petitions were signed one person at a time in workplaces all over our state. This success was won by member leaders reaching out to their fellow healthcare workers in an often hostile environment of intimidation and misinformation created by SEIU.

No one inside or outside the labor movement can doubt that workers who can organize and execute such a petition drive on short notice under such adverse conditions are not also fully empowered to negotiate effectively for their own contracts and for the best interests of their patients.

And that’s the point.

A Fundamental Difference of Opinion

California progressives need to understand that at the core of the disagreement between the healthcare workers choosing to join NUHW and Andy Stern’s SEIU International is a fundamental difference of opinion about exactly the kind of member-driven organizing that California’s healthcare workers have just powerfully demonstrated to the world. Andy Stern has a top-down approach to labor organizing. In fact, Andy’s top-down philosophy is part of why he felt he could trustee California’s UHW, one of the most progressive and successful locals in the nation, without consequence. Undoubtedly, when Stern trusteed UHW and stripped its staff and elected leaders, he did not anticipate this dramatic grassroots response. Stern’s choice to trustee SEIU-UHW West was premised on the idea that California’s healthcare workers would not choose to rise up, en masse, reject the removal of their elected leaders and advocate for an election to choose a new union.

Clearly, Stern miscalculated. Stern was not only in error in his appalling strategic choice to trustee SEIU-UHW, he was even more gravely mistaken in underestimating the organizing power and determination of California’s healthcare workers to choose to build their own democratic, member-led union.

The tens of thousands of California healthcare workers who have petitioned for elections to join NUHW in 350 facilities not only fundamentally disagree with Stern about what worker empowerment looks like and how that empowerment impacts bargaining outcomes and patient care. Those workers have clearly demonstrated in these last five weeks why top-down, undemocratic leaders are never a match for the power of grassroots democratic organizing.

Supporting California’s Healthcare Workers is Common Sense

California’s progressives, whether grassroots activists or elected officials and leaders, should pay heed. In the ongoing political battles we face in our state, the empowered organizing exhibited by the member leaders of NUHW is exactly the kind of activism we need. Whether it was opposing Prop 8 or rallying to fight Arnold Schwarzenegger, California’s healthcare workers are no strangers to movement politics and California progressives: they have been on the front lines of California progressive activism for years. In fact, for progressives advocating for a host of issues in our state, supporting California’s healthcare workers as they petition for elections to form their own, new, vibrant member-led union is common sense.

It may be that for some, the disagreement between California’s healthcare workers and Andy Stern presents an inconvenient conflict. That need not be the case. If Andy Stern truly supports the guiding principle of the Employee Free Choice Act…that workers should be free to choose…then he should let California’s healthcare workers…who’ve already chosen NUHW…vote to join NUHW and set aside his lawsuits, intimidation and threats. It may be inconvenient to some, but the truth is that whenever you read about Andy Stern and “free choice,” you should remember that the only thing standing in the way of elections for the representation of 91,000 healthcare workers in 350 facilities in our state is Andy Stern himself.

The single best thing anyone could do to build support for the Employee Free Choice Act is to demonstrate the hunger and commitment of real workers to exercise a free choice. The California healthcare workers choosing NUHW are doing just that.

Time and again, healthcare workers in California have put themselves on the line for progressive causes; in the last five weeks a proud and growing majority of them have chosen NUHW. Today those workers have one simple request to make of their fellow Californians and Andy Stern:

Let us vote!

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Here’s how you can help:

JOIN our mailing list (by going to the sidebar and signing up for updates). TELL your elected California 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 a volunteer with the National Union of Healthcare Workers.}