419 Napa caregivers vote to join National Union of Healthcare Workers

NAPA — Four hundred and nineteen previously unrepresented service and technical workers at Queen of the Valley Hospital in Napa voted by a 3-2 margin to join more than 1,300 other Northern California St. Joseph caregivers as members of the National Union of Healthcare Workers.

With this election, conducted by mail and tallied by the National Labor Relations Board on November 15, these workers will join NUHW-represented caregivers at Humboldt County’s St. Joseph Hospital Eureka and Redwood Memorial Hospital and Sonoma County’s Santa Rosa Memorial Hospital and Petaluma Valley Hospital. NUHW now represents service and technical workers at all of St. Joseph’s Northern California hospitals.

Queen of the Valley nursing assistants, housekeepers, dietary aides, respiratory therapists, receptionists, monitor techs, and others in similar classifications organized to advocate for improvements in staffing levels and quality of care and to achieve parity with their NUHW-represented counterparts at other St. Joseph hospitals in terms of wages, job security, and workplace rights.

“We organized to fight for fair pay, job security, and improved standards of patient care at our hospital,” said Radiology Technician Ray Herrera. “This election victory shows us what we can accomplish when we stand together, and now we will finally have a seat at a table and a voice in patient care.”

Earlier this year, NUHW members at St. Joseph’s Humboldt and Sonoma County hospitals won strong contracts that guaranteed annual wage increases — as much as thirty percent over three years for Humboldt workers — secured their healthcare benefits with no increase premiums, and won a commitment from management to address staffing needs and patient care issues.