January 5th, 2013
KQED: Healthcare Unions in California Join Forces
by Mina Kim | January 4, 2013 — 1:46 PM, KQED
Officials with the California Nurses Association and National Union of Healthcare Workers announced their affiliation Thursday, to seek better workplace conditions for healthcare employees.
CNA co-president Deborah Burger said nurses’ abilities to negotiate contracts has been undercut by the Service Employees International Union,and its chummy relationship with employers like Kaiser Permanente.
“SEIU California is sort of the concession factory,” Burger said. “And we know that once you give up a benefit it doesn’t come back.”
January 5th, 2013
Bureau of National Affairs: NUHW Affiliates With California Nurses To Jointly Fight Kaiser, Sutter, and SEIU-UHW
NUHW Affiliates With California Nurses
To Jointly Fight Kaiser, Sutter, and SEIU-UHW
By Joyce E. Cutler, Bureau of National Affairs
SAN FRANCISCO—The independent National Union of Healthcare Workers has affiliated with the California Nurses Association/National Nurses United with the goal of restoring worker and patient safety standards, the unions announced Jan. 3.
Speakers at a news conference at CNA headquarters in Oakland, Calif., to announce the affiliation, said the two unions have common enemies—United Healthcare Workers West, a local of the Service Employees International Union; Kaiser Permanente; and Sutter Health.
“This is a significant affiliation that should send an unmistakable message to California’s hospital industry,” CNA President Deborah Burger said at the press conference. “California’s RNs now joined by other health care hospital workers will not accept the outrageous and unwarranted attacks on patient care protections and our own contract standards, conditions, and our livelihood.”
The 10,000-member NUHW joins with the 85,000-member CNA as an official thorn in the side of hospital managers and the industry.
“We’re pooling our power to stand up to the [California] Hospital Association and their members like Sutter and Kaiser and in Sacramento to stand up to the Hospital Association’s attempts to weaken the nurse-to-patient ratios,” NUHW President Sal Rosselli told BNA.
January 5th, 2013
WSJ: Health-Care Unions Will Join Forces
smaller Larger By Kris Maher, the Wall Street Journal The nation’s largest nurses union said Thursday it would team up with a union representing other health-care workers, seeking to make the combined entity the dominant labor group in the fast-growing health-care sector. The groups’ decision to join forces intensifies their rivalry with the powerful Service […]
January 3rd, 2013
NUHW and Calif. Nurses Association Formally Affiliate to Protect Patients and Fight Contract Cuts
Two of the most powerful unions in the healthcare industry join forces to help workers halt erosion of contract standards everywhere OAKLAND — Four years ago, thousands of healthcare workers in California set out to reverse the steady erosion of union power in their industry by founding a principled and assertive new organization, the National […]
January 3rd, 2013
NUHW-CNA: An Affiliation Whose Time has Come
Just four years have passed since we founded NUHW, following SEIU’s disastrous takeover of our union. In that short time, we have grown into a powerful organization of 10,000 members, spanning every job classification in the hospital and nursing home sectors. We are now the fastest growing healthcare workers’ union in the country. Today, we […]