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Labor Notes: Finally, NUHW Squares Off Against SEIU in Two Hospital Elections

Workers at Santa Rosa Memorial Hospital will vote between NUHW, SEIU and no union December 17 and 18. This election, along with a similar contest for 2,300 professional staff at Kaiser may be a bellwether for NUHW in 2010.

Nearly eleven months of courtroom stalling has slowed the upstart National Union of Healthcare Workers (NUHW), but a break in the legal logjam may be coming—finally giving California’s health care workers the ability to choose their union.

Santa Rosa Memorial workers reject SEIU’s union-busting campaign

Workers at Santa Rosa Memorial Hospital have been working six years to form a union. A week before their election, SEIU bussed in hundreds of staff to picket their hospital with anti-union messages to try to sabotage their vote.

KPFA Morning Show on Santa Rosa Memorial Hospital election

Telemetry Technician Nancy Timberlake and Radiology Technologist Jack Nicholson talk about tomorrow’s election at Santa Rosa Memorial Hospital. Source: KPFA Morning Show

Catholic News Service: Santa Rosa election tests Catholic health care labor-management relations

A six-year-long union organizing campaign that has drawn national attention as a test of the ground rules for labor-management relations in Catholic health care has reached a milestone as workers at Santa Rosa Memorial Hospital vote on whether or not to be represented by a union.

Beyond Chron: 2009, Labor’s missed opportunity

Today, labor’s top legislative priorities remain unmet, and EFCA is in limbo. But there is an election this week at California’s Santa Rosa Memorial Hospital (SRMH) that could end labor’s year on a triumphant note. Over 600 workers vote on Thursday and Friday whether to join a union, with a victory potentially paving the way for the unionization of 9000 workers in the St. Joseph’s Health System chain. Management is aggressively opposing the union drive, as is SEIU, which is running a massive media and ground campaign against rival union, NUHW. SEIU’s support is so weak that it informed the NLRB last Thursday that it intended to pull out of the election, only to reverse course the next day so that it could continue its anti-union attacks through this week’s election.