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Beyond Chron: SF Labor Council Backs UNITE HERE Local 2, Rejects SEIU’s Threats

by Randy Shaw In a further sign of SEIU’s growing estrangement from the labor movement, the San Francisco Labor Council has rejected SEIU’s threat to withdraw 40% of its Council funding unless UNITE HERE Local 2 drops its support for NUHW’s decertification campaign against SEIU’s home health care workers. At an August 21 Executive Board […]

Kaiser-SEIU Layoff Agreement Exposed

Many Kaiser workers in California have already received pink slips.  But SEIU-UHW Trustee Dave Regan has promised members that there will be no layoffs.  At the same time, he’s asking workers to picket Kaiser to protest the Layoff Agreement – the very agreeement that SEIU has already agreed to. Kaiser management has verified that SEIU […]

Workers appeal SEIU actions

Last week California nursing home workers delivered a formal appeal to federal officials detailing widespread abuses committed by SEIU’s trustees as well as the failure of the National Labor Relations Board (NLRB) to defend worker’s basic rights. (Click here to view the appeal)

The workers are employed by Foresight/IQC, a for-profit company that operates seven nursing homes in Northern California. Six months ago, 75% of the company’s workers signed petitions requesting to leave SEIU and join the National Union of Healthcare Workers (NUHW).

Since then, SEIU’s trustees have used frivolous “blocking charges” to stall workers’ elections while simultaneously working with the company’s executives to retaliate against rank-and-file leaders.

Beyond Chron: San Francisco New Epicenter for Labor’s Civil War

While progressives battle tea baggers, the insurance industry and the traditional media over universal health care, San Francisco is gripped by fierce union vs. union battles. In one corner we have SEIU, which has reportedly brought 600 staff to the city to defend its representation of health care workers against decertification efforts by NUHW. SEIU’s San Francisco campaign is also targeting UNITE HERE Local 2 and its President, Mike Casey, for supporting NUHW’s campaign. Seeking to isolate Casey, Andy Stern and Bruce Raynor sent an August 10 letter to International Union Presidents stating that they were “disturbed by a recent BeyondChron piece that details San Francisco Labor Council head and HERE Local 2 president Mike Casey’s material and public support for a rogue and corrupt organization (NUHW).” This was followed up last Saturday by UHW Trustee Dave Regan telling Casey that SEIU was withdrawing its financial support for the Labor Council in retaliation for Local 2’s backing NUHW. So while progressives push on health care, and unions have an historic opportunity to pass the Employee Free Choice Act and comprehensive immigration reform, SEIU battles Local 2 and NUHW in San Francisco, far from the arenas where the nation’s future is being decided.

Children’s Hospital workers fight SEIU’s backroom deals

Children’s Hospital workers in Oakland picketed on SEIU’s first day of bargaining with their bosses. SEIU tried to lock out the elected bargaining team, so that no one but a few hand-picked workers would know what happened at the bargaining table. SEIU failed, and the workers who sat in on bargaining were shocked by what they saw. Click below to read what happened according to Ruth Kees, a 32-year employee at the hospital.