Healthcare workers picket in Los Angeles and Oakland

NewsJuly 25, 2009

Caregivers picketed the Los Angeles office of the National Labor Relations Board (NLRB) on July 23, protesting the Board’s failure to schedule union elections for tens of thousands of workers who want to leave the scandal-plagued SEIU. SEIU has used legal tricks to stall NUHW supporters’ elections for nearly six months.

Children’s Hospital workers in Oakland picketed to protest the sellout backroom deals SEIU is making with employers while they delay our elections. A majority of workers at Children’s signed a petition in February calling for an election quit SEIU and to join the National Union of Healthcare Workers (NUHW) instead. Workers are afraid the hospital will take advantage of the situation to negotiate a sweetheart deal with SEIU.

Kaiser Bellflower workers protested Kaiser’s collusion with the SEIU. In March, a majority of Kaiser’s 50,000 California employees signed a petition to join NUHW. Since then, Kaiser has unlawfully joined SEIU’s effort to stop caregivers from changing unions, by paying staff to campaign for SEIU, allowing SEIU to purge NUHW supporters from labor-management committees, removing flyers from employee bulletin boards, scheduling mandatory “captive audience” meetings for SEIU officials, and targeting NUHW supporters for disciplinary action.