Huge contract victories for NUHW
Doctors Medical Center, San Pablo
April kicked off with a string of huge contract victories for healthcare workers in NUHW…and we’re stoked!
At Santa Rosa Memorial Hospital, after a nine-year struggle to organize a union and win a fair contract, we reached agreement for a great contract on Tuesday. Our tentative agreement, reached after 11 months of bargaining, includes across-the-board wage increases of 7% over three years, first-time wage scales, and provides for better retirement benefits than those negotiated by SEIU-UHW at Dignity Health (formerly Catholic Healthcare West.)
At Keck Medical Center at USC in Los Angeles, NUHW members reached a tentative agreement for an outstanding contract with no takeaways and raises of 9.75 to 33 percent over three years.
And at Doctors Medical Center San Pablo last night, we ratified an agreement to win retroactive raises going back to June of 2011 after fighting back our employers’ demand for healthcare concessions.
All of these victories have one thing in common: NUHW is showing the world what healthcare workers can accomplish when we stand up and fight back.
The difference with SEIU-UHW could not be clearer. SEIU thinks we should settle for takeaways with Kaiser Permanente, a company that made over $6 billion in profits in the last three years! That’s not right.
At all three of our hospitals, we showed what we can accomplish when we stand up and say “NO” when the boss asks for takeaways.
With our contract victories, word about NUHW is spreading. Workers at Hazel Hawkins Medical Center in Hollister just submitted a petition to demand an election to leave SEIU-UHW and join NUHW this week.
Sincerely,
Duka Ristic, Lead Ultrasound Tech, Doctors Medical Center San Pablo
Paisely Roberts, Care Partner II, Santa Rosa Memorial Hospital
National Union of Healthcare Workers