January 7th, 2013
Labor Notes: California Nurses and NUHW Join Forces against Kaiser
Steve Early, Labor Notes
Two of U.S. labor’s biggest recent strikes against concessions were conducted by the California Nurses Association and the National Union of Healthcare Workers. Their target each time was Kaiser Permanente, the giant California health care chain that has made $6 billion in profits since 2009 but still wants job cuts and givebacks.
Today CNA and NUHW took their collaboration further and announced NUHW’s formal affiliation with CNA. It seemed an obvious alliance, because, as CNA Co-president Deborah Burger noted at a press conference in Oakland, many of the union activists in the room have “been working together for decades” against common employers.
But officially joining forces took years and some detours to achieve—including, at one point, CNA’s abandonment of the newly formed NUHW in 2009, followed by the latter’s attempted hook-up with the Machinists, an AFL-CIO union with little connection to California health care.
The most immediate impact of today’s affiliation will be critical help from CNA in NUHW’s ongoing drive to oust the Service Employees (SEIU) as the representative of 43,000 service and technical workers at Kaiser Permanente. It is likely to culminate in a second National Labor Relations Board (NLRB)-run decertification election later this year.
January 7th, 2013
La Opinion: Enfermeras de California se unen a sindicato nacional
Los sindicatos California Nurse Association (CNA) y National Union of Healthcare Workers (NUHW) anunciaron ayer su fusión bajo una sola entidad legal y una ofensiva nacional para sindicalizar bajo una sola bandera, a todos los trabajadores de servicios de salud.
La nueva entidad que se llama NUHW-CNA inicia con una afiliación combinada de 95,000 empleados de salud, gran parte de éstos son enfermeras de California.
Una de sus primeras actividades públicas en conjunto será una elección en donde tratarán de convencer a 43,000 trabajadores de Kaiser Permanente, que actualmente son representados por SEIU, de que sus derechos serán mejor representados si cambian de sindicato.
January 6th, 2013
Counterpunch: An Alliance in Healthcare
by CAL WINSLOW, Counterpunch
In a giant step forward for California healthcare workers, two of the nation’s most militant unions have joined forces in the battle against Kaiser Permanente, the giant California based healthcare corporation. It is a battle of enormous proportion, one with implications for the entire industry, almost certainly beyond.
The alliance joins the California Nurses Association (CNA) with the new National Union of Healthcare Workers (NUHW); it was formally announced January 3, at CNA headquarters in Oakland, CA. It comes in the face of a set of interrelated challenges, each crucial, first of all of healthcare workers of course, but equally important for patients, for workers nationwide, for us all.
“This is an affiliation whose time has come,” NUHW president Sal Rosselli told the assembly of healthcare workers, union staff and members of the press. “Employer attacks are on the rise, nowhere more so than at Kaiser Permanente. NUHW members at Kaiser, with RN co-workers from CNA have already engaged in repeated statewide strikes to stand their ground against threatened reductions to wages, benefits and job protections that other unions at Kaiser have already agreed to in spite of four years of record profits for Kaiser.”
Other unions? Here, already, the plot thickens, for this alliance is not just to battle Kaiser; it is also to fight Kaiser’s incumbent union, the Service Employees International Union’s (SEIU) California affiliate, United Healthcare Worker West (UHW). Zenei Cortez, RN, who chairs CNA’s Kaiser bargaining team, also CNA co-president, explained, “Uniting together, CNA and NUHW are taking a huge step forward in achieving our joint goal of upholding standards for workers and patients.” She made it quite clear, however, that the fight was also with SEIU’s UHW. “We will have to fight Dave Regan /UHW’s imported, thug extraordinaire president/ as well. We will fight Reagan and his cronies, it is disheartening to say that he has undermined our fight, but we will fight him every step of the way.”
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.