January 7th, 2013
Huff Post: Health Care Worker Unions Team Up In California
Dave Jamieson, Huffington Post
Two major health care worker unions entered into a formal affiliation in California on Thursday, arguing that they could better fight concessions sought by hospitals and health care companies in contract talks if they joined forces.
The National Union of Healthcare Workers (NUHW) and the California Nurses Association (CNA) will now jointly fight what they describe as declining workplace standards in the industry, officials with the two unions told The Huffington Post. The NUHW, which was created four years ago after a split with another union and now includes 10,000 members, has found a significantly larger partner in the politically powerful CNA, which represents 85,000 nurses in the state.
“Some of us in both organizations, for decades, we have had this goal to form a national health care union,” said Sal Rosselli, president of NUHW. “This affiliation, we believe, will make it come to be.”
The affiliation comes at a time when the two unions have been engaged in high-profile fights with the health care companies Kaiser Permanente and Sutter Health, as well as public spats with another union, the Service Employee International Union-United Healthcare Workers West (SEIU). NUHW and the nurses association have accused SEIU of being too friendly with the industry and too conciliatory to employers during contract talks.
January 7th, 2013
San Jose Mercury News: NUHW affiliates with powerful California Nurses Association
OAKLAND — In a move expected to shake up health care labor battles statewide, the powerful California Nurses Association announced Thursday that it will affiliate with the National Union of Healthcare Workers in fights with major health systems over wages, benefits and patient care issues.
CNA also agreed to use its 85,000 members and considerable resources to help NUHW in its campaign to defeat a large rival, the Service Employees International Union-United Healthcare Workers West, in an upcoming election for the right to represent 43,500 Kaiser Permanente service and technical workers.
That election, which may happen this spring, will be a repeat of a 2010 election, which was the largest union election in the private sector in nearly 70 years. At that time, Kaiser workers voted to remain in SEIU.
“This is an affiliation whose time has come,” said NUHW President Sal Rosselli during an Oakland news conference with CNA leaders. “When we win this Kaiser election, it will be a game changer.”
January 7th, 2013
Sac Bee: Health union alliance could threaten larger rival
WASHINGTON — Two health care unions are joining forces in a move that could threaten a powerful rival’s dominance and fuel a new round of labor tensions.
The 85,000-member California Nurses Association is forging an alliance with the 10,000-member National Union of Healthcare Workers to form a new union made up entirely of health sector workers.
The alliance announced Thursday renews a bitter rivalry between the nurses’ union and the powerful 2 million-member Service Employees International Union, the nation’s dominant health care union and a major force in Democratic politics.
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.