January 27th, 2010
Sacramento Business Journal: Southern California Kaiser workers vote to leave SEIU
Kaiser Permanente workers in Southern California have voted by huge margins to dump Service Employees International Union and go with a rival union formed a year ago by former SEIU officials.
The vote was 1,652 to 254 in the biggest contest for members since the National Union of Healthcare Workers was formed. It brings 2,300 workers in three bargaining units at Kaiser hospitals and clinics in Los Angeles and San Diego into the new union.
January 27th, 2010
Labor Notes: NUHW Takes Kaiser Elections
The National Union of Healthcare Workers (NUHW) chalked up an important win Tuesday in Southern California as hundreds of professional and technical workers at the giant health care chain Kaiser Permanente voted to leave the Service Employees (SEIU) and join the upstart NUHW.
“We were confident we would win,” said Tessie Costales, a 27-year nurse at Kaiser Sunset medical complex in Los Angeles. “Today it’s official.”
A last-minute push by the Service Employees (SEIU) to impound the ballots and prevent the vote count was denied by the National Labor Relations Board.
January 27th, 2010
Beyond Chron: NUHW Wins Landslide Victory Over SEIU at Kaiser
In a stunning rebuke to SEIU, nurses and health care professionals at Kaiser Hospital voted overwhelmingly yesterday to leave SEIU and join NUHW. Nurses favored NUHW over SEIU 746-36 (95%), one health professional unit went for NUHW 189-26 (86%), and the other went for NUHW 717-192 (78%). The landslide victories likely foreshadow the complete shift of SEIU’s Kaiser workforce to NUHW when the rest of the bargaining units vote in June. Leila Valdivia, a Kaiser nurse who strongly backed NUHW, described the victory as being “like a big weight came off our shoulders. We gave SEIU a real spanking, and people were crying and hugging after the votes were announced.” NUHW’s Barbara Lewis, who coordinated the union’s Kaiser campaign, described the win as “a tribute to rank and file leadership that was heavily invested in a member-driven union. The workers organized around this vision, and sought a union that the workers would control, which was NUHW.”
January 27th, 2010
In These Times: Will NUHW Election Win Spark Larger Exodus From SEIU?
A year ago, Service Employees union (SEIU) president Andy Stern took control of the 150,000-member California healthcare workers local, putting United Healthcare Workers West (UHW) into trusteeship. The ousted president, Sal Rosselli, and many other officials, staff, stewards and members then launched a new union, National Union of Healthcare Workers (NUHW) and filed many petitions to decertify UHW/SEIU and replace it with the new union.
But on the eve of the trusteeship anniversary, NUHW yesterday won a strikingly lopsided victory among 2,300 workers in three highly skilled units at dozens of Kaiser Permanente facilities in southern California. As reported on this site yesterday, registered nurses voted 746-36, psychiatric and social workers 717-192, and healthcare professionals (like dietitians) 189-26—all for NUHW over SEIU-UHW.
January 27th, 2010
San Diego Union Tribune: Area Kaiser workers vote for new union
By Keith Darcé
Kaiser Permanente workers in San Diego County and other parts of Southern California have struck a blow against the Service Employees International Union by voting to leave the powerful organization and join a competing labor group headed by former SEIU leaders.
Results of the voting were announced yesterday, nearly a year after executives of SEIU offices in California were ousted by the union giant’s national president in a power struggle. The deposed leaders quickly formed a rival group, the National Union of Healthcare Workers.