September 9th, 2010
Beyond Chron: SEIU Uses Fear, Lies, and Millions to Sway Kaiser Workers
By Randy Shaw
SEIU’s Kaiser campaign may be the most expensive political campaign (per voter) in United States history. The union spent $10 million on a much smaller Fresno home health care campaign in 2009, which used 900 staff compared to a Kaiser campaign force that increases to 2,600 this week.
Having analyzed SEIU’s Kaiser campaign, I believe a $40 million estimate is clearly reasonable. But even if SEIU only spends $20 million, this would still greatly exceed the massive campaign blitz of California’s Meg Whitman. Whitman has spent over $100 million to reach 17 million voters, while SEIU will spend 20-40% of that amount to reach an electorate, Kaiser’s 44,000 workers, that is 0.2% of the size.
That means SEIU is spending between $455-$910 per vote, the equivalent of Whitman spending between $7.7 and $15.4 billion to become California’s next Governor.
September 3rd, 2010
Third statewide Kaiser conversation
More than 6,000 Kaiser co-workers participated in our third statewide conversation on Thursday night. If you weren’t able to join us, you can listen by clicking the play button below. Make sure you’re signed up to join the next conversation! Sept. 2 Conversation with Ralph Cornejo, NUHW’s negotiator with Kaiser management; Dannielle Estrada, a co-worker […]
August 28th, 2010
NLRB puts it in writing: Our raises, benefits, and PSP are protected by law
On Aug. 26, the federal government officially charged Kaiser management with violating the law for trying to take back raises from NUHW Pros and RNs. They said our raises and benefits are protected by law, and they’ll make management pay up. National Labor Relations Board, Aug. 27, 2010 Notice“…Respondents [Kaiser] failed to maintain the established […]
August 26th, 2010
Join the conversation!
More than 5,000 Kaiser employees have participated in each of two live, statewide telephone conversations about how to improve our jobs and benefits and stop SEIU’s side-deals that undercut our contract. If you weren’t able to join us, you can listen by clicking the play buttons below. Make sure you’re signed up to join the […]
August 23rd, 2010
Kaiser charged with criminal breach of federal labor law
Management caught paying for staff to campaign for SEIU in government-supervised union election for 44,000 employees
Oakland, Calif.—Nine healthcare workers have filed a federal lawsuit against their employer, Kaiser Permanente, for allegedly providing criminal financial support to SEIU. SEIU is the union that Kaiser employees seek to replace in an upcoming election supervised by the federal government.
Under federal law, employers like Kaiser are prohibited from providing financial support to the unions that represent their employees, in order to ensure that unions act in the interest of their members and not on behalf of the employer. Violating this law is a criminal offense.
Kaiser employees’ lawsuit, filed in United States District Court for the Northern District of California, alleges that Kaiser violated the Labor Management Relations Act by paying for dozens of Kaiser employees to conduct full-time election campaigning on behalf of SEIU.