July 10th, 2010
Video: Kaiser workers announce filing of petition for election to join NUHW
Click here for: Press Coverage | TV news coverage | Photos
July 8th, 2010
ZNet: Huge election for Kaiser workers, 45,000 set to vote
By Cal Winslow
The new National Union of Healthcare Workers (NUHW) has filed petitions representing tens of thousands of Kaiser Permanente workers’ decertification petitions setting the stage for the largest, most important union election in decades.
Kaiser workers, 45,000, at last have won the right to vote for a union of their choice.
July 1st, 2010
Sacramento Business Journal: Kaiser workers petition for vote to change unions
By Kathy Robertson
Kaiser workers launched what could be the biggest labor battle in decades when they filed petitions Tuesday calling for union elections that would allow thousands of Kaiser workers to leave Service Employees International Union-United Healthcare Workers West (UHW) for a rival union started by former SEIU leaders.
The vote would cover about 45,000 workers statewide, including 4,000 in the Sacramento region. Petitions were filed with the Oakland and Los Angeles offices of the National Labor Relations Board, which will verify they were filed appropriately and schedule elections.
June 30th, 2010
In These Times: California union rebels demand biggest labor board vote in seven decades
By Steve Early
At the Bay Area NUHW press briefing, hosted by UNITE HERE Local 2, Kaiser workers explained why they want out of their existing union. Since January of 2009, when former SEIU president Andy Stern (now a drug company board member) put 150,000-member United Healthcare Workers (UHW) under trusteeship for challenging his heavy-handed rule, things have not gone well for care-givers in California.
Kaiser social workers Randi Shaw and David Shapiro were part of a pre-trusteeship UHW chapter that had 350 widely-dispersed members, but a strong network of 35 elected shop stewards. The social workers felt connected to Kaiser contract negotiations in 2000 and 2005 that Shapiro participated in as a bargaining committee member.
“As social workers, we believe in democracy, in electing our stewards,” Shaw said. “When SEIU took over our local, they said nothing would change. But one of the first things they did was remove stewards and other elected leaders.” Day-to-day representation has suffered as result, Shaw and Shapiro reported. Only members willing to sign an official SEIU loyalty oath are eligible to serve as stewards or negotiators.
So Kaiser management is taking advantage of the weaker, less experienced people who’ve replaced the hundreds of Kaiser stewards who have quit or been purged by SEIU because of their NUHW sympathies. “It’s very different working at Kaiser now, “Shaw said. “The culture has changed and you can feel it.”