February 18th, 2010
Beyond Chron: Media Ignoring Labor Union Successes
Labor unions have had some tremendous successes in recent weeks, but you would never know this from the mainstream media. The Teamsters won bargaining rights for 7600 workers at Continental Airlines, which only rated a small non-bylined story in the Business Section of the New York Times and was ignored by other national media. UNITE HERE Local 11 is waging an inventive contract campaign against Disney that included several workers on a week long fast, a tent camp out, and candlelight vigil outside Disneyland — all providing good photo ops — yet media outside Southern California ignored these efforts.
Even worse, the February 15 New York Times ran a story on Disney’s promotion at the Epcot Center in Florida of a “Give a Day, Get a Disney Day” charitable project. The contrasting Disney coverage is but one example of how the media has shifted its approach to labor activism so that such stories are treated as strictly local news. Yet news about corporations, as well as local shootings, fires or climate events, get national coverage.
February 17th, 2010
North Bay Business Journal editorial: a rebuke of SEIU
International Service Employees International Union President Andy Stern may have an open invitation to the White House, visiting there 22 times in the first six months of the Obama Administration, more than anyone else, according to visitor logs.
But health care workers are increasingly telling the SEIU to take a hike.
In Sonoma County, when 675 technicians and other workers at Memorial Hospital finally got the opportunity to vote on union representation, just 13 votes — that is not a typo — went to the SEIU.
In Los Angeles late last month, a rival union to the SEIU won overwhelmingly in three elections impacting 2,300 Kaiser Permanente workers.
February 12th, 2010
NUHW members support Unite Here Disney workers in hunger strike and rally for safety
Click here for full-screen slideshow Since Wednesday, Disney hotel workers have been holding a water-only fast for justice outside the Grand Californian Hotel. NUHW nurses have been by their side every morning and night to monitor their health as they go without food to bring attention to the health and safety issues they face at […]
February 10th, 2010
Solidarity Magazine: NUHW Landslide Election in S. California
Yesterday’s election carried particularly high stakes given that 50,000 additional Kaiser employees are currently petitioning for an election this summer. Last year, SEIU and Kaiser’s management intervened to stop an earlier election request by these same employees, prompting workers to launch their second petition-gathering effort.
Yesterday’s election was also significant in that it served as an important gauge of workers’ opinions one year after SEIU President Andy Stern imposed an unpopular trusteeship on January 27, 2009. Particularly stunning is the fact that RNs voted by a 95%-to-5% margin to join NUHW — a margin that is unheard of in sharply contested elections, especially where the losing union enjoys a large resource advantage.