January 25th, 2010
Beyond Chron: NUHW, SEIU in Kaiser Election Showdown
Almost one year to the date that SEIU placed its large UHW local in trusteeship (leading former UHW leaders to form NUHW), ballots will be counted at Kaiser Hospital in Los Angeles on Tuesday in a “game changer” for the winning union. The stakes are high. NUHW’s victory would give it strong momentum for winning 50,000 more Kaiser workers in June, while a defeat would be a major blow. SEIU faces equally stark outcomes: either win here, or preside over the likely inevitable march of all Kaiser workers out of their union – with other hospital workers to follow.
A clear majority of workers submitted decertification petitions and have shown little inclination to stay with SEIU. Many pro-NUHW workers predict victory, which is why SEIU fought to stop the election, and still seeks an NLRB ruling impounding the ballots prior to counting. SEIU faces the same problem here as in Santa Rosa: workers view the election as between “top-down” vs. “rank and file” decision-making, with NUHW clearly benefiting from the populist ardor sweeping the nation.
January 25th, 2010
Los Angeles Times: Healthcare unions await Los Angeles workers’ vote results
Election on which union will represent workers at Kaiser Permanente’s L.A. Medical Center is a key battle in the clash between giant SEIU and upstart NUHW. Results are to be counted Tuesday
By Patrick J. McDonnell
It has taken almost a year, but Tessie Costales says she and her fellow nurses are thrilled that they were finally able to vote for a new collective bargaining representative.
“We want a democratic union where there is member involvement in determining what is safe and good for our patients, and what is safe and good for our members,” said Costales, a registered nurse at Kaiser Permanente’s Los Angeles Medical Center.
The votes of Costales and hundreds of other nurses at the Kaiser facility are scheduled to be counted this week — the latest development in a monumental intra-union struggle for the hearts and minds of California healthcare workers.
January 23rd, 2010
Baltimore Sun: UM professor reprimanded for apparent conflict of interest
He wrote legal opinion on university letterhead, did not disclose fees from union
A professor at the University of Maryland, College Park is facing conflict-of-interest questions after he used university letterhead to deliver a legal opinion in his role as a consultant to a labor union.
Fred Feinstein, an adjunct professor at the School of Public Policy, wrote a letter saying that California health care employees could jeopardize their contract benefits if they left Service Employees International for a competing union. Feinstein received $240,000 in consulting fees from SEIU in 2007 and 2008, which he did not mention in the Jan. 12 letter that was distributed as a flier in the continuing union battle.
January 22nd, 2010
Press Democrat: Charges fly over union vote at Memorial Hospital
Santa Rosa Memorial Hospital and the National Union of Healthcare Workers have resolved the question of 17 ballots challenged after a union election last December — but that’s about the only thing they agree on.
Both sides recently signed off on a finding by the National Labor Relations Board that only four of the 17 challenged ballots are valid. But they have very different conclusions about what that means.
“We won our election,” said Melissa Bosanco, a care partner at Memorial Hospital and a NUHW supporter.
January 22nd, 2010
Memorial admits NUHW won majority; elected officials urge hospital to stop delays
Melissa Bosanco, Care Partner at Santa Rosa Memorial“There’s no question that my co-workers and I are joining NUHW. We voted NUHW because we want a voice to make our hospital a better place to work and a better place for our community to get care.” Management at Santa Rosa Memorial Hospital has agreed to accept […]