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 […]
January 22nd, 2010
Memorial Hospital admits NUHW won majority in union election, agrees on challenged ballots
“Sour grapes”: With less than 3% of vote, defeated SEIU still trying to stand in workers’ way
Santa Rosa, Calif.—One month after a hotly contested union election at Santa Rosa Memorial Hospital, both hospital management and the newly-elected National Union of Healthcare Workers (NUHW) have agreed to accept a determination by the federal government that resolves the question of 13 challenged ballots and gives the new union an absolute majority.
“There’s no question that my co-workers and I are joining NUHW,” said Melissa Bosanco, a care partner at the hosptial. “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.”