January 22nd, 2010
NUHW asks labor board to schedule elections for all workers awaiting elections to quit SEIU
SEIU charged with abusing labor board’s process to block or delay elections for tens of thousands of healthcare workers
SAN FRANCISCO—A new charge against the troubled SEIU could result in long-awaited elections for workers at more than 80 hospitals and nursing homes across California to dump SEIU and join the National Union of Healthcare Workers (NUHW).
Over the past year, 100,000 SEIU members have been organizing to join NUHW, a member-led union founded by California healthcare workers. To stop these workers from voting to leave, the SEIU has filed frivolous “blocking charges” with the labor board, arguing that it would be unfair for SEIU to face a democratic vote by its own members.
“Healthcare workers have chosen NUHW in election after election,” said Donna Mongelli, an RN at Kaiser’s Los Angeles Medical Center. “That’s why SEIU is afraid of a fair vote.”
January 22nd, 2010
Business Journal: NUHW wins favored in challenges to ballots; hospital objections remain
SANTA ROSA—Challenges to 17 ballots in the disputed union election at Santa Rosa Memorial Hospital have been resolved in favor of the National Union of Healthcare Workers, although objections by the hospital to the election process are still under investigation by federal labor officials.
The National Labor Relations Board determined that 12 of the 17 challenged ballots should not be counted because the voters were not eligible under the rules of the election; another ballot will not be counted because of stray marks on the ballot. The four challenged ballots left unresolved are not enough to affect the final result: 283 votes for NUHW, 263 for no union, and 13 for SEIU, the NUHW said.
January 22nd, 2010
Inside Higher Ed: Union’s man
A University of Maryland professor has pulled his institution into a heated labor debate in California, prompting a rebuke from administrators and inviting questions about his own conflicts of interest.
As a paid consultant for Service Employees International, the nation’s fastest growing labor union, Fred Feinstein recently wrote a legal opinion suggesting that California health care workers could receive “less favorable” benefits if they left SEIU for another union. Feinstein penned his opinion on university letterhead, which was then photocopied and used by SEIU as campaign literature, urging workers to stay on as members.Listing his credentials, Feinstein mentioned his status as a senior fellow and visiting professor in Maryland’s School of Public Policy, along with detailing his prior service as general counsel to the National Labor Relations Board. What Feinstein did not mention, however, was that he’s on the SEIU payroll and received about $240,000 from the union and one of its affiliates, Change to Win, in 2007 and 2008, according to federal filings.
January 15th, 2010
Latest stunt at labor board shows SEIU’s charges have no merit
Troubled union still struggling to stop fair elections for thousands of their own members to switch to NUHW
LOS ANGELES—After a year of stalling union elections for more than 100,000 of their own members to quit SEIU, SEIU officials have cast themselves as champions of democracy in a cynical move to manipulate the election schedule in their favor. Since last February, SEIU has blocked or delayed elections at more than 360 healthcare facilities in California where caregivers are organizing to join the National Union of Healthcare Workers (NUHW).
“In election after election, healthcare workers have chosen NUHW,” said Kathleen Volle, a respiratory therapist at St. Louise Regional Hospital in Santa Clara County. “SEIU knows their days are numbered and they’re trying to grab anything they can on their way out.”
SEIU’s latest move comes just a week after 70 percent of nurses at Kaiser Permanente’s flagship Los Angeles hospital pledged their votes to NUHW in a government-supervised election—and just one month since workers at Santa Rosa Memorial Hospital chose NUHW 283-to-13 in what the Los Angeles Times called “a crushing defeat for the SEIU.”
January 11th, 2010
Beyond Chron: New Documents Explain SEIU’s Wrong Turn
Newly discovered documents reveal that SEIU carried out its intended strategy in attacking UNITE HERE, but that its plan was flawed from the start. From wrongly believing that the entire labor movement could be turned against UNITE HERE (the opposite occurred), to thinking that a “field” campaign of robo calls and mailers to UNITE HERE members would turn them against their own union (the strategy backfired), SEIU’s newly revealed seven point plan exposes a union once known for its savvy “Justice for Janitors” campaigns but whose leadership has taken a wrong turn.
Instead of researching facts, soliciting broad input, and carefully deliberating over a decision that could weaken SEIU nationally and in its California battle against rival NUHW, a handful of SEIU leaders moved quickly to mount an aggressive campaign against UNITE HERE that never had a chance of success. SEIU now faces an estimated 100 elections involving 20,000 workers against rival NUHW in the first five months of 2010, and a June contest for 45,000 workers at Kaiser Hospitals. SEIU’s misguided war on UNITE HERE, and its ongoing strategic deficiencies, could soon cost it dearly.