NEWS&PRESS

Monterey County Herald: Salinas Valley Memorial workers favor upstart union

SEIU members petition to defect

Workers at Salinas Valley Memorial Hospital have petitioned to join the fledgling National Union of Healthcare Workers, an organization that is going head-to-head with the giant Service Employees International Union in a statewide labor war.

Salinas Valley Memorial spokeswoman Adrienne Laurent said the SEIU currently represents 830 workers at the hospital.

A statement by the NUHW said “an overwhelming majority” of the hospital’s SEIU workers — a group that includes nurses, nursing assistants, cooks, dietary clerks and others — signed a petition filed Wednesday with the state’s Public Employment Relations Board.

Salinas Valley Hospital workers choose NUHW as their union, move to dump SEIU

Salinas, Calif.—An overwhelming majority of caregivers at Salinas Valley Memorial Hospital have filed a petition to choose the National Union of Healthcare Workers as their union and end their membership in the SEIU.

They have become the latest to join an exodus of more than 100,000 SEIU members across California who are fleeing the troubled union. The movement began last January, when SEIU officials from Washington, D.C. took over the local chapter, forced healthcare workers from elected positions, and put themselves in charge.

“We’re bargaining our contract next August, and we need a union we can count on,” said Esther Nuñez, a cashier and chief union steward at the hospital. “We’ve seen the takeaways SEIU has agreed to at Kaiser and at other hospitals this year, and we’re not going to let that happen to us.”