December 23rd, 2009
KPFA Evening News on elections at Kaiser and Santa Rosa Memorial
David Mallon, a psychiatric social worker at Kaiser Norwalk and a member of NUHW’s elected executive board, talks about our movement to join NUHW. Source: KPFA
December 23rd, 2009
Catholic News Service: Union wins plurality in election at California Catholic hospital
SAN FRANCISCO (CNS) — A union seeking to represent service and technical workers at Catholic-run Santa Rosa Memorial Hospital in northern California won a plurality in a hard-fought election.
In three-way balloting Dec 17 and 18, the National Union of Healthcare Workers received 283 votes versus 263 votes against forming a union. A second union on the ballot, the Service Employees International Union-United Healthcare Workers West, received 13 votes.
December 23rd, 2009
North Bay Business Journal: Memorial union election decision next week or later
SANTA ROSA — A series of ballot challenges to determine who was eligible to vote in the Dec. 17-18 union election at St. Joseph Health System’s Santa Rosa Memorial Hospital has delayed a final tally and certification of the election by the National Labor Relations Board until after Dec. 29, according to Tim Peck, assistant regional director with the NLRB in San Francisco.
A preliminary count found 283 workers voting to be represented by the National Union of Healthcare Workers and only 13 favoring the Service Employees International Union – United Health Workers West. But 263 of the 675 service and technical workers voted to have no union at all.
December 21st, 2009
Empire Report: National Consequences for Memorial Hospital Union Vote
Despite an administrative campaign defined by misinformation and scare tactics, and a competing union’s million dollar anti-union efforts, Memorial Hospital employees vote to unionize with National Union of Healthcare Workers. Why is their victory expected to have national significance?
Six years after a single employee initiated a campaign to unionize Memorial Hospital caregivers, and months after a rival union began efforts to prevent their election, employees seeking to unionize with National Union of Healthcare Workers earned a hard fought victory.
December 21st, 2009
Talking Union: SEIU Fails to Sabotage California Hospital Organizing Victory
by Paul Garver
On 18 December 2009 caregivers at Santa Rosa Memorial Hospital in Sonoma County, California voted for representation by the National Union of Health Workers (NUHW). SEIU had poured in forty organizers to block NUHW’s electoral victory, but secured only 13 votes for SEIU against 283 for NUHW. However SEIU’s ham-handed intervention, which focused almost exclusively on attacking the NUHW, did succeed in boosting the No Union vote to 263, nearly frustrating the workers’ right to organize.