November 19th, 2009
Workers’ eyewitness reports on SEIU’s election fraud in Fresno
Workers tell how they were threatened and intimidated by SEIU staff who broke the law to tamper with their ballots in this summer’s union election. Read more in the Wall Street Journal, the Fresno Bee, and In These Times. And if you haven’t signed the Fresno Petition, please do so now.
November 17th, 2009
Labor unions and political leaders rally to support NUHW
Last night in San Francisco, labor leaders and elected officials from all over the Bay Area gathered to honor our struggle for democracy and celebrate healthcare workers’ 75-year history of democracy and member power in California.
Today’s Beyond Chron tells the story:
“NUHW’s fundraising has grown amidst rising labor movement anger at SEIU, and it now has enough money to fund its current campaigns.”
And now other unions are joining our fight at the NLRB to get fair elections to choose our union:
“…[L]abor is increasingly going public with its criticisms of SEIU’s tactics. For example, on October 27 the 19,000 member IBEW Local 1245 joined UNITE HERE Local 2 in submitting court papers challenging SEIU’s blocking of over eighty NUHW petitions affecting over 27,000 California healthcare workers seeking to choose their union.”
“…The increasing willingness of other unions to openly back NUHW … means that SEIU’s efforts to frame NUHW as a ‘rogue’ labor organization guilty of ‘raiding’ other unions has failed, and that the labor movement now sees NUHW as health care workers’ leading voice for democracy.
Elected officials, too, are siding with NUHW. State Senator Mark Leno arrived at the fundraiser with a Senate Certificate of Recognition for NUHW’s accomplishments and our 75-year legacy.
November 17th, 2009
Beyond Chron: SEIU Wages War on Progressives
The Service Employees International Union (SEIU) held a boisterous picket line in San Francisco last night, but their chants targeted a surprising adversary: labor leaders and their political allies. While California Democratic Party Chair John Burton (labor’s greatest California ally), State Senator Mark Leno and leaders of UNITE HERE, the Sailors, Plumbers, Building Trades, and Police and Fire unions, were inside the Plumbers Union Hall honoring the National Union of Healthcare Workers (NUHW), SEIU was outside denouncing NUHW – and by implication its supporters – as corrupt. Last week, SEIU informed Burton that it would end its $1 million annual donation to the state Party unless he withdrew his support for NUHW, which he refused to do.
SEIU’s threat to labor hero Burton, and its reported statement to the United Teachers of Los Angeles (sponsor of tonight’s NUHW fundraiser) that it would seek to organize charter school teachers in retaliation for UTLA’s pro-NUHW stance, reflects a union increasingly at odds with the labor movement.
November 16th, 2009
Count the votes! Tarzana workers march on SEIU to free the ballots and win their union
On Thursday, Providence Tarzana environmental services workers marched on the SEIU/SWU office in Los Angeles to demand SEIU officials let their votes be counted. Tarzana EVS workers voted Oct. 14 to join NUHW, but SEIU filed charges the day before the vote to try to stop the election. The labor board refused to stop the […]
November 16th, 2009
Modern Healthcare: Laboring to unite
After years of feuding and raiding each other’s ranks, more healthcare unions are joining hands so they can work together on a common pro-labor agenda
By Joe Carlson
Imagine a time when healthcare unions were endlessly fractured, when labor leaders spent as much time launching public relations attacks and raiding parties against one another as they did trying to organize new workers.