November 12th, 2009
Former SEIU staff blow the whistle on SEIU’s illegal Fresno campaign
Fresno workers spoke out about SEIU’s tactics during the controversial election in June. Today’s Wall Street Journal and Fresno Bee report that SEIU engaged in illegal threats, ballot-tampering, and other serious violations of election rules during a June union election for 10,000 homecare providers in Fresno, according to voters and union staff who worked for […]
November 12th, 2009
Wall Street Journal: New salvo fired as unions battle over workers
By KRIS MAHER
As labor leaders fight to sign up 10,000 health-care workers, a California-based union is charging the Service Employees International Union with changing ballots and threatening to report a worker to immigration officials.
…The NUHW filed charges Nov. 6 with the California Public Employment Relations Board, which oversees the election. Included in the charges are statements from a former SEIU organizer, who said that he was encouraged “to pressure voters to change the ballot” and that on one occasion he himself changed a vote to SEIU’s favor.
The charges also contain statements from workers who said SEIU representatives came to their house as many as five times a day, pressuring them to vote for the SEIU. In one instance, a woman said she was questioned about her legal status. Others were told they would lose wages and benefits if they voted for the NUHW.
November 9th, 2009
North Bay Business Journal: Memorial Hospital election set after long union battle
By D. Ashley Furness, Business Journal Staff Reporter
SANTA ROSA, NORTHERN CALIFORNIA—The last-minute scheduling of a union election for about 600 Memorial hospital workers came as a bitter-sweet surprise last Monday morning, even within the context of a high-pitched battle between two Northern California unions.
…“We were all surprised. I fully expected one of the unions to seek a delay. [SEIU] had delivered all sorts of information suggesting a strategy to litigate unless changes were made to the bargaining unit, which would have posed an enormous time sink to the process,” said Tim Peck, assistant to the regional director of the National Labor Relations Board in San Francisco, where the hearing was meant to take place.
…The six-year unionization saga of hundreds of Memorial nursing assistants, respiratory therapists and other health care-related technicians’ has been one fraught with tactics to obstruct the process, but oddly the most recent six months of delays were not the work of an employer but one of the unions.
November 3rd, 2009
North Bay Business Journal: December election set for Memorial employees
By D. Ashley Furness, Business Journal Staff Reporter
SANTA ROSA—After more than six years of attempts to organize, about 600 Santa Rosa Memorial Hospital workers will finally vote whether to have union representation Dec. 17 and Dec. 18, following an agreement this morning between two warring labor groups and the employer.
The National Union of Healthcare Workers, Service Employees International Union and St. Joseph Health System officials and attorneys were slated to debate final concerns related to the election during a hearing this morning, but just before the meeting, the parties signed an agreement.
November 2nd, 2009
Election scheduled at Santa Rosa Memorial; SEIU folds under community pressure
Melisa Bosanco, care partner “I’m so glad the delay is over. Now we can form our union with NUHW and focus on what’s important: making our hospital a better place to work and a better place for our patients.” After six years of struggle against their employer and six months of obstruction by a rival […]