November 14th, 2009
In These Times: California healthcare battle gets uglier
By Kari Lydersen
The battle between SEIU and the National Union of Healthcare Workers (NUHW) over organzing home health care workers in northern California got even uglier recently with charges filed alleging SEIU organizers intimidated and threatened workers and even told Latino workers they would be deported if they didn’t vote for SEIU in a June election between the two unions.
SEIU won the election to represent 10,000 home healthcare workers in Fresno, but NUHW is challenging the result in charges filed Nov. 6 with the California Public Employment Relations Board.
The charges cite a former SEIU organizer alleging he was pressured to change ballots from the June election between the two unions, and did change a ballot himself.
November 13th, 2009
Fresno Bee: Rival union accuses SEIU of election pressure
By Brad Branan / The Fresno Bee
A competing union has accused the Service Employees International Union of changing ballots and threatening to report workers to immigration officials in a contentious battle to represent more than 10,000 home health-care workers in Fresno County.
The National Union of Healthcare Workers filed charges Nov. 6 with the California Public Employment Relations Board.
SEIU’s United Health Care Workers-West narrowly defeated NUHW in a June election, winning the right to represent workers in the county’s In-Home Supportive Services program. NUHW wants the board to throw out the victory.
“SEIU not only tolerated but encouraged people to break the law, intimidate people and harass people,” said Sal Roselli, NUHW president.
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.