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 […]
November 2nd, 2009
NUHW union election set for Dec. 17 at Santa Rosa Memorial Hospital
SEIU folds under pressure from workers, religious leaders, and labor council—but still won’t agree to ground rules
Santa Rosa, Calif.—After six years of struggle against their employer and six months of obstruction by a rival organization, victory is in sight for caregivers at Santa Rosa Memorial Hospital who are organizing to form a union with the National Union of Healthcare Workers (NUHW). The National Labor Relations Board today scheduled their union election for Dec. 17 and 18.
“I’m so glad the delay is over,” said Melissa Bosanco, a care partner at Memorial Hospital. “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.”
A majority of the hospital’s 650 workers chose NUHW on April 13, when they filed a petition with the labor board requesting an election to certify NUHW as their union.
November 2nd, 2009
Msgr. John Brenkle on NUHW election at Santa Rosa Memorial Hospital
Monsignor John Brenkle In today’s Santa Rosa Press Democrat: “At Santa Rosa Memorial Hospital, workers have clearly chosen to cast their lot with the NUHW. SEIU’s continued delay of the workers’ election, and its refusal to agree to ground rules for the election at Memorial, flies in the face of Catholic social teaching and contradicts […]