February 24th, 2009
IHHI caregivers become first in Orange County to petition to join NUHW
Anaheim, Calif.—Five hundred workers at Western Medical Center in Anaheim and Coastal Communities Hospital in Santa Ana, both owned by Integrated Healthcare Holdings, Inc. (IHHI), filed petitions yesterday for an election to join the National Union of Healthcare Workers (NUHW).
“An absolute majority of workers at our hospital have signed petitions to choose NUHW as our union,” said Joe Ruocco, a senior lab assistant at Western Medical Center for 35 years. “We don’t want any other union to represent us. IHHI should negotiate with us in NUHW to resolve the open issues in our contract.”
February 23rd, 2009
Workers seek a voice with NUHW after SEIU and Unite Here abandoned them in secret deal with employer
LOS ANGELES—Workers employed through a subcontractor at Providence Tarzana Medical Center, who were denied their right to form a union by the Service Employees International Union (SEIU) and Unite Here in a secret deal with the Compass Group, filed petitions today for an election to join the National Union of Healthcare Workers (NUHW).
In May, the Wall Street Journal exposed the secret deal between several large corporations and the heads of the Service Employees International Union and Unite Here. Union officials agreed to forbid most low-wage workers who work for Compass, Sodexho, and Aramark from joining either of their unions, in exchange for access to a smaller number of workers at facilities chosen by the employers. The unions agreed not to admit the existence of the agreement to workers or the public.
February 23rd, 2009
Workers seek a voice with NUHW after SEIU and Unite Here abandoned them in secret deal with employer
LOS ANGELES—Workers employed through a subcontractor at Providence Tarzana Medical Center, who were denied their right to form a union by the Service Employees International Union (SEIU) and Unite Here in a secret deal with the Compass Group, filed petitions today for an election to join the National Union of Healthcare Workers (NUHW).
“Everyone in this hospital should be able to join together and choose what union we’ll be part of,” said Julia Sidrow-Thompson, an SEIU member and monitor tech who works at Providence Tarzana. “I don’t want to be part of an organization that would take that decision away from healthcare workers and let the boss make those decisions for us.”
February 23rd, 2009
Labor Video Project: SEIU UHW-W workers speak out on Andy Stern and trusteeship
Scheduled to air Feb. 27, 2009, 9:00 PM – 10:00 PM PST on San Francisco Comcast Channel 29.
February 22nd, 2009
Los Angeles Times: Labor’s time has come, but trouble stirs within
With a Democratic majority in Congress, an economy in meltdown and what many see as the most labor-friendly White House in generations, unions would seem to be poised for a comeback. Experts say they are at a defining moment to rebuild their forces by putting their strength behind an effort to revamp labor laws.