Providence Tarzana votes NUHW as 13,000 CHW workers launch new campaign

NewsJuly 15, 2010

Nearly 600 caregivers at Providence Tarzana Medical Center voted yesterday to join NUHW. Although SEIU delayed the ballot count by asking the labor board to review an earlier decision, an absolute majority of Providence Tarzana workers signed a public statement pledging their votes for NUHW.

“We’ve taken back our union,” said Julie Sidrow-Thompson, a monitor tech at the hospital. “For a year and a half, SEIU has stood in our way and left us without a voice. Now that we’re united again in NUHW, we have the strength we need to stand up for our patients and ourselves.”

Providence is the second Catholic hospital system where workers have organized with NUHW, after St. Joseph Health System. Starting today, the 13,000 caregivers at Catholic Healthcare West—the largest non-profit healthcare provider in California—are collecting signatures to call for their own election to join NUHW once they are eligible to change unions next year. [Full story]