When Cooperation Just Isn't Enough...

Another blogger who also happens to be an elected steward (this time with a CHW facility) has awoken from a self-imposed blogging slumber, and is discussing his dilemma within the Great California Union Foodfight. And while initially on the side of cooperating with Zombie UHW, all it took for him to switch sides was a bit of over-reaching on the part of SEIU, as he explains on his own blog...

Last Monday and Wednesday, I had the opportunity to talk to the SEIU representative assigned to WHC. I told her that we, as workers, had many issues involving failures by management to follow the terms of our collective bargaining agreement. We have many scheduling, assignment, and other worksite issues that need to be addressed and corrected. We, as employees, all know of decisions that managers have made that are just WRONG.

To this end, I met with the SEIU representative assigned to our facility. I talked to her about the need to set aside our SEIU/NUHW differences and work together for the good of the members. I told her that if she would be willing to be more available to work with our job stewards in terms of grievances, Committee meetings, etc. that I would keep her apprised of what we need and when we need her.

I also told her that I would no longer distribute information regarding NUHW at the facility. I wanted her to understand that I would work as a steward representing our contract, and only our contract, on matters involving union issues.

In the light of the current division in CHW facilities, including our own, regarding who is vs. who should be representing us (over 70% of our members signed petitions requesting a change of representation - a change that, by the way, could have been done by CHW without us having to wait for a vote), I felt that it was important to work with them (SEIU) ASAP.

There's a lot at stake here.

Our meeting seemed to be productive, and we were heading towards and understanding that would us focus on the work that needed to be done in the Hospital and Clinic.

Then the ball dropped. A dealbreaker was put in the mix. I was told that from this point on any of the stewards that has anything to do with NUHW or those working with NUHW will be removed as stewards in their facilities. I reminded her that any meetings that I or any other steward attends on our time is OUR business. Telling us who we can associate with is out of line and out of bounds. Period.

I will continue to meet and associate with who I please, as long as it is not against the law.

I was willing to forgo communicating with NUHW staff in order to build on a working situation with our SEIU representative - what a letdown.

Now I've decided to sign up for the NUHW founding convention, and yes, I had dinner with our former union rep, Lydia, this evening. So, I fully expect to be relieved of my position as job steward some time soon. I am not trying to "call their bluff", I am just doing what I believe is right.

Take a moment, and click over and read the rest of this gentleman's story. His motives to cooperate with Zombie UHW were absolutely directed in the correct manner (providing good representation to his peers during a trying time), but even THAT wasn't enough for the Purple Plague. They insisted on complete capitulation and domination of who he sees, and what he thinks, 24/7. And in so doing, they ended up flipping him to the NUHW side.

Whenever I state that SEIU is acting as NUHW's best recruiting tool, this is the exact situation to which I refer.

Update on 4/18: It appears that the blog post referenced above has gone 404. I cannot speak to the reasons why this might have occurred, but in case there are any questions regarding the veracity of the text highlighted above, the Google cache is available, and I have procured images of the blog post in question.

I will confess to some strong opinions being espoused on ¡Adios, Andy!. However, I am also aware that when I hit the "publish post" button, that post is going to be in the Google cache until the Google gods decide to purge it - at which time the Internet Wayback machine takes over in that respect.

Update on 4/21: It's back. I can't tell if it was a system glitch or second thoughts, but the post is back with (as far as I can tell) all the original verbiage.

SEIU Now Fighting in Sonoma County...

Give the Purple Plague credit - they evidently know how to keep themselves in the news - even if it is for the entirely wrong reason.

Another front in SEIU's systemwide rear guard action is opening up at Santa Rosa Memorial Hospital, as reported upon by the Santa Rosa Press-Democrat:

Sonoma County’s three big hospitals are becoming battlegrounds in a war that has erupted between the powerful Service Employees International Union and a breakaway union that says it has the support of thousands of local health care workers.

The rival union, the National Union of Healthcare Workers, commonly referred to as NUHW, was formed by leaders from an Oakland-based healthcare workers’ local affiliated with SEIU.

The service employees union has begun sending in representatives from other regions to help stem the tide of defectors taking up the banner of the competing labor group.

Gumecindo Gonzales, a phlebotomist and NUHW supporter who has been part of the organizing effort at Santa Rosa Memorial Hospital for five years, said he’s getting ready for an onslaught of SEIU troops.

“They’re at the post right now with all these other union organizers from other states,” said Gonzales, who once supported the Oakland group, the United Healthcare Workers West, SEIU’s second-largest California local.

Gonzales, a member of a statewide committee organizing workers at St. Joseph Health System facilities, said NUHW organizers are seeking to represent 750 non-nursing positions at Memorial that that include medical technicians and cleaning and support staff.

SEIU officials say Gonzales, along with former organizers and current stewards from the Oakland local, is waging a campaign to undermine SEIU’s representation in Sonoma County. The campaign, they say, threatens existing union contracts at Sutter Medical Center and Kaiser Permanente Medical Center and sets back years of organizing efforts at Memorial Hospital.

The only threat to those contracts is the fact that NUHW might actually better them and make you in the Purple Plague look like the corporate sellouts that you are, but I digress...

“The process is in place for stewards who do not support this union to not remain in this union,” said Pete Janhunen, a spokesman for the SEIU local.

“The idea that people want to found a union by destroying a union and preventing workers from negotiating a positive contract is absurd,” he said.

Objection, Your Honor, facts not in evidence: I'm still looking for someone, anyone, to point out where exactly SEIU has actually negotiated a 'positive contract.' The former leadership of UHW now in NUHW has a 20-year history of positive contracts. SEIU has a 20-year history of givebacks and whining when they don't get their way.

Oh, well. I could go on, but read the article, and join the attached discussion.

Also see the article in the NorthBay edition of the Business Journal for more reporting on the NUHW movement in Sonoma County.

The CHW Redemption, Part Deux

Well folks, it's official.

It looks like The Purple Plague is going to be given at least 2-1/2 years to brainwash, browbeat, and otherwise abuse CHW workers who have expressed their desire to remove themselves from SEIU's yoke.

The NLRB is taking the position (at least for now) that the contract bar would prevent NLRB from imposing an election.

CHW, of course, could request an election, but CHW probably knows a good thing when they see it, and it's pretty clear that Stern and his buddies would take a much more business-friendly and much less confrontational approach than would Sal Rosselli and his acolytes at NUHW.

Since CHW's contract was approved in late October of 2008, under the "contract bar" language of the collective bargaining law, a petition for representation can only be filed "90 to 60 days prior to the expiration of the contract or 90 to 60 days prior to three years after the contract was entered into, whichever is shorter."

Thus, my CHW friends, you're in the Purple Prison until August of 2011.

The Plague is deathly afraid of any kind of vote regarding its representation. Why is that?

The CHW Redemption

"Put your faith in the Lord; your ass belongs to me. Welcome to SEIU."

It looks like CHW employees are going to be prisoners in SEIU's Hotel California for at least the next three years or so...

A new union attempting to lure workers at Catholic Healthcare West to leave Service Employees International Union and join its fold cannot call for elections because a current contract is in place, according to a Tuesday ruling by the regional office of the National Labor Relations Board.

The National Union of Healthcare Workers, formed Jan. 28, the day after SEIU took control of its aggressive California local, United Healthcare Workers West. Within days, the new union filed petitions calling for new union elections to be held at CHW and other employers.

Joseph Norelli, regional director in the San Francisco office of the NLRB, sent a letter to NUHW executive Tuesday announcing dismissal of the petition for new elections at CHW, parent company to local Mercy hospitals.

A binding contract is in place that covers 14,000 employees at 30 facilities statewide, he states. UHW reached a tentative agreement with CHW on Oct. 12, and union officials announced Oct. 31 it had been ratified by workers.

Final details were discussed following ratification and the union and employer signed a “settlement agreement” Jan. 28, Norelli states in his ruling.

While not surprising, this is definitely somewhat disappointing for NUHW partisans.

Quite frankly, it sucks that workers in the CHW system are going to be stuck in a union that they do not support, and which had to take legal action in order to keep them in the SEIU fold.

It is to be hoped that after the "contract bar" provision timeline runs out (give-or-take in October of 2011), NUHW will be allowed to file a "timely" petition, and will be able to once and for all escape the SEIU Prison.

Here's the elegant part for the Purple Plague, though: One of the first things that they did when they trusteed UHW was to suspend the UHW Constitution and By-Laws. A major feature of those By-Laws was that contracts were subject to ratificaition of the entire membership. With the UHW Constitution now null and void, the rules by which work rules are carried out now revert to the SEIU Constitution, which makes no such provision. SEIU can revise and extend contracts by fiat as long as they have the support of management, and there's nothing the rank-and-file can do except to toss all unions out for one year. Nice.

This is an open challenge to any and all SEIU partisans who may be reading this blog - explain to us all here exactly why anyone should willingly remain in SEIU after all that has gone on in California?