"New Prescription for a Healthy Union Movement"

One of the contributors of the Talking Union blog, Carl Finamore, was at the NUHW convention, and has penned an article for Talking Union outlining the history of the struggle behind the NUHW-SEIU battle, his thoughts on why NUHW has been so successful to date in organizing, and ending with his opinions as to what is at stake in the upcoming months for NUHW and the labor movement in general...

The boldness to break away from one of the most powerful unions in the country and the confidence to build a credible alternative is a staggering commitment and could only be attempted by a rank and file movement that has consistently been mobilized and empowered over recent years.

“The shop stewards were the closest to the day to day activities of the workers,” Howard Wallace, Field Representative/Community Organizer (ret), SEIU- Local 250 Healthcare Workers Union, told me. “Very often they were the first to understand the issues. These unpaid, volunteer leaders had a lot of respect from all of us.”

There is much to think about from the dispute between NUHW and SEIU. Lessons better learned if the rank and file revolt is actually successful. They act for all of us by standing for militant and democratic unionism. Let us wish them well.

As they say in the blog biz, RTWT...

"Keep Your Eyes On The Prize"

Karen Bee and the Keepin' It Real crew put together a video for the Founding Convention, and NUHW has made it public...

An Unconventional Convention, Epilogue

(image courtesy of the NUHW Photostream on Flickr)

Last Saturday morning and afternoon, I saw people from all walks of life, with wildly divergent life experiences, speaking multiple different "first" languages, all gathered together on their own time and on their own nickel, into a junior high school in San Francisco, for a common purpose, speaking with one voice, to state that we - NUHW - will go forward with a new mission, that being to set right what has gone so badly wrong in the union movement here in California, and then nationwide.

Going into this convention, I really did not know what to expect. I've never been a "union guy" per se - I grew up in Silicon Valley, my folks were in tech, and as a result I have had little if any exposure to what, if anything, being involved in a union is all about. When I hired on at KP, which was my first unionized job, I thought of the union as a sort of necessary evil, a penance payment to be paid in order to receive the benefits of working in such a fine organization as KP. To be honest, at the beginning of my KP career, I never really paid being in a union much mind - that is, until the trusteeship talk began. I came to realize about a year or so ago (even before the Marshall hearings) that the members of UHW were eventually going to have to take a side in the Great California Union Foodfight.

I suppose it is only appropriate that NUHW's Founding Convention started in a place known as the Mission, for it is truly a Mission that lays before us all, as we go forward and re-establish the rights and privileges of union democracy which SEIU has so foully and dishonestly taken from us.

Going forward, we are in for a long, nasty fight. SEIU is not going to go away, and they are going to try any means by which to keep their membership under their collective thumb - because they know that if one large group can break out of SEIU, then other groups can break out as well, and the whole SEIU organizing model will shatter into a thousand pieces. Sal put it about right: "We will last one day longer than SEIU."

There is much work to be done, and opportunities abound for those so inclined to move NUHW forward. Fresno's IHSS vote is coming up next month, and the ballots for Doctors Hospital come out this week. CalPERB petitions are pending at Monterey/Natividad, Hawkins, and Watsonville. The NLRB is, of course, holding somewhere north of 300 petitions in bureaucratic limbo. NUHW will start to collect (again) the Kaiser petitions beginning in July and August (since the prior petitions have a one-year shelf life) in anticipation of going back to NLRB and forcing a vote in June of 2010. Anywhere and everywhere, there is work that can be done on NUHW's behalf - and on the greater behalf of all of our colleagues who are still stuck in Hotel California, desperate to check out.

Our Mission has been laid before us - so let's get to work.

An Unconventional Convention, Part Five

(image courtesy of the NUHW Photostream on Flickr)

John Borsos came to the podium, and it seemed to me like everyone started paying serious attention. To start out, some stats were passed along to us including the following:
In three months' time, NLRB petitions were filed for 360 facilities, covering 96,000 employees. Some are first-time (nonunionized) facilities; some have currently open contracts; some are existing contracts which are subject to the contract bar, and some fall into a "gray area", like KP and CHW. To this date, each and every petition has been blocked by the NLRB. The question on everyone's mind is...Why?

The explanation, though a bit complex, boils down to this: SEIU is trying desperately to hold onto that which it cannot keep by its own merits, and as such SEIU is forced to try every legal strategy possible to hold off any free and fair elections. For example, SEIU is filing the exact, same unfair labor practice charge against NUHW for each and every petition filed, no matter the circumstance - they are almost literally word-for-word duplicates except for the names of the facilities. This, combined with the bureaucratic nature of the NLRB and the NLRB requirement that all charges be fully and thoroughly investigated (no matter how specious they may be) has resulted in a king-sized logjam at NLRB.

The nature of the backlog at NLRB can be seen from this example: Nationwide, in all of 2008, there were a total of 75,000 employees who had filed for representation elections; in the first quarter of 2009, NUHW alone ran up in excess of 90,000 people. The result: Paralysis.

The SEIU approach to the NLRB breaks down into three basic formats:

1. SEIU charges that NUHW is an "employer-dominated union." This then requires statements, discovery, etc., etc., etc. As stated above, NLRB has the legal obligation to completely investigate all claims, no matter how bogus.
2. SEIU has begun to file unfair labor practice charges against itself - something which has been called by even the most jaded staffers at NLRB as "novel charges" - by proposing that prior to the trusteeship, the leadership of UHW did not bargain at any facilities in good faith, and therefore left contracts open to challenge for any new union to come in and sweep up.
3. SEIU claims that NUHW is engaging in intimidation tactics in its organizing campaign.

So how do we break the NLRB logjam?

• Visits to the halls of Congress in Washington, and in local districts as well.
• Member calls to elected representatives, but in particular to Senators Boxer and Feinstein. The NLRB answers to power, and once our elected representatives get tired of hearing about the NLRB dragging its feet in our petitions, they will in turn start leaning on NLRB, as Representatives Miller, Woolsey and Lee have already done.
• Be prepared to hold SEIU (and Andy Stern in particular) to his own words regarding the rights of employees who can demonstrate majority signup in a workplace.
• Continued aggressive litigation at NLRB - and possibly even directed AT the NLRB in order to break the logjam.

At this time, Sal Rosselli returned to the stage and laid out some details about the upcoming vote with Fresno homecare workers, and the importance that campaign will carry for NUHW. The election itself will be in June, and victory there in Fresno would instantly bring in officially (and protected from the predations of SEIU) roughly 10,000 dues-paying members into NUHW. When victory is achieved in Fresno, it will be a visible show of strength that will have the snowball effect that we will need in the various state personnel boards as well as even potentially at NLRB as well. And while the Fresno campaign will cost a lot of money, what it will break down to, ultimately, is just good old-fashioned union organizing, which is something that the leaders of NUHW have shown themselves to be quite good at over the years, and which SEIU has shown itself to be quite poor at over the years.

After a roughly 30-minute public statement/question-and-answer session with Sal, the highlight of which was a three-minute tirade from O'Connor Hospital's famous Hasnija from Bosnia, the quorum broke for lunch, and returned to division breakouts after lunch.

The next chapter will include my conclusions, thoughts and opinions about this most unconventional convention.

An Unconventional Convention, Part Four

(image courtesy of the NUHW Photostream on Flickr)

With the illustration complete as to what is at stake for those who are still stuck in Hotel California, it was time for Sal to take back to the stage and let the troops know what was in store for the upcoming weeks and months. The plan of action basically boiled down to a couple of key concepts:

1. Collect petitions (which has already been to a large extent done).
2. Win the elections that have been permitted thus far.
3. From that "foundation" created with the elections, generate the monetary resources necessary to bargain contracts in areas where we have won, as well as to continue the fight in areas that are being blocked by NLRB.
4. Get NLRB-blocked facilities through election, then win those elections as well.
5. Repeat the above sequence.
   

Many references were made to the difficulties that NUHW is having with the NLRB - especially with the CHW and KaiPerm petitions - but Sal made it very clear that the worst case scenario for a vote at KaiPerm would be in June of 2010, and at CHW in about June of 2011 (assuming the NUHW appeal of the NLRB actions is rejected).

The first two fault line elections are coming up very quickly, with ballots going out this week at Doctors Hospital in San Pablo, and with the Fresno County IHSS group coming up in May, and that much organizing and effort - and money - was going to have to be dedicated to those two elections to bring them home to NUHW and to get the ball rolling.

Sal then took some time and explained about the differences in what he and his group was able to achieve when in charge of UHW, and what SEIU has done in the last three months, and will continue to do while they are in charge of Zombie UHW. The negotiation pattern of the prior leadership of UHW under Sal Rosselli, which will continue into the future with NUHW was and is quite simple - establish contracts that are widely considered to be the industry standard (as was the case with the 2005 KaiPerm contract) and then use THAT contract as a standard by which to measure all other contracts. The Kaiser contract was seen as a "floor" position from which to improve in all other areas - and this was done at Mariner/SAVA SNF facilities when parity was achieved for their employees to KP pay and benefit standards - a contract that is far superior to the current "template" contract approach employed by SEIU.

Even now, it is clear that SEIU is beginning to "lower the floor" at Kaiser, having already adjusted the lump-sum pension benefits to Kaiser's liking (having done so without a vote of the membership to this unilateral change), and SEIU is now beginning to make noise about altering the employment and income security provision which is one of the reasons why the KaiPerm contract is thought of as industry-leading. SEIU is also making noise about allowing the different KP service areas to "adjust" their payroll levels to suit the local economy or local financial needs, this coming less than two years after KP was finally forced to do away with the two-tier wage system that had existed at KP for over a decade. It was and is the NUHW belief that individuals doing the same job, with the same qualifications, and with the same skills, should be paid the same wage, statewide.

Sal put the NUHW contract negotiation approach quite simply: "We will raise the floor, and thereby we will continue to raise the ceiling." Meanwhile, SEIU is perfectly happy to drop the ceiling at the behest of the management, and thereby allow the ceiling to crumble about the heads of its membership.

Sal then started to get into one subject which was on everyone's mind - what's going down on the legal front. As we all know, the main stated point of contention for Zombie UHW was the need to change the jurisdiction of the UHW long-term care workers, moving them into ULTCW - but as we all know, that hasn't happened yet. The NUHW lawyers evidently had gotten a recent opportunity to ask Eliseo Medina and Dave Regan about that question, and their basic response was that it was only the decertification petitions which were keeping the long term care workers in UHW - for reasons which I can speculate upon, but I don't think it needs a lot of explanation.

Sal stated that there were all kinds of new opportunities before us, and not just in California, either. There are many un-unionized hospitals in the HCA system, in Tenet, and in others. Furthermore, there is a great opportunity to organize the IHSS workers in San Francisco and Sacramento counties. And if we can break the NLRB logjam, then the potential is there for NUHW to be even larger than UHW was in its heyday.

With this done, it was time for Sal to yield the rostrum to John Borsos, who has been spearheading the NLRB fight - and here is the time when everyone started sitting forward in their seats to listen...

...and you can read about it in Part Five, to be posted shortly...

An Unconventional Convention, Part Three

(image courtesy of the NUHW Photostream on Flickr)

Next up onto the stage were (soon to be former) members of SEIU, from most of the different divisions represented by Zombie UHW, there to give us a taste of what SEIU can "do" for you - or more accurately, what SEIU will do "to" you...

From a home care worker in San Francisco: SEIU called her to tell her that if she signed the decertification petition, she would lose contract protections and would get fired. She was called at home and told to come to a meeting, and that if she did not attend that meeting then she would lose her pension. When she did show up for the meeting, she and her peers who signed the decert petitions were isolated. SEIU was also in the habit of calling the police on its own members whenever they have the temerity to actually stand up for their own rights.

From a CHW employee in San Bernardino: SEIU removed the elected CHW bargaining team, and then sent removal letters similar to what we have seen here and elsewhere that went out to Kaiser stewards. SEIU then held new "elections" but previous elected members who were removed by SEIU were not allowed to stand for election. Ballots which were "written in" for the former members of the bargaining committee were altered or disposed of.

From a DoC employee in Gilroy: SEIU sent out a survey to the membership, asking them what they were looking for in the next contract. Unfortunately, one of the things on that survey was a "management rights clause." The membership took quite clear meaning from this survey - SEIU wants to insert a managements rights clause into the CHW contract, and something like that comes only from management. SEIU made a big deal about the recent Alameda Hospital contract, and the wage increases; one thing SEIU is not telling anyone is that, for the first time in over 40 years, workers at Alameda Hospital are now going to have to pay for medical coverage for their families - at a cost of in excess of $1000 per year per employee that has family coverage.

From a KaiPerm employee in Woodland Hills: He was a steward but was unilaterally removed by SEIU very shortly after the trusteeship was imposed. Prior to doing so, SEIU would constantly talk to him and try to set him against his co-workers. He spoke of the recent pension bargaining that KaiPerm went into with SEIU, where SEIU basically surrendered on pension calculations without a vote of the membership. Considering the lack of action that SEIU took in the recent layoff of the IT professionals, it can be easily concluded that the next step in the SEIU givebacks to KaiPerm is a loosening (or outright cancellation) of the employment and income security guarantees that are in the current contract.

From a SNF employee at Emerald Gardens: She spoke of constant SEIU attempts to backstep on their existing contract, and threats to anyone who tries to make SEIU stand up to its part of the bargain. She told of management being unwilling to stand up to SEIU intimidation of workers, and of even collusion between SEIU and management against workers who are trying to enforce the language of their standing contract. At the same time, the union that all her colleagues have chosen and are choosing, NUHW, is being blocked at all possible entry points by both management and SEIU - sometimes even working together.

From a nurse from Natividad Medical Center in Salinas: She described the merger that created her current union, SEIU 521, as a "garbage merger" which gives proof to the statement that bigger is not always better. When the membership asked for an investigation on whether or not a creation of an Integrated Health System between Natividad and the Monterey County clinic system would negatively affect their membership, the people at SEIU 521 thought that an "Integrated Health System" was an IT project, and should not negatively affect the membership - thus making it clear that the 521 people had no earthly idea of what it is that the membership of 521 does for a living. It took only five days for the Monterey County SEIU 521 workers to collect 2800 signatures across several different locations around the county, and stated that "we WILL have a vote." She also stated that by joining NUHW, the Monterey County workers will get for themselves stronger leadership that is member-driven, and that is based on honesty and integrity - "our future is in NUHW."

After these speakers, Sal returned to the rostrum, and began to give us the plan of action for NUHW. More about that in the next chapter...

An Unconventional Convention, Part Two

(image courtesy of the NUHW Photostream on Flickr)

Next on the stage was Sal Rosselli, who laid out the basic plan of business for the day. But prior to doing so, he laid out again some of the particulars against SEIU, illustrating how in the time span of roughly three months, UHW has morphed from one of the fastest growing locals in all of labor to a pro-management embarassment, from one of the most powerful union locals in Sacramento to looking like a joke in Sacramento, and in that three month span has turned into an organizations whose members are now afraid - of both management AND the "representatives" of the international union. He reminded those in attendance that we (NUHW) are the heart and soul of what UHW once was, and that we are now engaged in what can be described as the civil rights movement of our time - fighting for just the opportunity to vote on which labor organization in which to belong, rather than having that decision made for us back in DC by Andy Stern and his pro-management buddies.

It was then time to get down to the business part of the day as presented by Jorge Rodriguez, former EVP of UHW, and former President of Local 399 prior to the merger that formed UHW. He started first with a description of the interim NUHW constitution, in that this was a document that was not in final form, and was largely based on the prior C&B document that came out of the 399-250 merger, with all references to SEIU struck. Language has been set forth that establishes, by constitution, that NUHW is not to be subordinate to any other organization. The intent of the document is largely to pick up where the old union left off, with some details set forth specifically so that there is no misunderstanding in the future - to wit:

• The ability to elect and recall officers and stewards;
• The requirement for periodic meetings;
• The requirement for training of staff and stewards;

There are also some changes from the old C&B document that met with great favor:

• Lower monthly dues - with the calculation of dues written into the document;
• No initiation fee;
• A guarantee of election of members of the bargaining committee;
• Nomination for election only requires 25 signatures;
• Addition of chapters and divisions for the public sector.

NUHW will be forming an Interim Constitution and Bylaw committee, which is welcome to anyone who is interested in helping to craft this document. Sign-up forms were included in each convention packet that was handed out, and those who might be interested in participating on this committee can contact NUHW in order to do so.

It was at this time that a slate of temporary officers was proposed to the quorum. This list was largely composed of the officers who were in office and were deposed when SEIU executed the trusteeship back in January, and who have remained loyal to their employees (instead of pledging their loyalty to Stern). This list of officers was immediately moved, seconded, and approved by voice vote with one semi-joking "nay!"

With the dry business part of the day complete, it was time to get back to some good, old-fashioned SEIU-bashing, and while Sal was entirely capable of doing so on his own at great length, he instead called on people who have been actually living the SEIU nightmare.

We'll get into that a bit more in Part Three...

An Unconventional Convention, Part One

Very little about the history of NUHW has been conventional as unions go, and the Founding Convention of this new union fell absolutely in line with that trait.

After all, you would think that an organization that seeks to supplant The Purple Plague would choose to do so at an actual convention center. Instead, NUHW chose to hold its convention at Everett Middle School, smack in the middle of the Mission District of San Francisco, on a sunny and breezy Saturday morning.

Now, that's not to say that there weren't some conventional aspects to the NUHW Founding Convention. There was the swag, the shirts, the food, but most of all there was the energy and conviction that comes from gathering together a diverse group of people, all dedicated to the common effort of setting right what has gone so terribly wrong. As the first speaker, Angela Glasper, set forth in her speech, "why are we doing this? We had no other choice...we have lost our rights to vote, our rights to participate in negotiations...We can not, and will not, abandon the principles that brought us here."

No one was under any illusion that SEIU would not be discussed in great detail during this day. You can't discuss the history of how NUHW was formed without almost a bill of particulars against SEIU and Andy Stern, and Angela laid Our Glorious Maximum Leader out and down for the count:

• The SNF Alliance template contracts;
• The elimination of traditional stewards with the switch to SEIU Call Centers (or as she put it, the "1-800-I-Got-(effin)-Fired number");
• The lockout of the Tenet bargaining team with a switch to International negotiators;
• Predatory pooled membership voting rules on mergers;
• The IHSS/LTC jurisdiction switch jammed through during the San Juan convention;
• ...and last but not least, the trusteeship.

All of the above and more led to the record-setting signup of petitions for people to switch to NUHW - just how much of a record-setter it has been was gotten into later.

The next speaker was Mike Casey, President of Local 2 of UNITE/HERE in San Francisco, and also president of the San Francisco Labor Council. He took time to let everyone know that the Stern approach, that "unionizing" is the same as "organizing," is dead wrong, and that unions should not be acting like corporations. He also told us that the concept of organizing and winning contracts should not be seen as an either/or proposition, as it is in SEIU today courtesy of the "organizing model" approach so often seen in SEIU drives.

Casey then told the audience about the long alliance that the former UHW (now in the guise of NUHW) has had with Local 2, including the efforts made by Rosselli and his staff on the part of Local 2 to maintain the health coverage of the Local 2 membership during their strike in 2004. Mr. Casey put it quite clearly: "I will NEVER forget that."

Mr. Casey then went on to describe his newly emerging fight with SEIU through its proxy organization in Workers United, and stated that both unions (NUHW and UNITE/HERE) were in for a long, protracted fight against an unprincipled foe who is willing to forego principle in order to reach agreement - and stated, "I call that selling out!"

He then told the audience that, until the trusteeship, UHW was a leader in the fight to rebuild the labor movement which had become moribund in the latter part of the 20th Century, and that under the current leadership of NUHW, we can return once again to the vanguard of the labor movement in the 21st Century.

More to come in Part Two, sometime tomorrow...