Meet The New MAPE, Same As The Old MAPE

(image courtesy of www.new-mape.org)

Clan Barney evidently just can't catch a break.

It appears that one of the old legacy locals of SEIU 1021 is getting itself ready for a petition to pull out of 1021 in favor of going their own way.

The new Marin Association of Public Employees, largely composed of the leadership and rank-and-file of the old legacy SEIU 949, last Friday turned in petitions to the state PERB indicating their wish to separate from SEIU 1021.

Their reasons for doing so can be found on their website, but those reasons sound (once again) eerily similar to those reasons being given by NUHW supporters for wanting to break away from Zombie UHW. Things like wondering where dues money goes, lack of representation, lack of ability to vote on pocketbook and dues issues, etc., etc.

And SEIU 1021 is evidently regurgitating some of the very same lies that they have been and are using against NUHW.

You have to wonder what is going through the head of Our Glorious Maximum Leader right now, seeing as he now has brushfires burning in UHW, 6434, 721, 1021, 221, and a thriving reform movement going on right now in 521 - all locals that were either trusteed by Andy Stern, or were created out of thin air by Andy Stern out of previously functional locals.

When you keep getting whacked in the face by things that you create, wouldn't you think about stepping back and wondering if your creations are getting a bit out of hand?

Move, Countermove

Lost in the noise of the prior week was a Zombie UHW presser, in which they indicated that they would be pressing for elections "as soon as possible" at several facilites throughout Northern California, and which may represent a change in Zombie tactics given their recent spate of losses down south and in Santa Rosa...

OAKLAND, Calif., Jan. 8 /PRNewswire-USNewswire/ -- Healthcare workers at 26 California hospitals and nursing homes are seeking elections to join more than 55,000 other union members who have already chosen to stay united in the Service Employees International Union - United Healthcare Workers West (SEIU-UHW), rather than switch to an organization formed by the union's ousted leaders.

The SEIU-UHW members are asking the National Labor Relations Board (NLRB) to schedule the elections as soon as possible so they can continue to improve their jobs and patient care without the distraction of another organization in their facilities.

During the past year, petitions seeking decertification of SEIU-UHW as the workers' union were filed with the NLRB by the National Union of Healthcare Workers (NUHW), an organization formed by the union's former officials who were ousted in January 2009. SEIU-UHW members filed Unfair Labor Practice charges with the NLRB that blocked the elections, citing employer abuses and NUHW misconduct that seriously jeopardized workers' rights.

In many places, members have negotiated strong new contracts that lock in raises and benefits for up to three years - improvements that would be put directly at risk if workers were to leave SEIU. In others, NUHW is creating division as contracts are being bargained - a situation that management is trying to take advantage of. Members have decided the time has come to get NUHW out of their affairs and end the division.

"NUHW did nothing but help management as we fought to win strong new contract protections," said Tami Garver, an environmental services worker at O'Connor Hospital in San Jose. "We've spent the last year cleaning up the confusion and mess left by the leadership that was thrown out and now we just want NUHW and their disruption to go away."

"I'm excited that we're finally going to be able to vote for our union - SEIU-UHW - and put the distraction of NUHW behind us," said Sandra Newman, a certified nurse assistant at Sunbridge Heritage Care Center in Stockton, CA.

Note the section in bold up above - these are facilities which have had successful NUHW petition drives, but were delayed by Zombie UHW blocking charges, and the Zombies are now requesting that those blocking charges be vacated such that elections can be conducted "as soon as possible."

Up until now, SEIU has been fighting every election tooth-and-nail. And as such, courtesy of a very compliant NLRB, the elections have been happening very rarely, and certainly only one at a time. This has allowed NUHW to concentrate its organization efforts in relatively few locations - with much greater effectiveness than anybody at SEIU or Zombie UHW are willing to let on in their presser above.

Is SEIU and Zombie UHW now going to try to "flood" out a bunch of elections in the hope of catching NUHW too thin in multiple locations to conduct an effective organization?

And will NLRB now just wave the magic wand and allow these elections to go forward notwithstanding disposition of all these charges SEIU has made - and will NLRB just allow the facilities mentioned above, or will they allow the full content of petitions to go forward?

A Strange Tale From The Great Northwest

It seems that the decert bug that is so troubling SEIU is beginning to spread outside of Hotel California, and has now invaded a branch of SEIU 1199NW, covering Kitsap Mental Health Services in Bremerton, Washington...

Labor representatives have sent a memo to top legislators accusing Kitsap Mental Health Services management of union-busting and misusing state-appropriated funds to do it.

KMHS Executive Director Joe Roszak calls the accusations from Jonathan Rosenblum and Ellie Menzies of the Service Employees International Union “without merit.”

The SEIU represents more than 200 people who work at the county’s only public mental health agency in a wide range of capacities, including therapists, office workers and janitors. SEIU Healthcare 1199NW has been the only union at KMHS.

In the Dec. 18 memo to legislators, Rosenblum, the union’s assistant to the president, and Menzies, its legislative director, alleged that KMHS management used a “hostile” approach last spring in its dealings with the union that involved delays, demands for large concessions and failure to keep union representatives in the loop.

Pretty straightforward they-said, they-said stuff - but here's where it gets strange...

Management encouraged workers to drop out of the union in the fall, according to the memo. Rosenblum and Menzies alleged management offered each employee a $1,000 bonus as an inducement.

The union representatives also alleged that the $1,000 bonuses were a misuse of state funds and suggested a state investigation.

Rochelle Doan, spokeswoman for KMHS, had no comment Monday on the alleged $1,000 bonuses.

The union memo also suggested that KMHS management instigated a petition-gathering campaign to decertify the union. That petition, however, apparently got signatures from a majority of workers. It was submitted to management Dec. 11.

Doan suggested the petition came from below, not above.

“This was a choice of the staff. That’s the bottom line,” she said.

What? Management offering $1K bonuses to quit the union? Certainly there must be more to the story, and that is provided in this follow-up piece by the same author, a day later...

The National Labor Relations Board may ultimately decide whether workers at Kitsap Mental Health Services still are represented by the Service Employees International Union.

While one employee said there is some division among staff over the current status of the SEIU, many said Tuesday they want no part of it. The union has represented KMHS employees since about 1991 under two locals, including the present one, SEIU Healthcare 1199NW.

SEIU leaders recently sent a letter to high-ranking legislators accusing KMHS of union-busting and misuse of state-appropriated funds. A day after that news was published in the Kitsap Sun, KMHS employees gave their perspectives on the story.

Some employees aren’t ruling out other union representation in the future.

“I felt like the union wanted me to believe that the management was bad and that I needed the protection of the union,” said therapist David Secrest. “I want a union that communicates and works with management without an adversarial relationship.”

Said clerk Jackie Fitzgerald, “I think we can do this ourselves.”

Agreed Tina D’Astoli, an office coordinator, “We’re going with no union ... We can always bring in another union; we could even be our own guild.

“It was anything but SEIU.”

That above quote, as well as the other quotes from the employees, have a seriously familiar ring to them, no?

The trouble started last spring.

A two-year contract covering about 200 employees was to expire March 31. Negotiations between management and the union weren’t going well.

“There was a distrust on both sides that was caustic,” D’Astoli said.

One of the issues taken up during bargaining appeared to break the camel’s back. An earlier dispute between the union and management over a state-authorized 1.4 percent pay hike that never materialized had been taken to arbitration. Management won, representatives for both sides said.

But the union resurrected the issue at the bargaining table, which D’Astoli said somehow widened the gap not only between the union and management, but the union and employees it represented.

Negotiations continued over many months.

In November, management came up with a proposal that included maintaining health-insurance premiums for one year before raising them modestly the second year; and wage increases held until July, when a 3 percent increase would begin to take effect.

It also called for a one-time $1,000 lump-sum payment for each employee, but it did not contain the 1.4 percent pay increase, according to D’Astoli.

And so we see the rationale for the $1K bonus that SEIU was so torqued off about in the first article.

What is also clear is that the rank-and-file and the SEIU officials bargaining on their behalf were undergoing a serious failure to communicate.

Workers said the union never brought the contract to them for a vote. D’Astoli said the union was sore about the 1.4 percent increase, that the management proposal didn’t include a provision to get Veterans Day off and there was no provision for a closed union shop.

Union representatives could not be reached Tuesday.

KMHS Executive Director Joe Roszak was reluctant to talk Tuesday, due to the pending charge of unfair labor practices recently brought by the union to the NLRB.

Relations between some staffers and the union apparently continued to sour, with the members believing the union was too aggressive.

In early December, D’Astoli began a petition calling on management to withdraw recognition of the union. She said it was signed by 55 percent of workers covered by the previous union contract.

Regarding union allegations that management coerced staffers to sign the petition, D’Astoli and many other staffers told the Kitsap Sun that wasn’t the case.

“This was of my own volition,” D’Astoli said.

She and the staffers also said management did not use $1,000 payments it had offered as a carrot to get them to decertify.

The petition was delivered to management Dec. 11. After that, management distributed the $1,000 payments, workers said.

Meanwhile, Roszak and Tom Hyde, KMHS board president, have been trying to neutralize any impact from a memo written by union leadership on Dec. 18 to legislators alleging unfair labor practices and illegal use of government funds for the $1,000 bonuses.

On Dec. 23, they wrote their own.

“There has been absolutely no misuse of Medicaid and/or NonMedicaid dollars by KMHS, and we have not used these or any other dollars to engage in ‘union-busting’ activities,” it stated.

As for the $1,000 payments, they wrote, “KMHS does not provide staff ‘bonuses’ or did KMHS provide staff a $1,000 ‘bonus’ as an inducement to decertify the union.”

For now, workers appear to have put a certain level of trust in management, even without a contract.

“I have no problems trusting what management was doing,” D’Astoli said.

Wow. Those SEIU 1199NW members are being placed on-record as trusting management over their union "representatives."

I have to confess that the $1K lump sum bonus or payout or however you want to phrase it looks fishy, but you have to wonder what the people at 1199NW are thinking in allowing such a disconnect to occur in the first place.

The comment threads in both articles are actually pretty good, and have input from multiple employees of KMHS, some who signed the decert and some who did not - and both sides seem to be able to maintain some amount of mutual respect for each other, but very little respect for Andy's Army.

It is apparent that these folks probably would like union representation, and that NUHW quite conceivably could be a good fit for them once Team Red gets away from all the red tape and NLRB hassles that are under way right now.

Still and all, decert petitions and wanting to get out of SEIU are not limited to Hotel California, and SEIU would be wise to pay closer attention to proplerly serving the people it has now, rather than focusing so much attention on keeping captive people who have expressed the clear desire to leave SEIU's clutches.

Liveblogging the Fresno Count, Part Two

Again, this is courtesy of Paul Delahanty and the Calitics blog, and the original can be found here.

2:30 PM -- The last of the mail pallets with ballot envelopes are on the tables. All three tables are opening them.

2:45 -- Official word from NUHW: "With 75% of the ballots sorted,this looks like a close race."

3:05 PM -- The vote counting area is being cordoned off.

Both sides have grown to over 18 people in the room. The officials demand that both sides get back to 18.

Vote count to begin soon.

3:20 The vote count is about to begin.

At each table one vote counter counts groups of 25 Ballots from a sorted pile, then a second vote counter verifies those ballots. The ballots will be sorted into blocs of 25 by vote and turned over to officials.

3:25 PM The counting has begun.

3:35 PM This will be the fastest aspect of the process. It is going very swiftly.

3:45 PM The room is mostly silent at this point.The count continues. Blocs of 25 votes are being handed in every minute or less. (Comment by Sierra - at this rate, we probably will not have a final result tonight. Hopefully the counting process will go a bit faster than what Paul is reporting.)

3:55 PM Still counting.

4:30 The election official has announced that there is an exact 200 vote difference between the sides. One "unit," he does not say which,has 2769 and the other "unit" has 2569.

There are hundreds of set aside and contested ballots. They are discussing those totals now.

4:45 The number of ballots yet to be counted is still being determined. There are hundreds of them and there are numerous categories of ballots that were set aside and not counted. (For example, ballots not sealed in the green secret envelope, ballots damaged in the mail, ballots sealed with tape.)

5PM The leaders on both sides have retreated to strategize how to follow through on the remaining ballots.

Now both sides have returned and are stating what they will and won't accept, and will or won't challenge.

The election officials have agreed to count an initial 300+ ballots that both sides agree upon counting.

Having counted those ballots the officials will weigh whether the margin has closed or not and whether any remaining ballots that stand uncounted could change the outcome.

5:15 PM This goes without saying...but it's clear in the room that the Fresno homecare workers whose election this was are hanging on every decision and every word.

5:35 They've begun counting 290 ballots that were mailed in the retrun envelope but not in the secret ballot envelope.

6:00 The ballots in that pool of 290 are being tallied and we have a new margin shortly...NUHW 119 SEIU 155 was announced to the room with the balance no union or spoiled.

6:10 They now announce that SEIU was the union with 2769 ballots and NUHW was the union with 2569 ballots. The net margin is now being recalculated.

6:25 SEIU-UHW is taking this lull in the action to videotape some celebrations. Both sides are still in the room awaiting the margin announcement.

6:30 SEIU's lawyer claims victory with the new margin and asks that the counting stop. (There are around 100 votes left at issue.) NUHW asks that all the votes be counted and indicates that we want all the ballots protected for a recount. NUHW's lawyer also mentions that there are grave legal issues raised by SEIU's conduct in this election.

More will be added as updates filter in...

Liveblogging the Fresno Count

Courtesy of NUHW's Paul Delahanty - direct link is here. I will update every 15 minutes or so.

NUHW: Fresno Ballot Count Good morning from the Fresno ballot count!

Today represents the official count of the ballots cast by Fresno homecare providers in an election that took place between June 1st and 15th in.Fresno County. The outcome of this election will determine whether NUHW or SEIU represents 10,000 Fresno homecare providers...

9AM --So, no wireless here at the County Office Building, so this is a mobile liveblog, forgive my thumbs!

9:15 AM -- Both sides fill the room. We're upstairs in a small, windowless 30' x 30' room. The ballots are rolled on two carts by the officials. Some of us are going to have to leave...looks like we're down to 18 audience members from either side.

9:30 -- A warm cheer goes up from the NUHW side, Toni Landin, an NUHW activist who was injured in a car accident during the election is wheeled in.

10:00 AM -- They are slicing open envelopes and the ballot counters are working at three tables with an obsever from each side.

10:15 AM -- We have official news. Just under 6,000 Ballots were received by the County. (Comment by Sierra - Looks like SEIU's claim of 5000 votes was out-and-out BS after all...)

10:45 AM -- Outer Ballot envelopes are still being opened.(The stamped envelopes that contain the secret ballot envelopes, which contain the ballots) Piles of green secret ballot envelopes are rising on each table. Conversations in Hmong, Spanish and English fill the room as the envelope opening machine whirs.

11:15 AM -- The ballot counters take a break..No secret ballots have been opened yet.

11:30 AM -- They are opening the green secret ballot envelopes by hand and making piles of ballots face down on the table. (For folks out there wondering...there's no counting involved in this process, just opening ballot envelopes by hand and removing ballots.)

12:00 PM -- They are still opening ballots by hand. Some of the ballot counters are breaking for lunch. Bear with us here, this process will take some time. This election is well on its way to breaking record turnout.

A big hello goes out to the NUHW supporters who've found some shade in front of the building.

12:30 PM -- More and more ballots are on the table. Still no news or ballot counts. Take out coffees slowly are making an appearence. Apparently this office building also has an affordable and friendly cafeteria. The grilled chicken and vegetables gets a big thumbs up as does the Turkey Breast Sandwich.

12:50 PM -- I'd like to take.a moment to thank Mrs. Hall of Fresno who hosted this blogger on short notice last night. Thank you and enjoy the Irish Dance Competition!

1:15 PM -- Here's the first official quote from NUHW, "With approximately 20% of the ballots sorted this looks like a close race."

1:50 PM -- Second official quote from NUHW: "With 30% of the ballots sorted this still looks like a close race."

2:05 PM -- The sound of ballots being unfolded is non stop. Envelopes are still being opened by hand. Folks on both sides have started standing up to watch the ballots sorted into piles.

2:15 PM -- Since you all don't have visuals...let me try to describe what everyone in the room is seeing. There's one table opening ballots and two tables unfolding and sorting those ballots into piles. There's no official ballot counting at all yet.Each side's observers can look from their position at the sorting table...but the ballots are piled up on the sort piles very quickly.

2:30 PM -- The last of the mail pallets with ballot envelopes are on the tables. All three tables are opening them.

Please go to Part Two for continuation of this LiveBlog...

It's Tough To Stand Up...

...when you are up to your neck in slime.

Paul Garver unloads on SEIU, and this is delicious in the extreme from first to last...

Eight hundred organizers from SEIU locals in California and other states have flooded into the small Central Valley city of Fresno. Rallying at the Fresno Fair Grounds (site of the first of the California internment camps for Japanese-Americans in 1942), the conscripts were provided with SEIU T-shirts and purple paraphenalia, water bottles, and speeches (view report on speech by SEIU-UHW trustee Dave Regan) exhorting them to kick the asses, whip the butts, and drive a stake through the heart of the rival National Union of Health Workers (NUHW). They will make daily house calls on the 10,000 homecare workers who are currently members of SEIU-UHW, which national SEIU put into trusteeship in January. The workers have petitioned for representation by the NUHW, founded by deposed UHW leaders and shop stewards. UHW first organized the Fresno homecare workers and won a good first contract in 2002-2003.

A much smaller number of volunteer organizers represent the NUHW. One of their elected leaders within the Fresno homecare unit is Florine Furlow, who was arrested at a sit-in at a Woolworth’s lunch counter in Little Rock in 1960, who in an op-ed article in the Fresno Bee views her union struggle as a continuation of her campaigns for civil rights and disability rights. Other volunteer organizers include Dana Simon, who had coordinated the original 2002-3 organizing and contract campaigns in Fresno and a month ago resigned his SEIU position as lead organizer for Massachusetts hospitals to protest SEIU’s actions in California. Another is Fred Ross, Jr., a long-time union organizer beginning with the UFW, who also wrote of his resignation from SEIU on Talking Union. As reported by Randy Shaw on this blog, former UFW leaders are divided. Delores Huerta supports the NUHW, while Eliseo Medina is SEIU-UHW’s co-trustee along with Dave Regan.

The 10,000 homecare workers are mailing back their ballots from June 1 to 15 to choose between SEIU-UHW and NUHW as their collective bargaining representative. In a sense they are choosing between Goliath and David. Goliath has the troop numbers and the deep pockets. David lacks these resources. In other respects as well, the battlefield is favorable for Goliath. The fiscal crisis in California is posing an imminent threat to the precarious gains of the Fresno homecare workers. SEIU-UHW already lost an arbitration to maintain the wage level, but claims that its political connections in Washington and Sacramento can help restore them. Inundating Fresno homecare workers with house calls, television messages and other propaganda may not persuade them to love or support SEIU, but as every union-busting management consultant knows, you do not have to persuade workers to get them to vote against change – you merely have to confuse them and paralyze their wills. In the tumult and stress of a chaotic campaign, many will choose “no union” -or in this case the “incumbent” union- in a desperate attempt to ease the tension. The unit of Fresno homecare workers is relatively new to the labor movement – its members work in isolated individual households and lack the work relationships that facilitate communication and can bolster group solidarity among co-workers in hospitals and nursing homes.

The stakes are high both for SEIU and for the NUHW. The NUHW might survive an electoral defeat in Fresno, and live to fight on at Kaiser and other large institutional settings where its support is more firmly based. And if SEIU fails to “drive a stake through the heart” of NUHW in Fresno, it will surely keep on trying. But even SEIU’s resources are not infinite. Some of its 800 conscripts in Fresno are already proving reluctant and might be hard to mobilize for a similar effort in the future. Local 99 SEIU staffers, for instance, signed a letter demanding neutrality in the SEIU/NUHW conflict and picketed the union office in protest against assignment to Fresno. Others are posting critical reports on the pro-NUHW PerezStern blog site.

Moreover SEIU is increasingly engaged on another costly national front, against UniteHere. SEIU has had to loan $1 million to its Workers United conference that split off from UniteHere to support its internal battle with the larger group that remained within that union. Workers United has only about 100,000 dues paying members, and will likely have to seek further relief from making per capita payments to SEIU. So long as a settlement is not reached over financial issues, control of the Amalgamated Bank and jurisdictional issues, SEIU may find its battle against UniteHere to be more draining than expected.

This is probably why SEIU has chosen to run such a massive effort amounting to overkill to crush the NUHW insurgency in Fresno. But even electoral victory in Fresno would not in itself restore SEIU’s moral legitimacy that is being eroded by its repeated involvement in fratricidal inter- and intra-union conflicts. SEIU had amassed considerable political, financial and moral capital over decades of organizing workers and fighting progressive campaigns over issues.

Would it be tragic for SEIU and for the entire progressive movement if the “real SEIU” is represented only by the face of Dave Regan talking trash on the Fresno fairgrounds? Is the “real SEIU” better represented by Flo Furlow, Dana Simon and Fred Ross, Jr? Read their articles and listen to their speeches on the links provided to answer these questions for yourself.

The question truly does beg to be asked after this article - why is SEIU fighting so hard, and pressing themselves in such a manner, to the end of keeping 10,000 people in their clutches?

Probably because even SEIU now knows that once one or two groups of people break free, the floodgates will open, and the weaknesses of the SEIU management-friendly union approach will be laid bare for all to see.

SEIU believes that the strength of the union is in the leadership, while NUHW believes that the strenght is found in the membership.

The contrast could not be more clear.

Ground Zero: Fresno

Cal Winslow in this week's Counterpunch lays out the NUHW versus SEIU fight from soup to nuts, and ties together several threads that have come forth, from the Trusteeship, to SEIU's double-dealing and collusion with KaiPerm and CHW in the NLRB petitions, to the out-of-town idiocy displayed by the Zombie SEIU scab staffers, and absolutely lays SEIU out for the count:

The fundamental issues in the Fresno contest are clear then – the NUHW, if it wins this election, will maintain and build on standards fought for and won by members of the now wrecked UHW, including restoring recent Fresno County proposed wage cuts, while fighting for healthcare benefits for all, and challenging state caps on wages and benefits and a system that perpetuates for these workers a cycle of permanent poverty. Andy Stern has predicted that Fresno will be the “death knell” for NUHW. On the contrary, an SEIU win could be the “death knell” for the home care workers. SEIU has already lost in arbitration and conceded the County’s wage cut demands. SEIU sent in staff from out of state, led by Rebecca Malberg, a DC staffer who didn’t know the contract, had never handled a grievance and never witnessed an arbitration. SEIU refused to allow the members’ local bargaining team to attend arbitration hearings. Since the arbitration ruling in favor of the County, the SEIU has refused to share the findings with members, but it still calls the secret contract a “victory.”

That's just a taste - read the whole damn thing!

Ten Thousand Quatloos to Mr. Cal Winslow, a gentleman who has been there and has seen that in the labor movement going back several decades, and who makes it clear that it is NUHW who is on the side of the workers, and it is SEIU who is on the side of the bosses.

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 New Face of Zombie UHW...

Behold the new "face" of the Kaiser division of Zombie UHW. Courtesy of PerezStern, this is Diane Barton, who evidently has been named "Chief Steward" down at Santa Clara, and who has evidently been nominated by Zombie UHW to be the spokesperson for those of us Kaiser workers who are stuck in Hotel California:

"I couldn't be happier with the NLRB's decision after all the months of harassment and deception by people trying to decertify our union," Diane Barton, SEIU UHW Chief Steward, Kaiser Santa Clara. "The government's decision just validates that we have a strong, secure union at Kaiser with SEIU UHW. Now it's time for us to get ready to bargain a great contract in 2010 together with the rest of the 26 unions in the Kaiser Coalition of Unions."

You wanna talk about "deception," Diane? How about 28,000 names having been submitted to NLRB asking for a vote out of 48,000 eligible to do so, or about 58% of all eligible voters signing the petition asking for a vote on the issue? When 58% of the eligible members of any organization want out, calling that a "strong, secure union" is the quintessential definition of "Deception."

By the way, Diane, how'd you get to your exalted position of "Chief Steward," anyway? Were you elected by your peers as was the case before the Trusteeship, or were you appointed by Zombie UHW after the Trusteeship was imposed? And if that is the case, that you were appointed after the Trusteeship, would you volunteer to put yourself up for re-election as a "Chief Steward" to make sure that your position was actually the stated will of the employees at Kaiser Santa Clara? Or would you take the example of your Purple Plague bosses and try to hide behind technicalities and legalities in order to thwart the stated will of the people you are purported to allegedly represent?

I think I have a sneaking suspicion of which path Diane Barton would take on the above question.

Yes, my friends, Diane Barton probably already knows quite well how to define "Deception" - and all she has to do is to look in the mirror in order to do it.

Who Else Wants to Check Out of Hotel California?

It's not just those of us here in Zombie UHW who are trying to check out of SEIU's Hotel California - it seems that some librarians and educational consultants in California's "Bargaining Unit 21" have been sent ballots as to whether to dump SEIU. And when the SacBee reported on that, the comment string has grown to about 80 comments, over half of which is some good, old-fashioned anti-SEIU Haterade...

I have to say, I'm amused by how the union junkies are so desparately begging folks to support the union. IT'S A FARCE!!! The union has gotten us more take aways than they have gains. It wouldn't surprise me if they got together with GAS & said "okay, you put them all on furlough for 2 days, that way these idiots will be thrilled with us for 'talking' you into 1 day when we go back to the bargaining table. We'll look like heroes and you'll get the benefit of 'agreeing' to one day in place of 2." Not all of us are stupid enough to fall for the union BS. When times were great & the housing market was booming, they got us 3.5% over 2 years. They tried to tell us they got us 14% with the take-aways being removed. Meanwhile CCPOA & others are getting 10+% in raises plus the take-away. You tell me who's getting hosed here.
Support SEIU? I don't think so.

Read and enjoy...

The First Rule of Getting Knocked Down...

...is to get your ass back up off the ground.

Brother Sal gave me a call and basically told me to get back with the program, that there is reason to be optimistic, and that we need to work past this recent setback and toward the greater goal before us - and he's absolutely right.

Those of us who are more classically educated can take encouragement from the speech that then-Prime Minister Winston S. Churchill gave to the House of Commons on June 4, 1940, on the evening after the withdrawal of the British Expeditionary Force from Mainland Europe at Dunkirk, with a few alterations to fit the context:

"I have, myself, full confidence that if all do their duty, if nothing is neglected, and if the best arrangements are made, as they are being made, we shall prove ourselves once again able to defend our new union, to ride out the storm of war, and to outlive the menace of tyranny, if necessary for years, if necessary alone. At any rate, that is what we are going to try to do. That is the resolve of the National Union of Healthcare Workers-every man of them. That is the will of the E-board and the leadership.

We, who are linked together in cause and in need, will defend to the death our new unity, aiding each other like good comrades to the utmost of our strength. Even though large tracts of Kaiser and many old and famous facilities have fallen or may fall into the grip of the Trusteeship and all the odious apparatus of SEIU rule, we shall not flag or fail.

We shall go on to the end. We shall fight in California, we shall fight nationwide and locally, we shall fight with growing confidence and growing strength in the hospitals, we shall defend our Unity, whatever the cost may be; we shall fight on the streets, we shall fight on the union halls, we shall fight in the press and in the new media, we shall fight in the halls of government.

We shall never surrender, and even if, which I do not for a moment believe, this union or a large part of it were subjugated and starving, then our comrades beyond the reach of SEIU, armed and guarded by the God-given freedoms they have inherited as Citizens of this Great Nation, would carry on the struggle until, in God's good time, the New Union, with all its power and might, steps forth to the rescue and the liberation of all those trapped in the Old."

Then again, there are those who may well believe that "this situation absolutely requires a really futile and stupid gesture be done on somebody's part"...


In any event, this fight ain't over by a long shot, because there's one fact that overrides every other visceral reaction:

SEIU is doing anything it can to avoid a straight up-or-down vote on the Trusteeship. As long as SEIU is running scared, NUHW is by definition on the rise.

Time to get up, and get our asses off the ground. Whether it's Churchill or Bluto who helps you out, time to get up and get back in the game.

It was only right that he call me and tell me to get back in the game after my "Slammed" post yesterday, and for that fact alone, Sal Rosselli has my gratitude and respect.

Slammed...

NUHW has had its collective ass royally kicked today.

First off is the Temporary Restraining Order issued by the US District Court for Northern California directing the return to Zombie UHW "any information" that was derived by NUHW partisans whilst in the employ of UHW - even if that information is currently stored on personally owned storage media. Quoth the Judge:

If defendants have commingled UHW property with their own personal property — such as by using their private PDAs to do UHW work — that is a problem of their own making and is no defense to having to return the UHW information and property. Although this order will provide an opportunity to sort the private material from UHW material, the main burden and cost of doing so should fall on those who commingled in the first place rather than on UHW.

It goes on and on, but basically Zombie UHW is effectively going to be able to eventually find out who is Politically Reliable and who is not, courtesy of the personal property of those who are not Politically Reliable.

Unfortunately, it doesn't stop there.



It looks like we're going to have to put Kaiser Permanente up on the Billboard of Shame, as the nice folks at NLRB evidently have decided that Andyism is far more important than actual constitutional rights...

NLRB Upholds SEIU UHW as Union for 48,000 Kaiser Workers, Dismisses Bogus Petitions to Decertify

SEIU UHW Kaiser Members Move to 2010 Bargaining Preparations

OAKLAND, Calif., and LOS ANGELES, April 8 /PRNewswire-USNewswire/ -- On April 7, the National Labor Relations Board officially dismissed a petition seeking to decertify SEIU UHW as the union representing more than 48,000 caregivers at Kaiser Permanente facilities stating that "the Feb. 26 petitions were clearly filed outside the appropriate window period and after the local and national agreements were reaffirmed for an additional two years, I find that a contract bar exists to the processing of these petitions."

The ruling protects SEIU UHW member contracts, wages and benefits, and ends any other organization's hopes of invalidating the contracts members won and ratified in 2005 and 2008. Last month, the NLRB also threw out a similar petition at Catholic Healthcare West, reaffirming contract and union protections for another 14,000 SEIU UHW members.

"I couldn't be happier with the NLRB's decision after all the months of harassment and deception by people trying to decertify our union," Diane Barton, SEIU UHW Chief Steward, Kaiser Santa Clara. "The government's decision just validates that we have a strong, secure union at Kaiser with SEIU UHW. Now it's time for us to get ready to bargain a great contract in 2010 together with the rest of the 26 unions in the Kaiser Coalition of Unions."

SOURCE SEIU UHW

I hope that Diane Barton is very proud of herself. She has just declared herself a "Chief Steward" in an organization whose membership is looking for some way, any way, to get out.

I will endeavour to pick up more information about the NLRB decision, but this cannot be construed as anything other than an EPIC FAIL for NUHW, and a damn shame to boot.

It looks like the only way out of Hotel California for those of us who want out is either to quit the job or to fully decertify - neither of which is all that appealing...

Update @ 7:20 p.m. with NUHW Press Statement...

Oakland, Calif.—The following statement was issued by the National Union of Healthcare Workers:

"The reason the Employee Free Choice Act is supported by President Obama, Congress, and the entire labor movement is because the NLRB rules too often in favor of bosses instead of workers. Today, the NLRB ruled in favor of SEIU bosses, and against the workers at Kaiser Permanente.

"This ruling does not change the fact that a majority of Kaiser workers across California have repudiated SEIU's backroom deals and undemocratic practices.

"Since taking control of SEIU-UHW away from its members, national SEIU officials have already kicked healthcare workers out of national bargaining and allowed Kaiser to cut their retirement security, all without any vote by the workers affected.

"NUHW will appeal the NLRB's decision on behalf of Kaiser employees, and will continue to support their movement to join a union where they have a voice."

Oy...

Anyone out there got some good news?

Central Coast Rebellion

NUHW seems to be a communicable disease down there on the Central Coast - only once you get it, you're cured of Zombie-itis.

It seems that not long after workers at Salinas-Natividad Medical Center (with their colleagues in Monterey County) decided to file for recognition in NUHW, workers at both Hazel Hawkins Memorial Hospital in Hollister, and at Watsonville Community Hospital in southern Santa Cruz County have filed to be represented by NUHW.

The Watsonville petition has to go through NLRB, but the Hazel Hawkins petition goes through the California Public Employee Relations Board, as the employees at Hawkins are working for a county hospital in Hollister. We will see how quickly the forces of bureaucracy work at those respective bodies.

Update on 4/7: From the Santa Cruz Sentinel...

Health care workers at Watsonville Community Hospital are taking sides in the dispute between their bargaining agent, Service Employees International Union, and National Union of Healthcare Workers, an upstart organization formed in January by leaders unhappy with SEIU.

"An overwhelming majority of us have signed petitions to choose NUHW as our union," said Kermit Butch Cole, a surgery technician for 19 years. "We need a union we can trust, where we have a voice to stand up for ourselves and our patients."

Cole, 65, said he received a letter Monday from SEIU asking him to resign his position as shop steward, a role he's had for 17 years. He's not about to go quietly.

"SEIU has the right to remove me, but until they do, I'm the steward," he said, noting he was elected by co-workers.

(snip)

Cole said SEIU has been pressuring workers, telling them if they voted for a new union, they would be fired and lose health insurance.

Health care workers pay about $64 a month in union dues, Cole said, which adds up to about $30 million a year in area dues going to SEIU's headquarters.

"If we don't have to send that $30 million to Washington, D.C., we'd be able to reduce dues by 25 percent," he said, adding. "We decided we don't want automatic dues deduction, we want SEIU to bill us."

Their three-year contract at Watsonville Community Hospital expires July 31; negotiations have not begun.

Note the date of the WCH contract expiry - July 31 of this year. SEIU's going to have one hell of a time trying to fold that one into the contract bar language.

Add Another Hospital to the NUHW List...

It looks like Zombie UHW is not the only SEIU local to be having some internal trouble here in Hotel California...

Monterey County employees to announce petition to leave SEIU

Monterey County employees will announce they have filed petitions to join the National Union of Healthcare Workers (NUHW) and leave their old union, SEIU Local 521 at 11:30 a.m. today in front of the ER entrance at Natividad Medical Center, 1441 Constitution Blvd., Salinas.

Included in the filing are 800 healthcare workers at Natividad Medical Center, as well as more than 2,000 other public service workers including 911 dispatchers, child support workers, and sanitation workers.

Natividad is not just a podunk hospital either - it's about 175 beds, and serves as the county hospital for Monterey County - probably the reason why it is covered by the guvmint-oriented SEIU 521 instead of the privately-oriented Zombie UHW.

We're still waiting for all those SEIU fans out there to tell us why we should remain happy guests in the Hotel California...

Zombie UHW Bails Out of Decert Vote at SD-Rady

Showing that glowing confidence that comes with the knowledge that you are doing the Right Thing for your members, Zombie UHW decided to withdraw from a decertification vote, rather than face the consequences of that vote...

The union that won a protracted battle to represent 750 service workers at Rady Children's Hospital in San Diego withdrew this week to avoid potential defeat in a decertification vote.

Its move means that any union wishing to represent the employees – who include housekeepers, secretaries, janitors and cafeteria staffers – will have to start the certification process from scratch, labor officials said.

Wages and benefits for the workers will remain as they were under a now-defunct contract between the hospital and the Service Employees International Union, Rady spokesman Ben Metcalf said.

But there's no longer a guarantee of 4 percent annual raises, he said. Instead, the employees will qualify for an annual merit raise awarded on a sliding scale of up to 6 percent.

The SEIU pullout could bring a period of peace to the hospital after years of pitched conflict that often wedged workers between union leaders driven to expand their reach in San Diego County and Rady administrators bent on defeating the effort.

You would think that there is a rather large piece of information missing from the above section of the article - you know, something to do with the trusteeship? But I digress...

“I hope we're able to take back our hospital and give management a chance to manage us,” said Sally James, a clinical assistant and former member of the bargaining unit.

SEIU began its campaign to organize some of the lowest-paid employees at the hospital in 2004, and those workers quickly voted for collective-bargaining representation. But Rady administrators launched a protracted challenge over the union's legal status.

The fight led to three votes by the workers for union representation. Negotiations to establish a labor contract took several more years.

Weeks before the contract was signed, James and other union opponents started circulating a decertification petition that eventually gained enough signatures to force a vote.

However, the balloting was delayed for nearly two years because the union filed charges of unfair labor practices against the hospital.

In February, the union's leaders and Rady administrators agreed to schedule a decertification election for yesterday and today.

Hmmm. What changed in UHW between 2004 and February of 2009? Anyone? Bueller???

Those plans were derailed Tuesday when SEIU notified federal labor officials that it was withdrawing representation from the hospital.

Fear of losing the vote played a major role in the decision, said Keisha Stewart, deputy trustee of SEIU's United Healthcare Workers local, which oversaw the bargaining unit.

"FEAR OF LOSING"?!?!? WTF kind of union punks out of a vote because of "fear of losing"? How about one that no longer enjoys the support of its membership?

“It was kind of sparing them the heartache of going through an election that they may not have won,” she said. The move also denied administrators the advantages that would have come with a victory over the union, she said.

“We want to set it up so that we can go back in there and organize,” Stewart said. “We're committed to do that.”

Well, Keisha, you certainly are "committed" all right - or at least you should be if you think that Zombie UHW is going to be able to do anything at Rady in the future except to throw rocks at the signage. When you and your "union" ran away and abandoned 750 workers to the good graces of the management at Rady, you took with it any shred of dignity or respect those people may have had for UHW. Almost five years of good work was destroyed in the space of two months, and now the UHW toehold in SD county is, for all intents and purposes, gone.

Nowhere is it mentioned in the article that the union leadership who has fought beside the UHW-covered workers at Rady, and who stood by them and shepherded them through multiple org drives and votes, were basically tossed out on their asses in January in favor of Stern-selected milquetoasts.

Let me be clear about this to every person now currently stuck in Zombie UHW: Whenever Zombie UHW thinks it will lose a fight, Zombie UHW will run away.

SEIU supporters: Again, I ask you, in light of the evidence presented in the story above, why should we who are stuck in Zombie UHW be content with that?

A New Union is Born...

Disaffected workers, tired of their current union hierarchy, and feeling that they are no longer properly represented by that union, have banded together to secede from that parent union, and have formed their own union - a union which has is composed entirely of workers in a certain sector of that (former) parent union.

The former parent union is now taking measures (via legal means as well as NLRB obstructionism) to keep those disaffected workers in the parent union - even though those disaffected workers have already chosen a name, have already chosen a potential slate of elected leaders, and have already scheduled a founding convention, to be held later this month.

One would assume that I am discussing NUHW, but I'm not. The new union in this case is called Workers United, and they are an offshoot of UNITE/HERE. And which union, do you suppose, is helping to sponsor this new renegade union, even to the point of offering to take the new union under its wing?

Why, it's our very own Purple Plague.



The math - and the irony - are left to the student...

Kaiser Steward Removal Revisited...

Another (now former) UHW Steward, Lisa Tomasian, has penned an article on Daily Kos explaining the events surrounding how she was removed as a steward by the Zombie UHW Kaiser director.

After trusteeship, the first letter I received from Dave Regan and Eliseo Medina stated that there would be no changes to our elected Shop Steward structure. The most recent letter I’ve received, however, said:

“We understand that you no longer share our commitment to build a stronger union and win a strong contract for 2010. Therefore, we have no other recourse than to remove you from your position as an SEIU-UHW Steward."

I found that interesting, to say the least, since neither of them has ever talked about this with me!

In the old days, pre-trusteeship, the only way an elected steward could be removed was through a recall by the members, the same people who elect us and who we're accountable to. Not anymore!

After I was removed from my elected position as a shop steward, more letters went out to other advocates for NUHW. The Trustee’s appointee Greg Maron started assessing shop stewards in Northern California. If shop stewards don't toe the SEIU line or if they say they support NUHW, they receive a letter removing them from their democratically elected positions. Greg has even stepped it up a bit by going to Steward Council meetings and if they don’t agree with him he suspends the meeting until further notice. Greg then follows up with letters removing them as shop stewards.

Interesting in that the letter quoted above has EXACTLY the same verbiage as the letter referenced in my post below, which was received by a different individual in KP. It appears that the nice folks at SEIU have just basically up and decided that everyone who was a steward now needs to be removed, no matter if they violate the established process for doing so, and no matter if Eliseo Medina specifically stated in his January 27th robocall that such actions would not occur.

However, Lisa evidently wasn't willing to just leave it at that...

Dear Greg Maron,

We understand that it is your current misunderstanding that you have the power to "remove" Shop Stewards because we want to join another union, we don't toe the SEIU line, we don't do what you say, we argue with your scab staff you've assigned to our facility, and we don't respect you, the trustees or SEIU's "leadership."

Sadly for you, our members are well educated and empowered to understand that our power comes from the workers, not from some failed attorney who gets to temporarily play "Kaiser Director" while the workers decertify SEIU. They understand that they elected Shop Stewards and that nothing you do or say or write will change that. Ours is a democratic union and of course, your trying to "remove" Shop Stewards because they disagree with you just highlights why 50,000 Kaiser workers will very soon no longer be a part of SEIU's dictatorship.

But the real point of this letter is not the lost cause of trying to educate you on union democracy. The real point is to make sure you understand the impact of our having filed a petition by the majority of Kaiser workers two weeks ago. The impact of that means that SEIU is no longer the union of Kaiser workers and you are no longer the Kaiser Director.

As such, you are hereby notified that you are no longer recognized by the Kaiser workers as the Kaiser Division Director. Further, Ken Krause and Linda Erickson are no longer recognized as union representatives to the workers of Santa Clara Kaiser.

Respectfully,

The Kaiser Workers

Lisa Tomasian CRT/ARRT
Kaiser Santa Clara
NUHW Shop Steward

When I say that SEIU has been NUHW's best organizer, the stuff up above is exactly what I am referring to. It seems like SEIU has been going out of its way to offend their (allegedly) wayward brethren in UHW, and seem absolutely bent on conquest going forward rather than cooperation.

Cooperation is not achieved at the point of the gun. It certainly is not achieved by taking all of the old processes which were (by every estimation) beneficial to both the employees and the management - as well as the patients - and tossing those processes in the gutter in favor of SEIU-brand corporate unionism.

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?

What Part of "NO" Don't You Understand?

As reported here yesterday, NUHW won recognition for 350 workers at four North American Healthcare facilities in Northern California.

Our friends at the Purple Plague could have let this one go, seeing as how there was an absolute majority of workers signing up and asking the employer to recognize NUHW as their bargaining agent.

Alas, that's just not how SEIU rolls...

"This is not a done deal," SEIU spokeswoman Michelle Ringuette said. She said the SEIU on Tuesday filed an unfair labor practices charge with the National Labor Relations Board, accusing North American Healthcare of "illegally recognizing" the National Union of Healthcare Workers.

She said former United Healthcare Workers leaders purposely allowed contracts with employers to expire at North American Healthcare and many other facilities so that if the SEIU took over the local -- as it did in January -- they would be able to make a play for the workers through a new union.

Oy...

SEIU is now going to go to court in order to try to prove constructive indifference against its former UHW officials - while evidently also trying to duck the fact that SEIU has had "monitors" in place at all UHW facilities since the beginning of the Marshall trial in September, and have been telling everyone far and wide that the only reason people sign on with SEIU is because of the vaunted International bargaining team, and that the locals have little, if anything, to do with it.

But arguing the above sets aside the obvious question: Why does SEIU have to resort to raiding in order to bolster its membership - and why does SEIU have to resort to lawsuits in order to retain its membership?

The First Cracks In The Dam...

North American Healthcare SNF workers are now officially bargaining-unit members of NUHW...

Workers at three Sacramento-area nursing homes and one Pacifica-area nursing home have overwhelmingly chosen the National Union of Healthcare Workers (NUHW) as their union. North American Healthcare, Inc., which operates the facilities, has agreed to recognize the union and begin contract negotiations with NUHW’s elected bargaining team. NUHW and North American Healthcare also agreed to continue the terms and conditions of the current collective bargaining agreement while caregivers negotiate a new labor agreement with their employer.

Despite an aggressive effort by SEIU to intimidate workers and deny them a free choice of which union they wanted to represent them, caregivers rejected SEIU and chose NUHW as the representative of North American Healthcare workers.

Workers’ decision was certified by Shirley Campbell, a retired 25-year veteran of the State Mediation and Conciliation Service who has overseen hundreds of union elections for the State of California. The employer and the union agreed on Campbell as a neutral third party to verify that NUHW has support from a majority of workers, demonstrated by signatures on a petition.

“I hereby find that National Union of Healthcare Workers (NUHW) has been designated and selected by a majority as the exclusive representative of the employees,” Campbell wrote in her finding.
(snip)

While SEIU officials advocate for the Employee Free Choice Act in Washington, D.C., in California they are working to obstruct union elections at more than 350 healthcare facilities and block 91,000 workers from leaving SEIU. They have engaged in a campaign of terror against workers who dared to speak out against SEIU. Several workers have been harassed, intimidated, threatened, and in some cases suspended and even terminated from their jobs because they want SEIU out of their workplace.

“Healthcare workers need a voice in our union so we can stand up for ourselves and for the people who need our care,” said Eloise Reese-Burns, a certified nursing assistant at Cottonwood Healthcare in Woodland for over 39 years. “We asked SEIU over and over to let us vote and determine our own future, and they refused because they wanted to divide us. I’ve been a union steward for 30 years, and now we are in a union that will respect our voices. We’ve made our decision, and if SEIU continues to try to stop our choice, then there should be a law against what SEIU President Andy Stern is trying to do.”

Some in the Labor Community may think this a small step, but it is still a worthy one all the same, because this is the first crack in the SEIU dam. The workers referenced above were SEIU-covered, were taken into bondage by the trusteeship, and have declared their freedom by signing over to NUHW.

And there was not a damn thing that the Purple Plague could do about it.

Word from NUHW to Our Glorious Maximum Leader: Actions Have Consequences. You have sown the wind - now see how it feels to reap the whirlwind.

To my brothers and sisters at the North American Healthcare facilities in Woodland, Sacramento and Pacifica:

WELL DONE! Welcome to NUHW!