Death and Taxes

It's been said that the only sure things in the world are Death and Taxes.

Well, to that list can be added the appeal of a close loser to an election before the NLRB...

Memorial Hospital administrators have filed objections to the recent election during which hospital employees voted to join National Union of Healthcare Workers, alleging that the union, union agents, and/or third parties negatively affected the election. Did articles published on EmpireReport.org contribute to a flawed election? Disclosure- This report involves allegations that may implicate the author of the report.

On Tuesday, December 29th, only 11 days after voting to unionize with National Union of Healthcare Workers, Memorial Hospital employees received an administration memo notifying them that the administration filed election objections with the National Labor Relations Board.

According to the memo, which was signed by the hospital's Vice President of Human Resources, the objections were filed because the administration was "concerned that NUHW's conduct during the weeks leading up to the vote created an atmosphere of confusion and fear," an atmosphere which "compromised our employees' rights and ultimately unlawfully affected the outcome of the vote."

The memo does not note if any hospital employees 1) expressed fear or confusion, 2) stated fear or confusion affected their vote, or 3) alleged that their rights were violated.

However, instead of including the objections in the memo, or sending the document containing the objections through email, the administration memo contained an italicized passage emphasizing that employees would have to log into the hospital's computer network to view a copy of the objections filed with the NLRB.

Employees who did so found a December 28th document titled "Employer's Objections to Conduct Affecting the Election."

While the hospital administration's memo to its employees limits its allegations to "NUHW's conduct," the December 28th document lists objections against the union, union agents and/or third parties, and even the National Labor Relations Board itself.

SRMH management is evidently protesting some of the video newsgathering conducted by Empire Report, as well as complaining about the "font" that the "no union" option was printed on with the ballots, e.g. the "no union" selection was significantly smaller than that for NUHW or Zombie UHW.

The only real effect this protest is going to have is to postpone the inevitable. Because of this filing, the disposition of the 17 challenged ballots will probably be put off indefinitely (the challenges filed at San Pablo Doctor's Hospital are still yet to be resolved), but NUHW has already achieved the tactical victory it needed over Zombie UHW going into the Kaiser SoCal election.

The Zombie UHW Charm Offensive Rolls On...

From Tasty's place...

On Christmas Eve, Terri Fernandez, UHW Zombie and rep with a reported history of being aggressive towards members, was at Kaiser Sunset doing her job as rep-i.e. eating lunch in the cafeteria.

One of the Sunset RNs saw Terri's purple shirt and decided to introduce herself and say, "I'm one of the RNs and I pay your salary and I just thought you'd like to see the union that we're voting for." She then showed Terri a leaflet that had dozens of RNs pictured on it.

Terri was NOT amused by this and grabbed the leaflet and ripped it in half said "I don't want anything that you have. You're a thief."

Some other RNs attracted by the ruckus came over and they were also treated to the Fernandez warmth-Terri proceeded to stamp, point her fingers at both of them and repeat, "Thief, thief!"

The RN's, who remain unclear why their rep would call them thieves, turned to their Kaiser co-workers who are still waiting for a decert election from the board and pointed out that the lady in question was not an errant psych patient, but the woman who was supposed to represent them for the union.

Gotta love those Zombies.

Senate Rejects Andy's Lawyer for NLRB

It seems that the U.S. Senate does not think much of the prospect of Our Glorious Maximum Leader's in-house counsel to sit on the board of the NLRB, so much so that the Senate has returned Becker's nomination to the White House.

The Obama Administration will now either be forced to wait until the next session of the Senate to resubmit Becker's nomination, or they will have to use a controversial "recess appointment" in order to get Becker seated.

Stronger Together.

Go To The Source...

Much as Red Revolt was the source for the best info regarding the SRMH election, it's turning out now that Sternburger With Fries is turning out to be the place to go regarding the inside dope on what's going down with the SoCal Kaiser election.

Tasty's place has a story about what happens when SoCal KaiPerm nurses complain about Zombie UHW bugging them, as well as what a Zombie UHW organizer is "offering" to the KaiPerm nurses if they will just vote SEIU's way.

Check it out...

Kaiser Professionals - In Their Own Words

KaiPerm Professional workers from SoCal explain in this video why they are preparing to choose NUHW over Zombie UHW...

Lost In The Turmoil

One item that came out last week has gotten little if any notice but has a direct relationship to one of Zombie UHW's proclaimed "victories" in bargaining.

It seems that the Alameda Hospital District may be looking to ask its staff to take some pay cuts - and instead of telling management (and everybody else) that a deal's a deal (like was told to the KaiPerm Pharmacy staff recently), the Zombies announced that they would be "willing to talk to management."

Now, SEIU crowed about the raises given the Alameda workers, but they neglected to brag about the fact that those workers are now, for the very first time in recent Bay Area healthcare history, being asked to assume a substantial amount of their health care insurance benefit.

It looks like those raises are now back on the table and subject to negotiation (downward), and the Alameda workers will still have to shell out for their health care coverage.

Stronger Together.

SRMH - Post-Election Discussion

The press and the blogosphere is beginning to realize and to document the EPIC level of FAIL demonstrated by SEIU and Zombie UHW in the Santa Rosa election...

"The result was a crushing defeat for the SEIU..." according to the Los Angeles Times.

"NUHW is Decisive in Santa Rosa, SEIU Tries to Postpone Defeat" per Labor Notes.

The article in the Santa Rosa Press-Democrat had this quote from Zombie UHW:

Adriana Surfas, an official with SEIU-UHW, said of the vote, “We are disappointed, and we wish the Santa Rosa workers well.”

Much like Forrest Gump, that's about all they gotta say about that.

Randy Shaw at BeyondChron has weighed in, and in the article SEIU is laid low...

After a relentless campaign attacking NUHW, its staff, and its very right to call itself a union, SEIU lost 283-13 among workers desiring a union. It’s going to take a heckuva spinmeister for SEIU to explain to workers in other hospitals why they should trust SEIU over NUHW when those at SRMH clearly did not.

SEIU’s brand is badly tarnished in California, both from its fight against NUHW and its failed struggle against UNITE HERE. The union has alienated multiple local labor councils, threatened John Burton (the state’s leading progressive and union hero), and is burning bridges with the religious community.

SEIU paid a steep price for its all-out campaign in Santa Rosa, and should have withdrawn from the election months ago, as many urged. Now, it has undermined its ability to compete against NUHW for the nearly 9000 other non-union workers in the St. Joseph's Health System chain, and will be under statewide pressure to withdraw from contesting NUHW's organizing rights in these facilities.

How does a union spend that much money, using messaging produced by the highly regarded San Francisco-based BMW political consulting firm, only win 2% of the total vote? And only 2% despite multiple attack pieces on NUHW, while the victorious union only could afford a single glossy leaflet during election week (the NUHW piece was designed at no cost by San Francisco political consultant Eric Jaye, and explained why workers needed a union and only referenced SEIU as a purple grinch in the corner)?

NUHW spokesperson Jon Borsos thinks he has the answer. He described NUHW’s win as a “tremendous victory for democratic unionism, as health care workers stood up to corporate health care and to corporate unionism.” Longtime SRMH union supporter Nancy Timberlake echoed Borsos, adding “to win against a behemoth like SEIU and our employer’s own anti-union campaign is true vindication and a true miracle.”

Tis the season for miracles, something SEIU also overlooked when it successfully delayed the election until a week before Christmas.

This election may well be having downstream consequences down at KaiPerm in SoCal as well, according to Tasty...

Sources report that very high level SEIU staffers in DC are saying that SEIU is going to lose the Kaiser Pro election.

Behind the scenes the word is, "...there is no way to win this election. The workers simply won't talk to us."

Tasty doesn't know if that is true, but it seems like DC doesn't have much confidence in the Trusteeship Team.

Now it's on to SoCal Kaiser...

SRMH - Numbers and Scenarios

And now it's time to crunch the numbers.

As it stands right now, 283 votes were cast for NUHW, 13 for Zombie UHW, and 263 for neither. If that result were to stand, the NUHW wins an absolute majority at 50.62% of the total votes cast.

Unfortunately, this is not currently the case, because there are 17 ballots that stand at challenge. Those 17 ballots cannot by themselves make NUHW lose the election, but they can prevent NUHW from avoiding a runoff, and as such they can also prevent any results from being certified by the NLRB.

So let's look at those 17 ballots, and what permutations can be derived out of them. The first and easiest scenario - all 17 ballots being rejected - results in an outright NUHW victory with the percentages stated above.

The next scenario - all 17 ballots being included in the voting pool - raises the total votes cast to 576, of which 283 have already been cast for NUHW. In order to prevail in that scenario, all NUHW would have to achieve is 6 votes out of those 17 challenged votes cast (roughly 35%); by the same token, in order to force runoff, the "no union" slate has to get 12 out of the 17 challenged votes (70.5%).

There are multiple additional scenarios possible regarding those challenged ballots if only part of them are added, etc. All in all, though, the numbers would suggest that NUHW has prevailed in this fight - the only thing that remains now is to determine whether or not either Zombie UHW or SRMH management will concede the defeat handed them last night.

Video Coverage From SRMH Vote

The Empire Report has been all over the SRMH election fight, and now has an excellent compilation of video coverage from last night's results at SRMH...

First up is an announcement of the "unofficial" vote count...



Next is an announcement from John Borsos, indicating that SEIU has unilaterally decided to prevent the certification (but if they didn't, then management would)...



Next is one of the NUHW organizers explaining some of the upcoming technical challenges toward getting this count certified and completed...



There are additional reactions that can be seen either at Empire Report or by clicking directly into the Empire Report's YouTube channel.

SRMH Election Update

From Sadie Crabtree at NUHW...

Memorial workers vote to join NUHW after six-year struggle

Caregivers reject a rival organization that stood in their way

Santa Rosa, Calif.—Caregivers at Santa Rosa Memorial Hospital voted to join the National Union of Healthcare Workers (NUHW) today in an election victory that caps their six-year struggle to win a voice at work.

"We are all so excited to finally have a voice to make our hospital a better place to work and better for our community," said Nancy Timberlake, a telemetry technician at the hospital. "We stuck together for six years and we finally did it. I'm so relieved and so happy that we won."

The vote was 283 for NUHW, 263 for No Union, and only 13 for SEIU, a rival organization that tried to interfere in the election. Despite SEIU's devastating loss, as of 7:00 p.m. Friday night they were still trying to stop the labor board from certifying the results. Seventeen ballots were cast by workers not on the board's list of eligible voters, and SEIU wants those ballots counted in the hopes there will be enough "No Union" votes to trigger a runoff.

The workers' effort drew national attention last year after political leaders and religious leaders rallied with caregivers at the motherhouse of the Sisters of St. Joseph of Orange, the founding order of St. Joseph Health System, which owns Memorial. Under pressure from the community, hospital administration agreed to negotiate with workers' representatives to establish ground rules for a free and fair union election.

This April, a majority of Memorial caregivers petitioned the National Labor Relations Board for an election to join NUHW. But the election was delayed for more than five months because of frivolous "blocking charges" filed by SEIU, the rival organization. When the labor board rejected those charges, SEIU demanded a spot on the ballot and blocked negotiations over ground rules—giving hospital management a free hand to mount an aggressive anti-union campaign.

SEIU ignored appeals from religious leaders, the North Bay Labor Council, and even former Labor Secretary Robert Reich to negotiate ground rules. Despite having virtually no support at Memorial Hospital caregivers, SEIU bombarded workers with dozens of mailers and visited them constantly at home and at work, urging them not to vote for NUHW.

NUHW filed charges with the labor board on Wednesday, after workers alleged that hospital administrators broke the law by engaging in illegal surveillance of union supporters, threatening and disciplining union activists, and giving SEIU staff unfair access to caregivers at work so they could campaign against the union.

"It was really transparent what SEIU was doing," said Melissa Bosanco, a Care Partner at the hospital. "It was like they were management's anti-union team. They wanted us to fail. But we saw through it and stuck together in NUHW."

Next month, more than 2,300 Kaiser Permanente professionals in Southern California will vote to quit SEIU and join NUHW. In all, a majority of 100,000 workers at 360 facilities across California have petitioned to join NUHW and are waiting for similar elections.

Again - NUHW puts out the particulars on the vote, unlike SEIU who never does. The only question right now is whether or not SEIU will allow the challenged ballots to be fully and fairly judged.

More as it comes in...

There's a New Joke Going Around...

Have ya heard it?

NUHW: "What did the five fingers say to the face?"

Zombie UHW: "What?"

NUHW: "SLAP!!!"



Vote tally thus far, as of 7:30 p.m.

NUHW: 283
No Union: 263
Zombie UHW: 13

No, folks, that is not a mistype - after all those slick mailers and dues dollars poured into the org fight, the Purple Plague got a grand total of 13 votes.

According to on-site sources, Zombie UHW is unwilling to resolve the issues of challenge ballots this evening, so there may not be a final tally until some time tomorrow - or even possibly early next week. Updates will be provided as they come in.

In the meantime - SEIU's 747 (assisted by a pro-SEIU hospital management team) just finished third with an anvil to a broken-down Citroen with no back wheels.

"Stronger Together..."

Let's Get It Done!

To my readers at SRMH: Send a message to St. Joseph Health Systems, to SEIU and Zombie UHW, and to your colleagues at other SJHS facilities, and send a big-time message to the labor world in general.

Make your voices heard, make your decision clear. We're with you.

Until Friday...