Kaiser Optical Workers are Staying United in NUHW-CNA

Kaiser optical workers in Northern California have a message for SEIU: We’re staying united in NUHW-CNA. 

With barely a handful of signatures, SEIU officials filed a petition in March with the National Labor Relations Board for an election to contest NUHW-CNA’s representation of our bargaining unit. Within just a few days of SEIU’s filing, a supermajority of us signed a petition stating clearly that we’re staying united in NUHW-CNA.

This week, ballots are going out in the mail. Over the last week, a supermajority of optical workers signed a second petition reiterating our support for NUHW-CNA and for our elected bargaining committee. 

Now we’re casting our ballots to make it final once and for all: we’re saying NO to SEIU’s cuts, and standing strong with our union, NUHW-CNA.

Sincerely,

Michael Nelson, Optical, Kaiser Stockton
National Union of Healthcare Workers - California Nurses Association

36,000 Kaiser workers united

The last few days have been difficult.

Thousands of us had high hopes and high expectations for last week’s election. We were confident it was finally our moment to escape management’s hand-picked union, SEIU-UHW, and put a stop to the cuts Kaiser is trying to force on us with the shameful complicity of SEIU officials.

The election results left us not just disappointed, but stunned. To many of us, the numbers still don’t make sense. We have questions about the vote count. We deserve answers.

NUHW’s attorney recently sent this email to the National Labor Relations Board to make sure evidence is preserved for a full investigation of those questions.

While we reflect on what happened, many of us are already asking what comes next.

Here’s what we can be sure of: NUHW-CNA members and supporters continue to stand strong against Kaiser and SEIU’s cuts, and we’re more united than ever before. More than 13,000 Kaiser Service and Tech workers cast ballots for NUHW-CNA. Combined with 18,000 Kaiser RNs in the CNA and 5,000 Kaiser NUHW members, the majority of Kaiser employees either belong to our union or voted to join us.

The unity we felt every day at our hospitals in the weeks leading up to the vote count has not gone away; it is stronger than ever. In the coming weeks, we will be showing Kaiser just how united we are in our fight for a fair contract for NUHW-CNA members.

This week, SEIU officials may be boasting about the outcome of the election, but one thing is certain: their takeover of our union and their suppression of the voices of rank-and-file dissent were a huge mistake that they’re still paying the price for. In one recent article, a labor expert referred to the trusteeship and its aftermath as “SEIU’s Iraq.”

The election was a major setback, but it has not diminished in the least our resolve to put a stop to SEIU’s downward spiral of cuts at Kaiser and throughout the healthcare industry.

Stay tuned for how you can help our movement prevail in that critical fight.

Sincerely,

Danny Romo, Food and Nutrition, Kaiser Woodland Hills
National Union of Healthcare Workers - California Nurses Association

Tonight's election results

You may have heard by now that the results of the Kaiser election did not go the way we had hoped. The NLRB’s final vote count was 13,002 for NUHW-CNA to 18,894 for SEIU-UHW, with 334 voting for neither union.

There’s a few things I would like to say about this election.

First of all, I have never been prouder to be part of this movement. For the last four months, tens of thousands of healthcare workers stood hand-in-hand with registered nurses at hundreds of Kaiser worksites all over the state and ran the most principled, spirited and courageous campaign the labor movement has ever seen. We should feel energized and inspired by the unity we achieved.

That unity is not going away. It will persist at our workplaces, in the friendships we’ve made, and in the continued affiliation between NUHW and CNA. It will fuel our continued struggle to stop the cuts that Kaiser is trying to force down our throats with the shameful complicity of SEIU-UHW.

I also want to note that I’m stunned by these election results. Speaking from decades of experience in elections like this, we have many questions that deserve answers.

We should feel very proud of our achievements, and ready to continue the fight to force Kaiser to put workers and patients before profits.

In Unity,

 

Sal Rosselli, President
National Union of Healthcare Workers - California Nurses Association

Update on the vote count in Oakland

A lot of people are asking what happened today at the Kaiser vote count at the National Labor Relations Board office in Oakland.

Here’s a quick video to fill you in on the details:

Today, NLRB officials cleared ballots, making sure each signed return envelope matches up properly to the list of eligible voters. They have not yet completed that process. At 8:30 tomorrow morning, they’ll continue to clear ballots, and will then begin the process of opening the ballot envelopes and counting the ballots.

We hope that at some point tomorrow we will have an official announcement of results and can finally celebrate our victory.

You can stay informed with up-to-the-minute updates throughout the count tomorrow on Facebook and Twitter, or sign up to receive text message updates by texting VOTENUHW to 510-398-6068. 

We’re on our way to making history.

In Unity,

 

Sal Rosselli, President
National Union of Healthcare Workers - California Nurses Association

NUHW-CNA Spirit

Kaiser Antioch Optical Sales Receptionist Angela Glasper describes the day so far.