Kaiser FAQ - National Union of Healthcare Workers

Q&A about our government-protected election to choose between NUHW and SEIU

Why are we having an election?
What happens to our contract when we vote to join NUHW? Do we keep our raises?
Why do we need to bargain a contract between NUHW and Kaiser?
When’s the election?
What’s NUHW’s track record?
Why did Kaiser workers form NUHW? What changed with our union?
What’s wrong with SEIU?
Check the facts for yourself: click here for a list of news articles and source documents, including financial reports, NLRB decisions, and agreements between SEIU and Kaiser

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Why are we having an election?

It’s our right under federal law to choose which union we want to represent us. Our election at Kaiser is the result of thousands of Kaiser workers submitting our signatures to the National Labor Relations Board and demanding a government-run, secret-ballot election so we can make this choice for ourselves.¹ Kaiser workers asked the government for this election so that we can vote to join NUHW, a union where we make all the decisions and our union tells us all the facts.

What happens to our contract when we change unions? Do we keep our raises?

All of our raises and benefits are protected by law when we vote to join NUHW.² You can call the National Labor Relations Board directly to confirm this at 510-637-3300, or read the labor board decision More Truck Lines.

The government has consistently ruled that the wages and benefits of workers voting in a union election are protected by law. In June, the National Labor Relations Board announced that they would issue a complaint³ against Kaiser for failing to provide a scheduled raise to 2,300 Kaiser workers who voted to join NUHW in January. This July, in compliance with the same law, USC University Hospital workers who voted to join NUHW received previously scheduled raises of 3%-9.25%.

When we vote to join NUHW, we keep all our promised raises and benefits and we bargain a contract with our employer starting from what we have now.

Why do we need to bargain a contract between NUHW and Kaiser?

Kaiser workers are voting to join NUHW to ensure that we have a strong union contract. Our current contract, between SEIU-UHW and Kaiser, contains big problems that we need to fix. Many of these problems are things SEIU didn’t even tell us about.

The 2010 contract SEIU-UHW settled last month established a health benefits committee created for the sole purpose of reducing Kaiser’s healthcare costs. The committee will begin meeting in October⁴—and if we don’t change our contract, the healthcare benefits committee will be required to make recommendations to cut what Kaiser pays for our health benefits. SEIU hid this committee from Kaiser workers until after we voted to accept their contract.

SEIU’s 2010 contract also allows Kaiser’s $242 million per year cut to our pensions⁵ to stand unchallenged, and doesn’t address staffing problems that mean we have to work harder for less. When we vote to join NUHW, we will bargain a contract between NUHW and Kaiser that addresses all of these concerns.

When’s the election?

Our election will be administered by the National Labor Relations Board and ballots will be mailed on September 13. It will be a secret, mail-ballot election and our votes will be counted by the federal government.

What’s NUHW’s track record?

For more than 20 years, the current leaders and staff of NUHW helped Kaiser workers negotiate the best healthcare contracts in California and win the strongest representation at work. When NUHW’s negotiators helped us bargain our 2005 contract⁶, we got bigger raises, protected 100% of our benefits, and never accepted layoffs.⁷

Kaiser workers who have joined NUHW have already won big gains on their most important issues. RNs at Kaiser’s biggest Southern California hospital joined NUHW and won 171 new jobs.⁸ Right now, NUHW RNs and Pros are bargaining a strong contract with Kaiser, starting with what they had under SEIU, and based on a bargaining platform that NUHW members voted on.

More than 5,600 healthcare workers at 15 healthcare facilities have voted to join NUHW, most by a landslide. Despite seeing firsthand the lengths to which SEIU will go to stop us from getting all the facts, workers have voted overwhelmingly for NUHW because we know it is the best choice for ourselves and our families.

Why did Kaiser workers form NUHW? What changed with our union?

Our union at Kaiser was taken over last year by SEIU officials from Washington, D.C.⁹ They removed the Kaiser workers we elected to run the union, and removed hundreds of our union stewards who wouldn’t sign loyalty oaths to the new leaders of SEIU-UHW. The current leaders of SEIU-UHW were never elected, but appointed by other union officials. We can’t vote them out and can’t hold them accountable.

Kaiser workers, together with healthcare workers across California, established NUHW so we could have a strong union that is back under our control.

What’s wrong with SEIU?

The officials who now run SEIU-UHW never negotiated with Kaiser before they took over our union last year. Like the SEIU officials who appointed them, SEIU-UHW’s trustees would rather be partners with management than advocates for healthcare workers and our concerns. Because of this, many Kaiser workers feel our union has gotten weaker, and that management doesn’t respect us anymore.

Over and over, SEIU has made deals with management behind our backs and not told us the truth until it was too late. Kaiser cut our pension, eliminated more than 1,300 SEIU-UHW jobs¹⁰, turned good jobs into insecure “flex” positions¹¹—and all the while SEIU union reps have been too busy handing out flyers to have the time to help us solve problems at work. Voting NUHW will bring back the strong union we built ourselves, with a track record of winning and protecting high standards at Kaiser.