Esther Nuñez, Cashier and chief union steward at SVMH

“We’re bargaining our contract next August, and we need a union we can count on. We’ve seen the takeaways SEIU has agreed to at Kaiser and at other hospitals this year, and we’re not going to let that happen to us.”

An overwhelming majority of the nearly 900 caregivers at Salinas Valley Memorial Hospital have chosen NUHW as their union. They filed a petition today with California’s Public Employment Relations Board, which is expected to schedule an election soon to make the switch official.

Last week, nearly 700 workers at Santa Rosa Memorial Hospital in Sonoma County voted to join NUHW, rejecting SEIU by a landslide vote of 283 to 13. On Jan. 5, more than 2,300 Kaiser Permanente professionals in Southern California will begin voting in their own election to quit SEIU and join NUHW.