Caregivers picket Labor Board after 157 days without a vote
Friday, July 10, 2009 at 12:21PM More than a hundred healthcare workers picketed the Oakland office of the National Labor Relations Board (NLRB) yesterday, protesting the Board’s failure to schedule union elections for tens of thousands of workers who want to leave the scandal-plagued SEIU.
Nearly 100,000 workers petitioned to join NUHW after SEIU’s hostile takeover of California’s healthcare union in January. The NLRB’s neglect has allowed SEIU officials to wage a months-long campaign of intimidation against workers who support NUHW, while extracting millions more dollars in dues from workers who have plainly rejected them.
“If presidential elections were run like this, Bush would still be in office,” said Beverly Griffith, a former environmental services worker at Alta Bates Summit Medical Center. After months of harassment by SEIU, Griffith was fired for her support of NUHW.
“This is about democracy. It’s our right to choose for ourselves what union we want to be part of. SEIU is taking advantage of the NLRB to deny us our right to vote.”