Oscar Medina, Transporter, Alta Bates Summit Medical CenterMy name is Oscar Medina and I’ve worked as a transporter at Summit Alta Bates Hospital for seven years.  I’d like to share our experience at Alta Bates Summit Medical Center since SEIU took over our local union. In particular, I would like to explain what has happened with our contract and why we are choosing to organize with a new union, the National Union of Healthcare Workers.

Click to read more ...

Published in the Gilroy Dispatch

I’ve been a respiratory therapist at Saint Louise Regional Hospital for 18 years. I want to tell our community the truth about what’s been going on in our hospital over the last year, and why things are about to get better.

Click to read more ...

My name is Jim Clifford and I work at Kaiser Permanente and I’m one of the 2300 healthcare professionals, 85 percent of whom just voted to form our own National Union of Healthcare Workers (NUHW).  We along with many other locals were taken over in an undemocratic grab for power by SEIU International’s Andrew Stern, as formidable a foe as Disney or any Corporate entity ruthlessly in search of ever more power.  SEIU has raided UNITE HERE locals as well, so UNITE HERE members are quite supportive of us, showing support in many ways including giving us space at their meeting hall whenever we need it. NUHW members have also attended UNITE HERE rallies at Disney.  Thus I came to be invited to join the UNITE HERE fast. Kaiser nurses from NUHW and UNAC check on the fasters twice daily. This help is made even more crucial in that one faster had to leave the effort due to elevated blood pressure and another had to be seen by a doctor for chest pain as cheers of “Si se puede!” accompanied her into the waiting ambulance.

Click to read more ...

Today our hard work and unity paid off, and we are proud to announce that our union is the National Union of Healthcare Workers!

Click to read more ...

“Under Trusteeship” is the latest cartoon by Ellen Dillinger, a transcriptionist in Radiology at Mercy General Hospital in Sacramento. Click the small version below to view it full-size. You can read Ellen’s blog post about this cartoon appearing at the website Labor Notes below.

When our union, United Healthcare Workers-West, was trusteed last January by the Service Employees, members and leaders established a democratic organization we control, the National Union of Healthcare Workers. This was followed by an initial flurry of activity centered around decertifying SEIU and electing NUHW.

When the National Labor Relations Board vetoed that option, members were left with a choice: Refuse to collaborate in any way with SEIU or insist that SEIU fulfill their responsibility to represent members in grievances and bargaining.

My plan was to lie low until our contract was up and we had the chance to elect NUHW, but recent workplace events have prompted a cartoon outburst. After years of trying to establish in our hospital that workplace changes need to be bargained with the union, I heard management announcing a fairly significant change and experienced the kneejerk “they can’t do that!” reaction. This was followed by the realization that the correct protocol—working with the shop steward to bargain the change—would not be possible since we no longer have shop stewards in our department.

After the SEIU trusteeship coup, most of our department shop stewards resigned, and although a union representative has been called in for a few meetings, we’ve lost the sense of being part of the process. And yes, we could resume being shop stewards, but the idealism that inspired people to take on that arduous and time-consuming task no longer exists under SEIU.

There hasn’t been a word on the No. 1 subject of interest to anyone working in health care—national health care insurance reform. Our former union worked to involve members in legislative action, but SEIU has opted to use its union bulletin board space to deride NUHW rather than keep members posted on one of the major health reforms efforts of our era.

Also missing is any action on our contract re-opener. Our 2008 contract states that if retirement pension issues weren’t resolved by September 30, the contract can be opened to enable a strike. Well, now it’s December and SEIU’s reluctance to open the contract (which would allow a decertification vote) seems to have overwhelmed their wish to improve their members’ benefits as not a peep has been heard on the subject. (Therapists, nurses, and other professional workers at Southern California Kaiser facilities were told of pension cuts recently but couldn’t vote on them).

Union members where I work have received no notice of changes in our retirement plan or of resolution on the disputed issue. Our former (un-trusteed) union would have included us in this process and we would have voted to ratify any agreement. Now, who knows? SEIU may have signed an agreement consigning us to retirement at the North Pole and we wouldn’t hear about it until the sleigh arrived.

Ellen has worked as a transcriber at Mercy General Hospital in Sacramento, California, for more than 30 years. Her cartoons have appeared in numerous union publications.

Virginia is a homecare patient who is confined to her bed due to a variety of illnesses, including the need for constant bottled oxygen due to chronic obstructive pulmonary disease. In just the last few days, SEIU has harassed and threatened Virginia and her family so many times that her health has been negatively impacted.

Click to read more ...

Eight of us from Kaiser Stockton met up with two workers from Sacramento and we caravanned down to Fresno. When we arrived, we got a briefing on what to expect and how to visit homecare workers and ask them to vote for NUHW.

We got a list of addresses to visit, and it wasn’t long before we were knocking on doors. We had great conversations with the homecare workers we met. Most of them were very excited that we were there to explain what was going on, because they realized that SEIU had not been telling them the truth about the election.

After hearing from other healthcare workers, they signed up to vote for NUHW. Two things became clear to me in Fresno. First, I was amazed at how easy it was to ask people to vote for NUHW. When they hear what we have to say, they understand why it’s so important. Second, we have our work cut out for us. There are thousands of workers we have to talk with, and many of them have been misled by SEIU.

They live and work all over the County and don’t have a worksite where they can talk with each other—so for them to get the information they need, we have to reach them. This election isn’t just about homecare workers’ future, it’s about mine, and ours as a union. We can win big in Fresno, and we know exactly what we have to do to win: healthcare workers like us have to join phonebanks and get down to Fresno to knock on doors and get out the vote.

I am going back to Fresno for the next two weekends to fight for our future, and I hope you will join me by clicking here to volunteer.

-Cindy Benko, Kaiser Stockton

Hundreds of workers who could not attend our founding convention shared their support for NUHW by sending comments through our web site, and we posted all of their comments on a wall for everyone to read at our Founding Convention.

Click below to read them.

Click to read more ...

My name is Eloise Reese-Burns and I’ve worked as a certified nursing assistant at Cottonwood Healthcare in Woodland, California for over 39 years. I’ve been involved in caring for patients and building my union for most of my life.

Today I can say that I and 350 other workers at four nursing homes have joined together to become the first members of the National Union of Healthcare Workers (NUHW). We are proud to be the first members of our own union. After nursing home workers and homecare workers struggled for so long to stop SEIU from dividing us, we are even prouder that long-term care workers are the ones who broke this door open for thousands of others to follow.

If you have a minute, I’d like to tell you a story that may give you some perspective on why we at Cottonwood Healthcare decided to join NUHW. After SEIU trusteed our old union, SEIU-UHW, and removed its elected leaders against the wishes of our members, SEIU sent a representative to Cottonwood to meet with workers and try to get us “on board.” When this young gentleman talked with the administrator here, he asked a question that surprised me. He asked the administrator, “Is this a 24-hour operation?”

I guess he thought our residents check out every night.

It’s a shame that SEIU chose to use our own dues money on “representatives” who don’t represent healthcare workers at all, and who need to ask if a nursing home is a 24-hour operation. But, truly, that comes as no surprise to those of us who are working together to build NUHW. More than 90,000 workers all over California have voted to join NUHW because of just that kind of experience with SEIU.

SEIU is out of touch. That’s what happens when you meet with corporations more than you listen to union members.

NUHW is a member-led union where workers are involved at every level, and it shows in our leadership and our activism. In fact, just after joining NUHW, Cottonwood nursing home workers went to the State Capitol in Sacramento to support the Employee Free Choice Act.

We stand in solidarity with all workers seeking to join a union of their choice. We at Cottonwood may be the first to join NUHW, but we will not be the last. Thank you for reading my story.

-Eloise Reese-Burns