“Pinocchio” 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.

My bargaining unit within the Kaiser Permanente health system, the Kaiser Psych-Social Chapter, made up entirely of licensed and certified mental health professionals, had for 35 years been part of Local 535. We had bargained many successful contracts on our own, without any help from the International. But in the summer of 2006 SEIU conducted jurisdictional hearings at Stern’s behest and concluded that Local 535 should be dissolved and the various bargaining units farmed out to other locals. It was a preview of future power grabs. Stern’s arrogance was highlighted when my chapter sent him petitions asking that Local 535 not be dissolved and that we remain in that union. He ignored us utterly. There was not even an acknowledgment that we had protested. Local events like this were the grains of corruption that the International processed into bread for the locals to eat.

Winslow lays out in staccato fashion the multitude of plots hatched against UHW in 2007 and 2008: the “implosion” scheme, the deconstruction scheme, the vivisection scheme; the pooled voting scheme, and the “swamp and drown” with litigation scheme, culminating in the “let’s make it look like democracy” scheme that was the 2008 International convention in Puerto Rico.

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“The Satanic Surgeon” 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.

This blog post originally appeared on the Huffington Post.

My name is LaNeta Fitzhugh and I work as a Registered Nurse (RN), at Kaiser Sunset Los Angeles Medical Center. Kaiser Sunset is one of the largest hospitals in the nation. We serve hundreds of patients every day on seven floors, and RNs are involved in every aspect of the care of our patients. The voice of RNs at Kaiser Sunset is central to the proper function of our hospital.

This January, RNs at Kaiser Sunset voted 20 to 1 to leave SEIU and to express our voice with the National Union of Healthcare Workers (NUHW).

When people ask why my co-workers and I voted to join our union, our answer is simple.

Our union, NUHW, is a member-led union.

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This blog post originally appeared on the Huffington Post

My name is Shirley Nelson. I work as Certified Nursing Assistant and I have been a caregiver at Kaiser Redwood City Hospital for 42 years. I would like to thank the community of readers here at Calitics for providing me an opportunity to share my point of view about SEIU’s civil lawsuit against 26 union reformers.

They say every coin has two sides, well, so does every case in court…

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My name is Tyrone Dickens and I am a union healthcare worker. I have worked as a homecare provider in San Francisco for almost six years. My work involves cleaning, cooking and caring for patients in their homes who cannot do these things for themselves. For some of my homecare consumers who don’t have family any more I am the only companion in their lives.

This week I have attended a civil lawsuit in which the officials of the union that currently represent me are suing the former leaders of my local union, leaders that I elected and that I still support. I know that may sound confusing, but I think I can explain it clearly so that you can understand.

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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.

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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.

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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.

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

RNs at Kaiser Sunset LAMC voted 746 to 36 to join NUHW Kaiser SoCal Psychsocial Professionals voted 717 to 192 to join NUHW Kaiser SoCal Healthcare Professionals voted 189 to 29 to join NUHW

Our votes, joined with those of our brothers and sisters at Santa Rosa Memorial Hospital, Los Alamitos Medical Center, The Sequoias-Portola Valley and Doctors Medical Center San Pablo, send a message to every healthcare worker seeking a voice in their workplace and a union that they control: in election after election, workers are choosing NUHW.

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