KPFK’s Morning Show interviews historian Cal Winslow, author of Labor’s Civil War in California: The NUHW Healthcare Workers Rebellion.

By Thomas Himes

A winner-take-all union campaign is leading to police calls and allegations of threats at the Kaiser-Permanente Medical Center as labor unions compete for control of 43,500 employees throughout the state, according to authorities and officials.

Baldwin Park police have been left to referee factious protests, authorities and officials said.

The dispute is building up to a Sept. 13 election in which Service Employees International Union (SEIU) could lose control of 43,500 employees to the National Union of Healthcare Workers (NUHW), according to authorities.

“There are at least six or seven employees who had their cars vandalized over the past year,” said Fred Seavey, NUHW research director. “The level of threats that have been made against workers are so severe … they’re afraid to walk out to their cars alone.”

A Superior Court commissioner issued a restraining order against an SEIU organizer July 16 following allegations she made death threats against an NUHW supporter in the center’s lunch room, according to court documents and members of the NUHW.

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By Ryan Grim

A legend of the labor movement stepped into the turmoil engulfing organized labor in California on Tuesday, pressing the new head of the Service Employees International Union to call off the war that has been raging on the West Coast over control of union workers.

In an open letter, Dolores Huerta wrote President Mary Kay Henry, thanking her for putting an end to SEIU’s “mistaken campaign of aggression” against UNITE HERE, but charging the union with “a coordinated effort by SEIU leaders in California to deny thousands of healthcare workers their federally-protected right to organize with the National Union of Healthcare Workers (NUHW).”

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By MATTHEW KAMINSKI

Next month in California, nearly 45,000 Kaiser Permanente health-care workers will choose their union. America hasn’t seen a private-sector labor election this big since the United Auto Workers organized Ford in 1941. By the time ballots are cast, tens of millions will have been spent on a six-week campaign as brutal as any political race this year. At stake? No less than the future of America’s most powerful labor group, the Services Employees International Union.

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By Dolores Huerta

Ms. Henry:

When I first learned you would become SEIU’s new President, I was filled with hope that you would change SEIU for the better. I am relieved that you have just last week signed an agreement to cease hostilities against Unite Here, putting an end to a mistaken campaign of aggression that put SEIU at odds with the rest of organized labor. You have said that reunifying our movement is one of your goals.

I believe that unity in the labor movement means putting our shared principles above our individual differences. And one of the most fundamental principles we share is that every worker should have the right to organize—to talk with her co-workers about the issues they share, to advocate for collective solutions, and to make the decision to join a union without threats or intimidation.

Yet, over the past month, I have personally witnessed a coordinated effort by SEIU leaders in California to deny thousands of healthcare workers their federally-protected right to organize with the National Union of Healthcare Workers (NUHW).

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Yolanda Chavez, a senior licensed vocational nurse at Kaiser Oakland for more than 20 years, explains the Sept. 13 Kaiser election to KPFA’s Evening News. (Allow a few moments for radio clip to download.)

By Chris Rauber

The National Labor Relations Board has set Sept. 13 as the start date for a by-mail union representation election at Kaiser Permanente, according to the National Union of Healthcare Workers, one of the unions that will take part in the balloting.

Sadie Crabtree, an NUHW spokeswoman, said the agreement was facilitated and approved by Alan Reichard, the NLRB’s regional director for the area. She said it calls for ballots to be returned by Oct. 4, and counted in early October.

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By Randy Shaw

In the largest internal hotel protest in San Francisco history, nearly 300 UNITE HERE Local 2 workers walked off their jobs and marched through the Hilton lobby on July 13 after Kaiser President Gregory Adams violated the union’s hotel boycott. The hour-long lobby takeover shut down dining facilities including the hotel’s Starbucks, and left Hilton management scurrying to block workers from reaching Adams, who was speaking at a Health Care Leadership Summit. According to Ingrid Carp, a Hilton cook and thirty-year member of Local 2, “workers were outraged when they heard that Adams was violating the Hilton boycott. It provoked the lobby takeover.” While Local 2 battles hotel owners over steep health care premium increases, Kaiser Permanente used the millions it gets from Local 2 and other unions to help generate a 64% rise in net income in the first quarter of 2010 alone. Meanwhile, Kaiser continues to do everything in its power to prevent Local 2’s ally, NUHW, from winning upcoming elections against SEIU-UHW. Kaiser is even allowing a violent thug employed by SEIU to roam their facilities, as it puts the defeat of NUHW ahead of worker safety.

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By Cal Winslow

The new National Union of Healthcare Workers (NUHW) has filed petitions representing tens of thousands of Kaiser Permanente workers’ decertification petitions setting the stage for the largest, most important union election in decades.

Kaiser workers, 45,000, at last have won the right to vote for a union of their choice.

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By Kathy Robertson

Kaiser workers launched what could be the biggest labor battle in decades when they filed petitions Tuesday calling for union elections that would allow thousands of Kaiser workers to leave Service Employees International Union-United Healthcare Workers West (UHW) for a rival union started by former SEIU leaders.

The vote would cover about 45,000 workers statewide, including 4,000 in the Sacramento region. Petitions were filed with the Oakland and Los Angeles offices of the National Labor Relations Board, which will verify they were filed appropriately and schedule elections.

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