Happy New Year to workers at Kindred Hospital, NUHW’s newest members!

Today the vote count was completed for an election between NUHW and SEIU at Kindred Hospital in San Leandro.  Kindred workers voted 46 for NUHW to 25 for SEIU, close to a 2-to-1 victory.

“Finally we’re united again in a union that we control and that puts our interests first,” said Maurice Banks, a Licensed Vocational Nurse at Kindred for over 4 years. “With NUHW, we’ll be able to win a contract that gives us a voice in staffing, workload and patient care at Kindred. We can’t wait.”

The election at Kindred is the third in two months in which caregivers voted to leave SEIU for NUHW. In November, in two elections covering 1,500 mental health professionals and optical workers at Northern California Kaiser hospitals, workers also chose NUHW over SEIU.

“SEIU tried to scare us out of voting for the union we wanted, but we stuck together. Now we have a member-driven union again, which is how it should be,” said Edna Renslow, a Certified Nursing Assistant at Kindred.

After being ordered by two judges to comply with the law, Kaiser Permanente has agreed to restore illegally withheld raises and benefits to 2,300 NUHW members in Southern California.

Yesterday, Kaiser Regional Vice President of Human Resources Arlene Peasnall filed an affidavit in federal court, stating that “(t)he 2% across the board pay increase has been granted to employees represented by the National Union of Healthcare Workers,” and that continuing education and paid steward training benefits have been restored.

In hundreds of thousands of mailers, leaflets and phone calls last summer, SEIU pointed to Kaiser’s refusal to honor its obligations to Kaiser-employed NUHW members stipulated in their prior contract as evidence that Kaiser workers would lose their raises and benefits if they voted to join NUHW. 

Two judges issued findings that directly contradicted SEIU’s claims.  In a legal ruling on Kaiser’s decision to withhold raises and benefits from NUHW members, Administrative Law Judge William Schmidt reaffirmed what NUHW explained to Kaiser workers: “It is settled law that when employees are represented by a labor organization their employer may not make unilateral changes in their terms and conditions of employment, such as their wages.”

Three days later, Federal Judge Gary Allan Feess issued an injunction against Kaiser, charging the company with “failing and refusing to bargain collectively and in good faith” with NUHW “by unilaterally implementing changes in terms and conditions of employment during negotiations for a collective-bargaining agreement.”

With Peasnall’s affidavit, Kaiser has accepted the judges’ findings that its conduct was in violation of the law.

Despite this clear legal outcome, SEIU continues to lie to workers at Alta Bates Summit Medical Center in Berkeley and Oakland who will soon deliver their ballots in an election between NUHW and SEIU. SEIU organizers have told workers there that the employer will have legal standing to ignore their current contract should NUHW prevail, and, in a recent leaflet, claimed that “many of the workers that voted for NUHW have LOST raises.”  Both claims are plainly contradicted by the judges’ decisions, by Peasnall’s affidavit, and by Kaiser’s implementation of the illegally withheld raises and benefits.

Read the affidavit at http://bit.ly/KaiserComplies

Just one year ago, NUHW was eleven months old. While we had won three elections and tens of thousands of workers had petitioned to join our union, we were not yet certified in a single bargaining unit. Our union also faced a series of attempted legal roadblocks intended to thwart workers’ right to join NUHW. 

Today, one year later, the National Union of Healthcare Workers represents 7,300 healthcare workers in17 separate bargaining units across California and we have won a series of significant legal victories that secure workers’ right to join NUHW. 

While statistics can’t tell the individual stories of how workers won each of these victories, they do show the remarkable growth of our union: 

• NUHW now represents more than 3,800 workers at Kaiser Permanente in five bargaining units touching virtually every Kaiser clinic and medical center in California
• NUHW represents more than 3,000 healthcare workers at five separate hospitals including USC University Hospital, Providence Tarzana Hospital, Salinas Valley Memorial Hospital and Santa Rosa Memorial Hospital
• NUHW represents nearly 900 California healthcare workers who were previously not organized with a union

The muscle behind our union is member power. Day in and day out at their workplaces, these 7,300 healthcare workers are putting the power of our union into motion by working to bargain fair contracts, protect patient care and win strong representation and enforcement of their rights in the workplace. 

We are also proving that democracy works. Workers organized with NUHW have elected more than 380 stewards and bargaining team representatives. Whether they are organizing candlelight vigils, informational pickets or conducting the steady work of union representation, these workplace leaders, many with decades of experience, are showing what a difference it makes for workers to organize with NUHW.

Finally, a string of recent legal decisions reinforce workers’ right to choose NUHW. Two decisions by federal judges have held Kaiser Permanente’s actions against workers who voted to join NUHW to be illegal.  Kaiser Permanente has been ordered to immediately begin payment of the illegally withheld raises and benefits of NUHW members and to bargain in good faith with our union. Further, the California Public Employment Relations Board and the National Labor Relations Board have both recently rejected attempts by SEIU and healthcare employers to block the certification of workers’ elections to join NUHW clearing the way for workers to join our union after months—and in one instance, almost two years—of delay. 

All of this good news leaves NUHW poised to bargain fair contracts and, as further elections are unblocked and SEIU’s frivolous charges are rejected, for more healthcare workers to vote to join our union. In fact, last Thursday we received the excellent news that nearly 700 workers at Santa Rosa Memorial Hospital were certified as the newest members of NUHW by the National Labor Relations Board.

This hopeful news had a special meaning for all of us who have worked so hard to build the National Union of Healthcare Workers. The caregivers at Santa Rosa Memorial had never organized with a union before. Their choice, after a seven year struggle, to organize with NUHW in December of 2009 was a victory over both corporate healthcare and corporate unionism. (SEIU received a mere 13 votes in their election.) I am proud to report that after democratically electing union shop stewards and bargaining team members and ratifying a bargaining platform, workers at Santa Rosa Memorial will begin bargaining their first union contract with their employer.

For all of us working to build the power of healthcare workers and protect the quality of care for California’s healthcare consumers, this news gives us hope and inspiration as we move into the new year. We wish a safe and prosperous new year for you and your family.

Hapless days at local hospital

Crystal Fuerte works in emergency room registration at SVMH. Hospital employees Alexis Guerrero and Israel Olivarez contributed to this commentary.

This is the time of year when most Americans spend a moment or two considering what the past year has brought that we can be thankful for, and what we can do better in our lives in the year to come. For many of your friends and neighbors who provide care at Salinas Valley Memorial Hospital, however, it is instead a time to wonder how our families will survive.

On Tuesday, hospital executives announced they were going forward with 20 layoffs and plan dozens more early this year. Though employees have tried repeatedly to negotiate the impact through our union, hospital administrators declared that impasse had been reached at the bargaining table and they immediately sent out termination notices.

This drastic measure will devastate our families and will put patients at risk, but it’s difficult to understand why the hospital’s executives even deem it necessary since their reasons change from week to week.

Read the full commentary at the Monterey County Herald.

In a major step forward for workers at Santa Rosa Memorial Hospital, yesterday hospital management informed the union in writing of its “intention to move forward and commence negotiations for an initial collective bargaining agreement with NUHW.”  The news caps a seven-year struggle by SRMH caregivers to win union recognition at their hospital.

The hospital’s letter follows a decision by the National Labor Relations Board  to certify a December 2009 election in which workers voted for NUHW over “No Union” by 283 to 263, with 13 votes for SEIU. The election was the largest successful hospital organizing drive in the country for 2009.

After the vote count a year ago, the employer filed election objections with the NLRB in the hopes of overturning the election. In May, an administrative law judge rejected those charges and certified NUHW as the workers’ exclusive collective bargaining agent.

Seven months after announcing his decision, the NLRB has complied with the judge’s order and certified the election for housekeepers, dietary workers, clerical employees, Certified Nursing Assistants, Respiratory Therapists, Radiology Technologists and other caregivers.

“For years, management tried everything they could to stop us from having a voice, including working with SEIU to silence us. But we persisted, and we prevailed,” said Melissa Bosanco, a Care Partner at SRMH. “Now it’s time to get to the bargaining table and win a contract that improves the lives of workers and that makes our hospital the best place in the region for patients to receive care.”

Read the NLRB decision.

Read coverage in the Press Democrat.

Yesterday, Salinas Valley Memorial Hospital caregivers held an informational picket to stand up for NUHW members targeted by management for illegal and unnecessary layoffs.

Over the last five years, SVMH has generated over $100 million in profits, including over $8 million in the first quarter of the current fiscal year. The hospital’s operating profit margin is well over double the statewide average for all California hospitals.

The following is an opinion piece in the Santa Rosa Press Democrat about NUHW members’ year-long (and counting) struggle for union recognition at Santa Rosa Memorial Hospital, and how U.S. labor laws work beautifully for employers — and horribly for workers.

Read the full piece at the Press Democrat.

Guest Opinion: Memorial Hospital and the right to organize

By MARTIN J. BENNETT

This year marks the 75th anniversary of the National Labor Relations Act, legislation that extended basic labor rights to American workers, including the rights to organize, to bargain collectively and to strike for fair wages, benefits and workplace safety.

The organizing campaign by Memorial Hospital workers is representative of how labor law is failing American workers. What are the facts?

Read the rest of the essay.

Last week, NUHW members filed Unfair Labor Practice charges against Salinas Valley Memorial Hospital for refusing to bargain in good faith over proposed layoffs.  NUHW is also preparing a lawsuit against the hospital for its failure to provide the required 60 days’ advance notice for mass layoffs.

Read more about the lawsuit at The Californian.

Workers at The Sequoias retirement community in Portola Valley braved the bad weather last week and picketed their employer for refusing to bargain fairly toward a decent contract.

Workers at The Sequoias have been bargaining with management for over a year, aiming to settle a contract with no healthcare benefit cost increases and with reasonable annual wage improvements. They haven’t received a wage increase in close to two years.

To date, management has refused to increase workers’ wages by 3 percent annually, even though top administrators earn as much as $459,000 per year and have received salary increases of up to 50 percent, and the company is sitting on over $70 million in cash and investments.

Housekeepers employed by Hospital Housekeeping Systems (HHS) are currently working for poverty wages at Los Alamitos Medical Center, without affordable healthcare coverage and without adequate staffing. But after workers unanimously ratified a groundbreaking tentative agreement with HHS, the hospital announced that it may discontinue its contract with the subcontractor, costing HHS workers their collective bargaining agreement and possibly their jobs.

Last week, NUHW housekeepers picketed Los Alamitos Medical Center to urge the hospital to do the right thing and renew its contract with the subcontractor.