Friday, January 7, 2011

Shasta Healthcare Workers Look to Leave SEIU-UHW!

But who would want to leave such a democratic awesome local union?

I guess Shasta workers--Tasty ran across this news article, which says that 150 workers at Shasta Regional Medical Center just signed a petition to leave SEIU-UHW. AKA, the hospital believes that the majority of the workers no longer wish to be represented by their union and the hospital is refusing to continue to recognize the worker's union. This is the most anti-union step a company can take, and it shows just how few of the workers are willing to fight to stay in SEIU-UHW.

NUHW wasn't even involved -- the hospital's workers simply signed a petition to leave SEIU-UHW. It's a bad loss for SEIU because the hospital's parent corporation is the fastest growing hospital chain in the state.

According to one local news report:

The hospital said more than half of the employees signed a petition, which is just as good as a vote.

"They signed a decertification petition. So there was no actual vote. There was a petition that the employees signed and generated themselves and over 50% of the involved employees signed the petition to no longer have the union represent them,” SAID Cyndy Gordon, Chief Nursing Officer of Shasta Regional Medical Center.

Hubbard said nothing has been formalized with the national labor relations board. Hoyt argues that because the petition was generated by the employees, the hospital only needed to send a notification letter to SEIU.


Btw, Tasty hears rumors that another group of workers in the Bay Area recently filed a petition to leave SEIU-UHW. Anyone got more details?