Tasty hears that SEIU-negotiated cuts to workers' health benefits are making headlines again in CA. During contract negotiations at Childrens Hospital in Oakland, Dave Regan and crew negotiated benefits cuts that force 450 hospital workers to pay $4,450 a year for family health coverage that had been free for decades.
And the hospital is now trying to force the hospital's RNs to accept SEIU’s cuts. When nurses went out on a recent 5-day strike, the hospital published this full-page newspaper ad celebrating SEIU's concessions: "The hospital has offered a healthcare package that is competitive with other Bay Area hospitals... This benefit package is consistent with what is offered to most other employees at the hospital and a similar package was accepted by the Service Employees International Union." (Oakland Tribune)
SEIU failed to organize any sympathy strike for the RNs, but instead sent a giant purple recreational vehicle to the picket line (vehicular solidarity??). About 8 purple-clad SEIU staffers tried to hand out food to the striking RNs, who apparently were having none of it.
