Ten days ago, workers at another Northern California
hospital petitioned the government for an election so they can join NUHW and leave SEIU-UHW. The latest action took place at Hazel
Hawkins Memorial Hospital, a 176-bed hospital that’s just south of the San
Francisco Bay Area.
Sources tell Tasty that ever since the trusteeship in 2009,
SEIU officials have busily collected the workers’ union dues, but given workers zero support and allowed the hospital’s management to slice and dice the workers’
contract.
Workers got tired of being used like SEIU’s ATM machine and
decided to join NUHW, which ran an aggressive and successful campaign at
nearby Salinas
Valley Memorial Hospital. Workers there beat back management’s effort
to cut their defined-benefit pension, health plan and other benefits… and also
won pay increases that have many workers earning more than Kaiser Permanente
employees. Along the way, NUHW outed the hospital’s top execs for a
giant corruption
scheme involving 8 separate pensions for the fat-cat executives.
