UFCW Local 400's lawsuit against Kaiser... and two news articles

Three quick items:

1. Here's a copy of the lawsuit filed by UFCW Local 400 against Kaiser Permanente in federal court for refusing to follow their collective bargaining agreement, negotiated under the labor-management partnership. Tasty mentioned the lawsuit in this post.

2. Check out an article by labor journalist Steve Early entitled “AFL-CIO Delays CA Hospital Vote: What Happened to Employee Free Choice?” The article describes how SEIU recently enlisted the AFL-CIO’s Rich Trumka to delay an NLRB election requested by 700 California hospital workers who, on March 30th, requested an election to dump SEIU-UHW and join NUHW.

Early takes Trumka/SEIU to task for turning their backs on "employee free choice,” the labor movement's top legislative priority for years.

So why are workers at the hospital in Chico, Calif. bolting Dave Regan’s SEIU-UHW? Here's what one worker tells Early:

“In our last contract, SEIU bargained away important language and put up absolutely no fight for livable wage increases. Then they rushed a contract ratification vote, giving us little notice and no copies of the contract they had bargained…Only 100 out of 700 employees voted. This is not how a union should behave.”

Yo Diamond Dave: Is that what SEIU calls "free choice" and worker democracy?

FYI, journalist Cal Winslow has also published an article on the campaign by hospital workers in Chico: "California Healthcare Workers Fight for a Union that Will Fight for Them."

3. Lastly, see another article in “New York Capital” describing SEIU 1199 New York’s tight relationship with the hospital industry -- the Greater New York Hospital Association (GNYHA) -- and 1199NY’s split from the New York State Nurses Association (NYSNA), the state's largest nurses' union with 37,000 members. 

The two unions' opposing philosophies reflect a similar split among California’s healthcare unions, where SEIU-UHW has climbed deep inside the pocket of the state's hospital bosses and joined the bosses in attacking California's patient safety laws.