SEIU may be
on the brink of losing a unit of 343 Registered Nurses at Kaiser Moreno Valley Medical Center in Southern California.
Last Friday,
nurses cast their votes in an NLRB election triggered by members of SEIU Local 121 who requested a formal
vote so they can leave SEIU because they’re dissatisfied with the union.
On election
night, a majority of the ballots supported leaving SEIU. The final vote tally won’t
be finalized until three dozen “challenged” ballots are resolved. According to
the NLRB, the vote tally at the end of election night was the following:
No
Union: 120
SEIU Local
121: 111
Challenged
Ballots: 37
SEIU Local 121
appears to be worried it’ll lose the election when the “challenged” ballots are
finally counted. After the vote count, it filed a formal appeal with the NLRB
in an effort to overturn the entire election.
The hospital’s
nurses have been members of SEIU for more than 10 years but have been
dissatisfied with SEIU for a long time, according to an RN who called the
purple union “fear mongers.”
The vote
couldn’t come at a worse time for SEIU. The Coalition of Kaiser Permanente Unions, which includes Local 121 and
other SEIU locals, will go back to the bargaining table with Kaiser for the
first time on April 17 to negotiate a “national agreement.”
Since 2009, SEIU
unions at Kaiser have been led by SEIU-UHW
president Dave Regan, who has given
away massive cuts in health benefits and retirement plans at hospital chains
across California. Kaiser now appears to be angling to win the same cuts for
its workers.
Regan has been a big proponent of “partnership” deals with Kaiser
and even colluded with Kaiser executives to
fight strikes by other Kaiser workers, including statewide walkouts by the National Union of Healthcare Workers
and the California Nurses Association.
Last year, Kaiser’s
partnership unions split
into two after Regan reportedly attempted to seize more decision-making
power inside the Coalition of Kaiser Permanente Unions. The unions fed up with
Regan broke away and formed a new coalition called the Alliance of Health Care Unions, which negotiated a national
agreement of its own in 2018.
