Today the counting has started, as you can see from a car parked near the NLRB offices in Oakland.Ok, well, more like the prep to the counting has started. Today will likely be tasks like: going through the list of eligible voters, seeing if either side objects to anyone being eligible to vote (i.e. management, workers who haven't worked there enough, or don't work there anymore. ), checking envelopes, etc.
Kaiser, SEIU and NUHW each have a team of 22 people with them. The ballots, of which there are about 30,000, will be grouped in batches and divided among 15 teams (each team consisting of 1 each from Kaiser, NUHW (most are Kaiser members) and SEIU.) Each team will go through the ballots/envelopes, to prep them for counting. The other 7 people are watching the counting, covering breaks, and/or are lawyers for each side.
Probably no real counting will get done today, and with this number of ballots it might not be done until Friday. The counting will go on each day from 8:30am - 7pm--no breaks!
Tasty is willing to be that this will be the longest day any Kaiser manager has worked in a long time.
