California Hospital Workers Try to Bolt SEIU-UHW due to Bad Contracts

Dave Regan’s relentless spending on ballot initiatives is not only producing repeated losses at the ballot box for SEIU-UHW, it’s also generating decertification efforts by the union’s own members.

Two weeks ago, workers at 158-bed USC Verdugo Hills Hospital in Los Angeles filed a petition to dump SEIU-UHW and work without a union because they say SEIU-UHW has failed to win improved wages and health insurance for 230 workers there, according to NLRB records and the Glendale News-Press. (Lila Seidman, “Vote on keeping USC hospital union could come within weeks, employee says,” Glendale News-Press, January 8, 2019.)

Regan’s multi-million-dollar spending on ballot initiatives has left SEIU-UHW’s members with fewer resources for workplace organizing and representation... and weaker contracts. According to the worker who filed the petition at USC Verdugo Hills Hospital, a majority of employees signed the decertification petition and are backing the effort to bolt from SEIU-UHW.

 “A vote on whether or not to keep a healthcare workers’ union at USC Verdugo Hills Hospital in Glendale could come as early as the end of the month,” the Glendale News-Press reported last week. 

Last October, workers at the same hospital submitted an identical request but SEIU-UHW’s attorneys blocked it, saying the request was filed two days late. SEIU-UHW has made no such claims about the current filing, although SEIU-UHW’s lawyers are filing “unfair labor practice” charges in an effort to stall the vote.

The decertification effort offers a stark counterpoint to what’s happening at USC’s other two acute-care hospitals.

More than 1,100 workers at 401-bed USC Keck Medical Center and 60-bed USC Norris Cancer Center are represented by the National Union of Healthcare Workers (NUHW). During recent years, they’ve waged a series of aggressive negotiating campaigns, including strikes and pickets, that boosted workers’ wages, health insurance, and retirement benefits.

Last spring, NUHW forced the two hospitals to in-source more than 100 subcontracted food service and housekeeping workers, leading to pay increases of up to 80%. One group of recently in-sourced workers had been members of SEIU United Service Workers West for years and were paid just above the minimum wage. After they voted to leave SEIU, NUHW successfully pressured the two hospitals to dump Sodexo, USC’s subcontractor, and to hire the workers directly.

Due to NUHW's success, hundreds more USC workers have voted to join NUHW through NLRB elections.

If workers at USC Verdugo Hills Hospital vote to decertify SEIU-UHW, it will put an even brighter spotlight on Regan’s decision to pour tens of millions of dollars of the union’s funds down the toilet in Dave's illusory quest for unionization via ballot initiative.

Stay tuned.

More Workers Join NUHW

This month, two groups of California healthcare workers voted to join NUHW… including a unit of 100 caregivers who last year declined to join SEIU-UHW.

The 100 caregivers are employed at Dignity Health’s 223-bed Dominican Santa Cruz Hospital in Santa Cruz. They include Occupational Therapists, Physical Therapists, Speech Pathologists, Dietitians, Physiologists, Speech Therapists and others.

One year ago, the same group of workers declined to join SEIU-UHW. Earlier this week, however, they voted by a margin of 78 (NUHW) to 12 (No Union) to join NUHW in an NLRB election. SEIU-UHW did not try to put its name on the ballot.

Dignity Health is one of California’s largest hospital chains and operates more than 30 hospitals across the state. Since 2009, SEIU-UHW’s Dave Regan has repeatedly made backroom deals with Dignity’s execs to slash SEIU-UHW members’ pensions and health insurance, and impose wage freezes on thousand workers… even as Dignity was pocketing big profits.

Earlier this month, a second group of workers in Santa Cruz, Calif. also voted to join NUHW. They’re employed by an addiction treatment center that includes Treatment Technicians, Intake Referral Specialists, Medical Assessment Specialists, Custodians, Receptionists, Office Assistants and Dietary Staff. The unit of 55 workers at Janus of Santa Cruz voted to join NUHW by a margin of 35 (NUHW), 2 (No Union), and 2 (Voided Ballots).

Here's an article in a local newspaper describing the election outcomes: Santa Cruz Sentinel, "Dominican Therapists, Janus Staff Unionize."

Also this month, workers at a small outpatient medical clinic run by the University of Southern California voted to join NUHW, according to NLRB records.

Congrats!

California Workers Vote to Join NUHW

Congratulations to several hundred workers in Southern California who recently voted to join NUHW in multiple NLRB elections.

On July 13, a group of 125 workers at Kindred Hospital San Diego voted to join NUHW by a margin of…

• 87 (NUHW)
• 2 (No Union)
• 1 (Challenged ballots)

One week later, a unit of 126 workers at 219-bed West Anaheim Medical Center voted by a margin of…

• 65 (NUHW)
• 47 (No Union)
• 6 (Challenged ballots)

And that’s not all.

NUHW has recently won eight elections in a row at outpatient clinics run by Keck Medicine of USC, which operates three acute-care hospitals in Los Angeles.

Keep it up!

NUHW Adds 500 More Members

NUHW keeps on growing. Earlier this week, nearly 500 workers at two California hospitals voted to join NUHW. By Tasty’s tally, NUHW has won ten NLRB elections this year and added almost 2,000 new members.  

This week, a unit of 420 non-union workers at Queen of the Valley Hospital in Napa, Calif. voted to join NUHW despite the company’s aggressive anti-union campaign. The hospital is owned by Providence St. Joseph Health, one of the US’s largest hospital corporations. Here are the vote totals:

202 (NUHW), 132 (No Union), 33 (Challenged Ballots), and 12 (Void Ballots)

Meanwhile, at USC Norris Cancer Center in Los Angeles, a unit of 45 workers employed by subcontracting giant Sodexo voted to decertify SEIU United Service Workers West and join NUHW. Earlier this year, NUHW’s 900 members at USC Keck Medical Center used strikes to win a break-through contract that’s apparently got the attention of other USC workers.

Here are the vote totals from this week’s election:

31 (NUHW), 10 (SEIU USWW), 0 (No Union)

Meanwhile, SEIU-UHW is flailing.

Dave Regan has spent more than $30 million on a half-baked (and extremely unsuccessful) scheme to lure the California Hospital Association into a secret partnership that, according to Regan, would add 60,000 members to SEIU-UHW’s membership rolls. Under Regan’s scheme, however, all of SEIU-UHW’s new members would have been banned from striking and forced into pre-negotiated labor contracts with stripped-down wages and benefits.

So far, Dave’s awesome scheme has produced (drumroll please) fewer than 70 new members.

Meanwhile, hundreds of Regan’s existing members are ditching SEIU-UHW, according to NLRB records. 

Last week, 250 workers at College Hospital Cerritos in Los Angeles bolted SEIU-UHW after Regan’s staff reportedly failed to provide them basic support.

Earlier, a unit of professional staff (including clinical lab scientists, social workers, radiation therapists, nuclear medicine technologists, etc.) at Dignity Health’s Northridge Hospital Medical Center in Los Angeles left SEIU-UHW.

USC votes NUHW!

After SEIU pulled out of the election and the boss pulled out the big guns with out of state union busters--workers overcame the lies and voted for NUHW!


Main Unit:

NUHW 393
No Union 122

Pros:

NUHW 30
No Union 34

Don't worry Pro's! Tasty thinks we'll see ya next year!

USC Voting Tomorrow and Thursday...

The workers will be choosing between NUHW and no union--SEIU dropped out. USC has mounted an intense anti-union campaign, including suspending NUHW supporters and threatening workers...and guess who helped 'em?

That's right! SEIU! From today's LA Times:

"According to healthcare workers union, SEIU officials have informed at least two employees that it would be better to reject union representation than to vote for the rival group.

"SEIU and the hospital management are scheming and plotting together for people to vote no union," said a healthcare workers union supporter, Michael Torres, a respiratory therapist at USC University Hospital. "We don't know the difference between SEIU and management anymore.""

The word on the street is that SEIU actually met with MANAGEMENT to plan the no-union campaign at USC, and has dropped out so that their pitiful few votes would go to "No Union" as opposed to NUHW.

Great job so far, Mary Kay! This is the largest election opportunity since you assumed your crown and instead of uniting workers, SEIU is trying to keep workers at USC from having a union!