Tuesday, September 21, 2010
One of the largest labor unions in California faces the prospect of losing thousands of members as a splinter group seeks to pull away from the Service Employees International Union (SEIU).
Members of SEIU have been given the choice of staying put or joining the upstart National Union of Healthcare Workers (NUHW), resulting in a heated election that’s also the largest in the private sector since 1941.
About 43,000 workers for Kaiser Permanente are expected to participate in the vote. If most remain with SEIU, leaders of the giant union are hoping to put behind them a period of recent turmoil that was the product of former president Andy Stern’s aggressive posture towards other unions.
But if NUHW wins the election, it would significantly boost its ranks and make it a key player in the healthcare industry, the labor movement and in Democratic politics.
The tumultuous campaign has included Kaiser’s management rescinding raises for workers who voted to leave SEIU for NUHW—a move that the National Labor Relations Board deemed was unlawful.
Ballots were mailed out ot Kaiser workers on September 13 and will be counted on October 6.
-Noel Brinkerhoff
43,000 Kaiser Workers Set to Vote in Bitter Union Faceoff (by Paul Pringle, Los Angeles Times)
Greenhouse Violates NY Times’ Policy in SEIU-NUHW Story (by Randy Shaw, Beyond Chron)
Kaiser’s Bitter Labor War (by David Moberg, In These Times)
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