Thursday 09 April 2009
by: Seth Sandronsky, t r u t h o u t | Report
Paul Kumar with the National Union of Healthcare Workers leads a rally in Sacramento, California. (Photo: Dennis McCoy / Sacramento Business Journal)
Caregivers at nursing homes in Sacramento, Woodland and Pacifica, operated by North American Health Care, Inc., left the Service Employees International Union (SEIU) to join the new National Union of Healthcare Workers (NUHW) on March 17.
"Now we are in a union that will respect our voices," said Eloise Reese-Burns, a certified nursing assistant and union steward at Woodland-based Cottonwood Healthcare, in a press statement. "We asked SEIU over and over to let us vote and determine our own future, and they refused because they wanted to divide us."
The former SEIU caregivers, 350 in all, are the first-ever members of NUHW. They will remain covered by the current labor agreement with North American Health Care, Inc., while the NUHW's elected bargaining team negotiates a new agreement with the for-profit employer.
To choose NUHW, the former SEIU-represented employees signed petitions in a majority sign up, a National Labor Relations Board-approved process. Shirley Campbell of the State Mediation and Conciliation Service, a neutral third party, validated the caregivers' signatures.
Caregivers assist patients, the disabled and elderly with the activities of daily living in private homes and nursing homes. The former category includes the In-Home Supportive Services (IHSS) program that allows people to remain in their residences and maintain varied degrees of independence. The IHSS costs vastly less than does care in nursing homes.
NUHW formed on January 28, a day after SEIU placed its United Healthcare Workers-West local of 150,000 Northern California members into a trusteeship, a legal move to seize financial and political control of the affiliate. SEIU President Andy Stern, not the rank-and-file, propelled the maneuver, which merged three California affiliates of caregivers into a single local statewide with appointed and not elected leadership.
Because of the trusteeship, all NUHW's elected leaders, beginning with Sal Rosselli, its former president accused of misusing members' funds, were removed. Rosselli, in a drawn-out conflict with Stern over health care reform and union growth in California, disputes the charges of financial mismanagement. Rosselli, the current president of NUHW, is joined in that leadership capacity with other elected officials ousted in the SEIU trusteeship.
"NUHW is a splinter group led by the disgraced and ousted former leaders of UHW," said Michelle Ringuette, SEIU spokeswoman. SEIU is the biggest union in the Change to Win (CTW) partnership. CTW's six million members in seven unions departed the AFL-CIO in 2005.
Over 95,000 SEIU workers in and out of health care statewide have petitioned the NLRB to join NUHW, according to Sadie Crabtree, spokeswoman for the fledgling union. The most recent SEIU-represented petitioners range from health care workers to childcare, public safety and sanitation employees in Monterey County (Salinas), she said.
Seth Sandronsky lives and writes in Sacramento. Contact him at ssandronsky@yahoo.com.
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