UHW's Rejection of Andy Stern's Decision to Impose Trusteeship in Response to UHW's Request for Members' Right to Vote
January 27th, 2009
Today's action by Andy Stern imposing a trusteeship against the members of United Healthcare West has the effect of declaring martial law against those advocating for the right to vote and other democratic principles in their own union.
UHW has rejected this imposition.
It's doubly ironic in that Stern has tried to position himself as the leading champion of the Employee Free Choice Act which would give unorganized workers the freedom to choose a union, while he is unwilling to give the members of SEIU a free choice within their union.
UHW strongly opposes Andy Stern's attempt to eliminate democracy and self-determination in our union simply because we have advocated for the right of members to vote before they are transferred from one SEIU local union to another, or because we believe that UHW members, rather than Andy Stern's D.C. appointees, should control the collective bargaining relationship with the employer.
At a time when the entire labor movement should be united to win real labor law and healthcare reform, we are appalled that SEIU would choose to create this discord and disharmony in our movement.
http://seiuvoice.org/article.php?id=682Note by poster: Right-wing anti-labor outfits are already using Andrew Stern's action in their anti-EFCA propaganda.
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SEIU Launches Takeover of United Healthcare Workers-West -Labor Notes by Mark Brenner
January 27th, 2009
Financial assets for the 150,000-member local were immediately seized, the executive board was dissolved, and full-time officers were removed from payroll. Reports circulated among workplace leaders that SEIU also dismissed UHW stewards, and that employers are holding captive-audience meetings to introduce new SEIU-appointed staff representatives.
Stern named Executive Vice Presidents Eliseo Medina and Dave Regan as trustees of UHW. Regan said rank-and-file worksite leaders remain in place.
As word of the trusteeship spread, hundreds of members and supporters rallied at the union’s Oakland headquarters, vowing to resist SEIU’s hostile takeover.
UHW leaders announced the formation of an independent union, the National Union of Healthcare Workers, and signaled their intention to decertify SEIU in hospitals and nursing homes, declaring that they would not permit appointed staffers to decide which union members belonged to.
http://seiuvoice.org/article.php?id=687-----------------------
Members of United Healthcare Workers West pray during a meeting to discuss the union’s takeover by the Service Employees International Union. Officers of the 150,000-member local were removed Tuesday and replaced with two SEIU executives.
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For Immediate Release
January 28, 2009
CNA/NNOC Criticizes SEIU Trusteeship: Cites Concerns for Erosion of RN and Patient Care Standards
Citing concerns about erosion of RN and patient care standards, the California Nurses Association/National Nurses Organizing Committee today criticized the action by the Service Employees International Union to take over its largest California affiliate, United Healthcare Workers-West.
In a statement today, Rose Ann DeMoro, executive director of CNA/NNOC, which represents registered nurses in most of the hospitals where UHW represents ancillary staff, noted "the appalling track record of SEIU International in signing substandard agreements with employers in exchange for additional dues payments is a major cause for alarm in a state that has set the national standard in hospital patient care conditions and RN standards."
"What we can expect to see now is open complicity between hospital corporations happy to have in SEIU International a new partner in hospitals across California who has repeatedly demonstrated a brutal indifference to protecting workplace protections for patients or employees," she said.
DeMoro said CNA/NNOC will send an emphatic message to employers across California urging them not to exploit the SEIU-UHW battle to seek to unilaterally roll back conditions or contract standards for CNA/NNOC members, and to state legislators to be wary of SEIU-backed legislation that would harm patients or nurses. SEIU International, for example:
Lobbied against reforms to improve patient care conditions and staffing in California nursing homes, and agreed to give management the "exclusive right" to set pay, discipline employees, reassign or eliminate jobs, and outsource work.
Agreed not to voluntary report adverse conditions to any regulatory or other oversight agency in a pact with Washington state nursing homes.
Opposed RN-to-patient ratios in California, and then sought to undermine the law, and has also worked to undermine RN ratio legislation in other states.
Endorsed the closure of public hospitals and nursing homes in New York state in a joint pact with the New York Hospital Association.
Opposed public health funding in Cleveland, where SEIU spent hundreds of thousands of dollars to defeat a critical public health services measure after county officials refused to sign a sweetheart agreement to help SEIU gain new members.
-The above is a public news release and is not copyrighted material-