Biggest Union Vote in 70 Years?

Healthcare has continued to be one of the more profitable sectors of the economy, even during the recession. In 2009, Kaiser Permanente made $6 billion in profits (see In These Times), but still demanded concessions and layoffs, something the Service Employees International Union (SEIU) readily gave up in exchange for insignificant promises to reduce corporate interference in union organizing.

Healthcare workers who were fed up with the autocracy, corruption and wimpiness of the SEIU, (and the expulsion of Sal Roselli as head of an SEIU affiliate in 2009), created an opposition union called the National Union of Healthcare Workers (NUHW). Led by Roselli, the NUHW took on the SEIU at Kaiser Permanent, California, in a decertification vote in 2010. They lost, but the National Labor Relations Board (NLRB) ruled in July 2011 that Kaiser had colluded with SEIU and engaged in illegal campaigning and interference with NUHW organizing, thus invalidating the results of that vote.

After several failed appeal attempts by SEIU, it looks like a new decertification vote is set for early this year in what would be the largest private sector representation vote in the past 70 years.

There are several differences between 2010 and today, most notably that NUHW has formally affiliated with the California Nurses Association (CNA), one of the more “militant” unions in the state. Together, CNA and NUHW have already led two strikes against the concessions to Kaiser in the past 16 months, while CNA has engaged in numerous 1-3 day walkouts at other California hospitals. The alliance gives NUHW greater access to strike support (CNA has 85,000 members) and CNA resources to fund NUHW organizing. According to Roselli, the alliance also protects them against a forced merger with the SEIU.

The alliance between CNA and NUHW will likely inflame hostilities between CNA and SEIU, which had agreed to a truce after the 2009 ouster of Roselli. The truce was intended to facilitate organizing efforts at non-union hospitals nationwide. Yet many of the new union members were represented by SEIU, which has regularly cut lousy deals with the hospitals and sold out their members.

During the CNA-NUHW anti-concessions strikes in California, SEIU urged its members to cross the picket lines and tried (but failed) to get California legislators to weaken the state’s safe staffing laws. According to In These Times, CNA Executive Director Rose Ann DeMoro called [SEIU President] Regan a management hack, possibly the “most despicable ‘labor leader’ that we have ever encountered” because of his collaboration with hospital owners. DeMoro also said that Regan called for nurses to give up their meals and breaks and the safety of their patients to help hospitals save $400 million because of the state budget crisis” While SEIU has always been a pro-corporate business union, these actions made it even more obvious which side they are on.

While the SEIU is clearly on the side of management, the CNA and NUHW are only “militant” in comparison. Their tactic of engaging in roving one- to two-day strikes is meant to minimize public hostility, as well as the organizing and discipline necessary to sustain a protracted full-scale strike—a strategy more indicative of trepidation and conciliation than militancy. It also leaves more funds for administrative salaries since the union can avoid paying out strike benefits. In 2012, CNA paid out $2.8 million in salaries for its leaders, according to the WSWS, while spending nothing on strike benefits for its members.

CNA’s commitment to solidarity is also questionable, as it abandoned NUHW in 2009 when its turf war with SEIU first began. In a 2012 struggle against Sutter Health, CNA jeopardized the bargaining power of its members at larger sites, like Berkeley’s Alta Bates Hospital, in exchange for easier settlements at smaller sites, according to the WSWS.

Hospital Bosses Kill Patient To Prove A Point

A patient died at Alta Bates Sutter Medical Center in Oakland on Saturday due to an error by a scab nurse.

One might be inclined to blame the California Nurses Association (CNA), which was on strike against the hospital, except that the nurses had only engaged in a one-day strike on Thursday. When they returned to work on Friday, they found the hospital’s entrances blocked by armed guards, according to the Left Labor Reporter. They had been locked out and replaced by poorly trained scabs, one of whom accidentally killed the patient on Saturday.

The hospital, which is demanding 200 concessions from its nurses, thought they might be able to bully the nurses into accepting their demands by temporarily locking them out. Their stupid tactic not only showed an utter lack of regard for their employees, but an even greater disregard for their patients. CNA members even warned the hospital that it was unsafe to hire the scabs, as they lacked the training and experience to do the job safely.

Some of the hospital’s demands will increase nurses’ caseloads and decrease their ability to advocate for patients, both of which will undermine patient safety, security and ability to heal quickly. The incident on Saturday is a harbinger of the implications of these policies.

The CNA is calling the lockout punitive. While Sutter claims that their temp agency would only provide scabs on five-day contracts, other local hospitals that were also affected by the one-day strike on Thursday did not lock out their nurses. As of yesterday, the Sutter nurses were still locked out.

Even if the nurses had not been locked out, but had been off the job because of a planned strike, the blame for any injuries or deaths to patients would still belong to the hospital executives. First, it is unreasonable for workers in the helping professions to allow themselves to be blackmailed and intimidated into accepting low pay or terrible working conditions by accusing them of not caring about their clients. A similar type of bullying is commonly used against teachers, too. If this tactic were consistently allowed to succeed, then nurses’ and teachers’ working conditions could deteriorate to 16-hour days for minimum wage.

However, it is not just a tactical impracticality to accept the bosses’ accusations that striking workers are to blame for workplace mishaps and declining services. The bosses’ attempts to weaken job security, lower pay and benefits, increase hours and workloads, and stifle free speech in the workplace all jeopardize client safety and the quality of services workers are able to provide.

Declining pay, for example, results in higher attrition and greater difficulty hiring and retaining quality employees in the first place, both of which result in deteriorating quality of service. Increased hours and greater workplace demands not only stress workers physically and emotionally, increasing the chances of accidents, but they also stretch workers thin, decreasing response times during crises. Attacks on job security and speech hamper the ability and willingness of employees to advocate for clients, decreasing the likelihood that their needs will be met.

Hence, strikes by nurses, teachers and others in the “helping” fields, are not only about protecting employees’ income and working conditions, but about improving the conditions and services for the employees’ clients such as patients and students.