In These Times: As Union Election Begins at Calif. Hospitals, Workers Claim SEIU 'in Bed With Management

From In These Times:

As Union Election Begins at Calif. Hospitals, Workers Claim SEIU ‘in Bed With Management’

By Carl Finamore

SAN FRANCISCO—A bitterly-contested election is occurring among employees at three of the oldest hospitals in San Francisco that have continuously provided healthcare since around the mid-1800s. A lot has changed over the last 150 years but surely, we can safely assume, it was mostly for the better.

One can only hope for a similar outcome in what has to be one of the more dramatic employee controversies ever experienced throughout this long history. It all started a little over two years ago.

Dissatisfied Service Employees International Union (SEIU-UHW) members employed at the three hospitals originally petitioned by a 70% margin for a union election way back on February 2, 2009. This was only a few days after national SEIU took control of their local union administration and bargaining council, removed their 100-member executive board in its entirety and dismissed worksite elected representatives en masse.
 
Workers were incensed. Now, 27 months later, all 755 workers employed by California Pacific Medical Center (CPMC), a Sutter Health affiliate, will have their chance to decide on whether they want a new union to represent them or whether they want to stick with SEIU.

Read the full article in In These Times.