THE PURPLE WAR IN CALIFORNIA…more on the battle between United Healthcare Workers – West and it’s totalitarian parent union, the “low wage union” SEIU
from the SAN FRANCISCO CHRONICLE:
Oakland Health care workers plan vote on split
Saturday, January 10, 2009
Members of an Oakland-based union representing health care workers plan to vote on splitting with their parent organization, the Service Employees International Union, after SEIU moved to break up the local, United Healthcare Workers-West.
The local represents some 150,000 health care workers in Northern California, including 65,000 long-term-care workers. The parent union for several years has planned to consolidate into one local those workers with long-term-care workers in two other California locals, 521 in San Jose and 6434 in Los Angeles. On Friday, SEIU’s executive board voted to create the single union, with 240,000 members.
Ninety minutes after that announcement was made, United Healthcare Workers-West sent a letter to SEIU President Andy Stern requesting he schedule a vote for or against disaffiliation by the union’s local members.
That capped months of acrimony, during which time SEIU has accused United Healthcare Workers-West President Sal Rosselli of improperly diverting union dues, and began a process, still pending, for taking over the local through a trusteeship. SEIU filed suit against Rosselli in federal court, but it was dismissed by a judge who said the plaintiffs lacked standing.
Rosselli and the leadership of the Oakland-based local said the charges were baseless. On Friday, he and the local’s executive board said members requested the disaffiliation vote because of “the forced removal of 65,000 long-term-care members, the stifling of union members’ free speech rights and widespread corruption” by union leaders appointed by Stern.
SEIU wants to consolidate the long-term-care workers so that their sizable local is of a scale that can be the equal of employers in contract negotiations. Employers, SEIU says, often have advantages that come with being national and international enterprises.
The Oakland local said that under the SEIU constitution, a disaffiliation vote could be scheduled as soon as 60 days from Friday. SEIU said it will have recommendations for carrying out the consolidation process within 30 days.
E-mail George Raine at graine@sfchronicle.com.
http://sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/c/a/2009/01/10/BUHN156NV6.DTL
This article appeared on page C – 1 of the San Francisco Chronicle
from the LOS ANGELES TIMES:
SEIU merger to create healthcare ‘mega-local’ in California
By Evelyn Larrubia
January 11, 2009
The board of the Service Employees International Union has decided to merge 240,000 members from three California locals into one mega-local representing nursing home workers and home health aides, making the yet-unnamed group the nation’s second-largest SEIU branch.
Some members from San Jose-based Local 521 and Oakland-based United Healthcare Workers West will merge with all of Los Angeles-based Local 6434’s members in the next 30 days, officials said Friday.
“What it does is allows them to have the strongest voice possible in Sacramento,” said Mary Kay Henry, SEIU executive vice president. “We think it’s long overdue because we need to focus our attention on the state fiscal crisis.”
She said SEIU has been consolidating employees who do the same job into one local per state since 1996.
Some California healthcare workers have fought the merger, particularly members of UHW, which will lose 65,000 people — about half its members — to the new group. UHW leaders have called the move undemocratic. They had called for a boycott of a December advisory vote by SEIU that asked members whether they wanted to merge all healthcare workers or only long-term care workers into a single California local.
Less than one in 10 of the roughly 300,000 members polled responded, but those who did sided overwhelmingly with the more limited merger. UHW said 125,000 members of the three affected locals signed petitions and cards indicating they would boycott the vote.
On Friday, UHW officials sent a letter to SEIU saying that many UHW members want to disaffiliate with SEIU and that the international is required to give them a vote under its constitution.
“There is widespread and profound opposition within our membership to any efforts to dismember our local union or take away its rights of democratic governance,” read a letter signed by 72 members of UHW’s leadership.
SEIU officials accused the UHW officials of manufacturing the opposition through months of “scare tactics and misrepresentations to their members.” They said that when they receive the letter, they will decide what to do.
SEIU has been considering taking over UHW entirely. It has held hearings into allegations that UHW’s leaders misused dues, creating a secret war chest to fight the merger. UHW officials have denied any wrongdoing.
