SEIU nursing home workers march against Stern's sweetheart deals
SEIU international union president Andy Stern has attempted to force
sweetheart deals known as "template" agreements on nursing home workers
in California, against the resistance of their local union, SEIU United Healthcare
West. These template agreements strip employees of basic rights under
normal collective bargaining.
SEIU members recently marched outside the headquarters of one of the
nursing home chains involved, to support their campaign for good contracts
and protest the international union's interference in their fight.
The template contracts are part of Stern's philosophy of "growth at all costs"
leading to "partnerships" with employers that undermine worker rights and
suppression of union democracy by a small group at the top.
More below the flip...
posting at UHW web site www.seiuvoice.org below
(there is also a video of the workers action at web site)
Nursing home workers rally at Kindred headquarters to tell Kindred and SEIU: stop undermining workers
Management at Kindred has attempted to subvert the workers’ right to be in the union of their own choice by stating clearly they would prefer to work directly with SEIU international leaders rather than California-based workers. Kindred management also has rallied other nursing home operators to prevent UHW members from participating in an internal union vote at their facilities—a practice never before challenged.
Kindred’s philosophical position at the workplace is to limit workers’ right to speak out. The company is a leading advocate for a scaled down collective bargaining agreement that restricts workers’ rights. These contracts, known as template agreements, are ones that UHW is opposing in contract negotiations with Kindred, but SEIU is willing to renew in order to get organizing rights at other facilities.
- UHW letter to Gerald Hudson on alliance agreement (9/22/2005) Raises concerns about flawed Nursing Home Alliance agreement and misrepresentations made by SEIU leaders during its negotiation.
- UHW principles for all employer agreements (5/19/2007) Adopted by UHW’s elected rank-and-file leaders, this states that future agreements must include protections for improving resident care, guarantee union democracy, and enshrine full collective bargaining rights.
- UHW letter to Andy Stern regarding principles for employer agreements (6/1/2007) Corrects widespread misinformation about UHW and raises concerns about SEIU’s manipulation of decision-making bodies.
- UHW analysis of alliance agreement - This analysis, compiled at Andy Stern’s request, notes serious flaws in the Nursing Home Alliance agreement and proposes SEIU should not support any agreement that weakens workers’ rights.
Comments
ALEX ENGLISH GETS IT WRONG ONCE AGAIN
I've tried to urge you to do your homework, Alex, but once again you've proven yourself nothing more than a sniveling bigot. Your only interest on this site seems to be to blast away at SEIU. What did you do before blogs, write on bathroom walls?
People like you are a dime a dozen. You lob mudballs over the fence then run and hide. Have you ever even tried to hear another side of the story? Somehow I don't think so.
I'm too busy building the union you are too busy trying to tear down to spend any time on your drivel collected from a small group of malcontents.
You don't have to deal with such issues as how to build a power base when you have three seperate SEIU locals in the same facility. They vote on merging and the largest local carries the vote, while the smaller local screams they've been co-opted. You will never know what it's like to try to think about such difficult issues, Alex, because you don't care to think at all.
Piss off.
Re: small group of malcontents
buck says:
150,000 member union local = small group of malcontents
and
the only true trade unionists are the ones who buy into the
Stern cult.
so therefore all dissenters from the views of Saint Stern must be purged
from the labor movement.
yeah, right.
typical rhetoric from the stern gang.
Re: small group of malcontents
So now you are saying that all the California members agree with you? What a joke. There isn't one percent that agree with you. And you're not even a member, are you? Fair share, perhaps? Union buster in sheep's clothing, that's what you are, whatever your affiliation.
You print the wildest, completely unsupported anti-union material you can find, and I cannot believe they allow you to post here. You will bring this website down, which I suppose must be your goal. I checked your recent posts, and every single one of them was anti-SEIU.
Go over to the "Human Events" crowd where you belong.
I'm not reading any more of your crap, but will post a disclaimer every time you post. Sooner or later, one of us must go, and I sure hope it's you.
-Buck
proud trade unionist
I've been active in the labor movement for nearly 30 years, in several different unions. I've helped organize 10s of thousands of workers.
I am not anti-SEIU -- I am pro-the-SEIU-members taking back their union from the sell-out pro-corporate leadership that is tearing down union democracy.
There are good union locals of SEIU, but the current international union leadership is rotten to the core, and I've seen its ugliness first-hand and close-up.
Everything I've posted here comes from rank and file SEIU sources.
Re: proud trade unionist
Ok, Alex;
I'm not here to compare resumes but I'm not here to fight with you either. I took a concilitory approach with your first couple anti-SEIU posts, but became very frustrated about your lack of objectivity.
You have organized tens of thousands. I cannot make that claim, but I am a very engaged activist.
Your statement that 150,000 California members side with Sal Roselli is simply not true. In fact, a tiny percentage have sided with him. I don't know the exact numbers, but if you can find them I'm interested. I do know that Sal thought a lot of staff would join him, and virtually no one did. He had a good base of support until he decided to carry his fight from the outside. You might have noticed that one of the articles you cited sounded like a major protest against Andy was underway, then later revealed that only 40 members were involved. That's 149,960 short of 150,000.
I am not a member of any "Stern gang" nor do I believe that such a gang exists. What I do know is that the vast majority of our members agree with the course our union has set upon after discussion, debate and voting. That course includes working with management when and where we have identified common interest. It also includes fighting our battle in the trenches, gaining an inch at a time, accepting incremental reforms as stepping stones to a greater good.
For instance, some activist friends of mine sharply disagree that we should accept any health care proposal that is short of single payer. Don't get me wrong, I would dearly love to see a single payer system, and I believe we will get there, but we have to accept that we're going to inch our way along. The really important aspect of accepting incremental reforms is that coverage will be extended to more and more people as we go along. I cannot hold out for an all or nothing demand when millions will suffer and thousands will die while we wait for Godot (something that may or may not ever arrive.)
SEIU is the fastest growing union in the US, and we will certainly have growing pains. The democratic nature of this union convinced me to become an activist. I was formerly a member of another large union and felt it was a complete top down experience that I wanted no part of. SEIU is very democratic, and that is one reason I reacted so sharply to your continuous anti SEIU thread.
-Buck