Kaiser Election Results KOed: Judge Orders Rematch Between
SEIU and NUHW

by Steve Early

Working in These Times (In These Times)
July 21, 2011

http://www.inthesetimes.com/working/entry/11743/kaiser_election_results_koed_nlrb_judge_orders_rematch_between_seiu_an/

When the Service Employees International Union (SEIU)
defeated the National Union of Healthcare Workers (NUHW) in
balloting among 43,000 workers at Kaiser Permanente (KP)
last October, SEIU Executive Vice President Dave Regan was
exultant. SEIU's victory was "a huge achievement," he said.
"NUHW is now, for all intents and purposes, irrelevant.
We're thrilled."

On a conference call with union staffers and SEIU supporters
at Kaiser earlier this week, Regan sounded a lot less
thrilled. And for good reason. On Monday, July 18, a
National Labor Relations Board (NLRB) hearing officer found
evidence of election misconduct by SEIU and Kaiser -
presented by NUHW - was very relevant to her determination
of whether the largest NLRB vote in 70 years should be
overturned.

In a strongly-worded 34-page rebuke, federal Administrative
Law Judge Lana H. Parke ruled that collusion between Kaiser
and its largest union so "interfered with employees'
exercise of a free and reasoned choice" that a new election
must be held. In particular, Parke cited the impact of
management in unfair labor practices in several smaller
Kaiser bargaining units where workers voted to leave SEIU
and join NUHW prior to the September-October 2010 election
in a statewide unit of service and technical employees.

Kaiser subsequently punished those 2,300 nurses and other
professional employees for switching unions by withholding
scheduled raises and other benefits. As reported in my new
book about "labor's civil wars" at Kaiser and elsewhere, the
giant HMO violated the National Labor Relations Act in such
egregious fashion that the NLRB sought a rare "10(j)
injunction" to enforce the NLRA. The resulting federal court
order compelled management to provide $2 million in back pay
and interest to the affected workers, who remain locked in
difficult negotiations on their first NUHW contract with
Kaiser.

As Parke noted, "Kaiser's ULPs [unfair labor practices]
figured as silent, menacing reminders that Kaiser not only
could, but already had, unilaterally withheld benefits when
other employees had chosen to be represented by NUHW."

Parke's decision was unusual given the lopsided margin of
SEIU's victory last fall, a product of fear-mongering and
far greater organizational resources. While the smaller
Kaiser units that have switched unions have done so by large
margins, the tally last fall was 18,290 for SEIU, 11,364 for
NUHW, and 365 for no union.

Back in February 2009, support for NUHW was far greater.
More than 25,000 Kaiser workers signed cards and petitions
seeking an election to oust SEIU after then-SEIU President
Andy Stern put Regan and Eliseo Medina in charge of their
local union, United Healthcare Workers-West (UHW). Stern
removed all of UHW's elected leaders and fired or forced out
several hundred staffers. (In the interests of full
disclosure, I should note that one of my daughters was among
them.)

Actual voting at Kaiser was then delayed for 20 months,
enabling the UHW trusteeship, run by Regan and Medina, to
remove hundreds of elected shop stewards and install
appointed replacements. In the summer of 2010, the trustees
negotiated a three-year wage agreement with Kaiser, with
little membership mobilization or publicity - a contract
that NUHW claimed would open the way for healthcare cost
shifting and other concessions.

Meanwhile, KP management openly favored UHW/SEIU against
NUHW, the new union formed in response to the trusteeship.
The SEIU-dominated Labor-Management Partnership (LMP) -
still much applauded by the AFL-CIO and Kaiser-funded
academics--announced that NUHW was unwelcome to join, a
blackballing decision that has made even more Kaiser workers
wary about "partnering" with a repeat violator of the NLRA.

In Parke's decision, she singled out Ben Chu, president of
Kaiser's southern California region, for interfering "with
employees' freedom of choice" by threatening the loss of
benefits if workers changed unions - a management warning,
delivered at a large employee meeting, that SEIU then
"widely disseminated" prior to the vote last Fall.

In almost every NLRB election contest sought by NUHW (which
has won bargaining rights for 8,500 workers so far), SEIU
has generated procedural delays to improve its chances of
winning. According to one participant, in Regan's conference
call discussion with UHW loyalists this week, the new UHW
president predicted that SEIU could, if necessary, delay any
re-match at Kaiser for another nine months to a year by
appealing Parke's decision.

NUHW attorney Jonathan Siegel predicted that SEIU would
appeal but expressed confidence that "the ruling will stand,
so we're looking for a new election in 2012." The parties
have until July 28 to file exceptions to the ruling.

On UHW's website, Regan claimed that "support for SEIU-UHW
has only gotten stronger since last fall, especially since
NUHW has failed to get a contract for the Kaiser workers
they represent and faces major give-backs. If a new election
is run, we will defeat them by a larger margin than last
time."

Lately, UHW-SEIU attempts to undermine NUHW have focused on
the new union's impressive and creative use of one-day
strikes to back up its on-going bargaining at Kaiser and
Salinas Valley Memorial Hospital. In UHW's July 18 statement
on Judge Parke's decision, UHW derisively refers to the
"small group of employees" NUHW represents (at Kaiser, they
actually number about 4,000) and claims that "NUHW has twice
gone on strike to no effect and called off a third strike
due to lack of support by its members."

NUHW organizers say the election decision will boost the
morale of Kaiser workers who have voted to switch unions and
rejuvenate their supporters who remain trapped in SEIU. On
Regan's conference call, some participants expressed concern
that the post-election withdrawal of hundreds of out-of-
state SEIU staffers sent into Kaiser facilities last fall
left UHW dues payers feeling un-represented and abandoned.
Their low morale might provide an opening for NUHW, assuming
it can find a way to fund its own second campaign within
Kaiser's huge and far-flung service and technical unit.

In northern California, Kaiser call center worker Roy Chafee
is among those NUHW activists who claim that, "since the
election, SEIU pulled out almost all of its staff and
support, leaving individual workers to fend for themselves."
At a small NUHW fundraiser in Los Angeles last week, among
those attending was a disillusioned young Latino supporter
of SEIU, who echoed Chafee's complaint. This Kaiser worker,
who drove several hours to get to the event, recently became
critical of UHW after campaigning aggressively on its behalf
during the election last fall. His defection was rewarded in
the usual UHW fashion - removal as shop steward.

If NUHW and UHW-SEIU do face off again next year, their NLRB
election competition could take place right in the middle of
Barack Obama's re-election campaign. Just as in 2008, SEIU
will be forced to divert many full-time staffers and
millions of dollars in dues money to quelling membership
dissent in California, instead of devoting all of its
organizational attention to the presidential election.

Already, SEIU has failed to meet the national organizing
goals it unveiled three years ago, because tens of millions
of dollars were squandered on the take-over of UHW, and then
SEIU's resulting legal and organizing battles with NUHW.

Between 2006 and 2008 - before labor civil warfare in
California reached its peak - SEIU added 300,000 members or
agency fee-payers to its ranks. At the union's 2008
convention in Puerto Rico, Regan and other SEIU leaders
declared that they were going to recruit another 500,000 by
2012, including 350,000 more healthcare workers. In 2009 and
2010, SEIU actual growth averaged only about 55,000 a year,
an annual rate that falls far short of 2008 projections and
is much lower than in the past.

When SEIU holds its 2012 convention, in Denver next spring,
the cost of its counter-insurgency campaign in California
will be hard to ignore - particularly if field commanders
like Regan are simultaneously gearing up for another costly
"surge" in response to Judge Parke's ruling this week.

[Steve Early is the author of The Civil Wars in U.S. Labor,
which reports on the costly conflict between SEIU and NUHW
in the California healthcare industry. For more information
on the book, see www.civilwarsinlabor.org ]

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