SEIU-UHW Sacramento Home Care Workers Contract Improves Benefits, Protects Wages
Home Care workers in Sacramento County have a new two-year contract that protects employees' wages, improves their healthcare, and ensures that seniors and people with disabilities will continue receiving the services they need to live independently at home. The agreement, which was negotiated by the member-elected bargaining team, maintains wages, increases the number of workers eligible for health benefits, and will begin the process of providing home care workers with paid time off - a first for home care workers.
While the contract represents a great victory for Sacramento home care workers and consumers, it represents a stunning defeat for NUHW. NUHW waged a long running campaign in the county, and had publicly proclaimed they were going to decertify SEIU in Sacramento. Despite the countless hours spent attempting to engage workers at time sheet drop offs and at their homes, they failed to get the minimum 30% support required to file for an election.
"This contract is good for home care workers, good for the people we serve, and good for the county," said Deborah Hibbler, a Sacramento County home care worker and member of the bargaining team. "We are very proud that were able to make our case to the board of supervisors that we needed to maintain our wages and expand healthcare coverage to more people."
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900 More SEIU-UHW Members Seeking Union Vote, As Feds Rejects Effort by Ousted Leaders to Block Elections
As another 900 SEIU-UHW members asked for elections so they can vote to stay in SEIU-UHW, the National Labor Relations Board (NLRB) dismissed an attempt to block the elections by the ousted leaders. The group formed by the ousted leaders, the National Union of Healthcare Workers (NUHW), filed last year to decertify SEIU-UHW as the workers' union. Now, they want the elections stopped because they fear that if voting proceeds they will lose.
"We want to protect our raises and benefits so we can serve the residents in our nursing home. NUHW is threatening what we've accomplished, and that's why the majority of workers here are ready to vote and get rid of them once and for all," said Maria Lucia Martinez, a cook for seven and a half years at All Saints Sub-Acute and Rehabilitation Center in Concord.
The 900 additional workers brings the total to more than 5,300 workers in 46 hospitals and nursing homes who are seeking elections. They will join the more than 50,000 other SEIU-UHW members who have already chosen to stay united in SEIU rather than switch to NUHW. More than 70 percent of these workers have already signed public petitions proclaiming their intention to vote for SEIU-UHW when the elections are held.
"NUHW has tried to divide and weaken us while we were fighting to improve things for ourselves and our residents," said Laki Moafanua, an RNA at Millbrae Serra Convalescent Hospital in Millbrae. "We want them out of here."
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HCA Members Help Organize in Nevada
More than 350 healthcare workers at HCA-owned Mountain View Hospital in Las Vegas voted to join eleven other area hospitals in SEIU Nevada in a January 28th election. In their campaign, the service and technical workers highlighted the need for a stronger voice in patient care decisions and for an opportunity to bargain for improvements in scheduling, retirement, and other benefits.
California HCA workers, who are members of SEIU-UHW joined with other SEIU members in securing a majority vote. Workers at Mountain View Hospital have been attempting to organize for 12 years. Having failed to win majority support in '98, and '05.
"It's good to know that when we have to stand up to a huge corporation like HCA, we're not standing alone," said Juan Sanchez, an ER Tech at HCA Riverside Community Hospital. "We're apart of the largest union in the country, and when we have take a stand we have the strength of members across the nation with us."