Memorial saga continues...

Apparently it's not enough that the workers at Memorial have been organizing, waiting and fighting management for more than 6 years to join a union. Throw in 2 competing unions, a substantial "no union" effort backed by Memorial management vote, unending delays, appeals and psychological warfare from management, despite their own commitment to abide by the workers choice and you can see Memorial management is proving the unthinkable is possible by treating it's own employees worse than the Zombies treat it's own members.

First is Randy Shaw's article at BeyondChron.

As beautifully pointed out by Randy Shaw at BeyondChron, Memorial management has yet again taken the low road and further delayed the inevitable union-negotiated contract between the voters who won the election and the ever profitable Saint Joseph Health Systems. How profitable? On December 7, 2009, just 10 days before the election they bought a building they don't have immediate plans for. This recreational shopping at its finest folks!

However, the news isn't all bad NUHW is the official and exclusive bargaining agent for Santa Rosa Memorial workers, again.

* * *

Sorry about the delay in reporting this (and the other postings today): I just finished 8 days in a row at my new job. In an economy where unemployment is10% nationwide I feel fortunate to have 2 jobs; however working homecare and delivering pizza to western Santa Rosa is no road to riches. Also, today marks the first year of marriage so I'm catching up on my blogging and then spending time with my sweetie.

Final 4 management objections for Memorial workers soundly rejected by NLRB

The story so far: an organizing effort for approximately 700 workers occurred over the last 6 years, under the direction of the old SEIU UHW. The trusteeship of the SEIU UHW happened and the organizing effort suddenly stopped. The 160+ employees of UHW who quit in disgust formed NUHW and after reconnecting with the workers at Memorial picked up where SEIU left off after abandoning them in August 2009. An election was scheduled, SEIU came late to the party and demanded to be allowed in. Despite dire warnings that if allowed onto the ballot, SEIU would lose by a landslide, SEIU insisted on forcing themselves onto the ballot.  The cool kids had to let them play, and so the election was scheduled. Officially, SEIU wanted felt they were the better union for many lame reasons no one remembers or cares about but unofficially they knew had no chance of winning the election so they pushed the no union vote, because you see, in their eyes, no union is better than a competing union especially one created from former employees that are winning the hearts, minds and votes of soon to be former members and prospective members. Suffice it to say when the votes were counted the underdog NUHW won by a landslide (283-13).

* * *

The final four objections to the election for Memorial workers were soundly defeated by the NLRB Wednesday. As you may recall Memorial management backed off of 6 of their 10 objections, and after the Administrative Law Judge reviewed Memorial managements case the remaining 4 were dismissed by the NLRB.

The ruling above is 32 pages long and quite detailed, but after an exhaustive description of each objection the Adminstrative Law Judge deftly dismisses the objection. My favorite: the "scientific experiment" that almost completely misses the point and proves to be a complete waste of expert witness testimony not to mention money!

NUHW won the election. Of the 10 objections filed by the employer they dropped 6 and the remaining 4 were dismissed by the NLRB. Clearly the workers have won so why the resistance? Memorial management has taken a position similar to a death penalty defense, by using every legal means to delay the inevitable and annoy the workers, but even they have to admit the writing is on the wall. An appeal is sure to come, unless every reader expresses their disgust with management's actions thus far. Call, write or possibly protest (no plans yet) to make sure they don't file an appeal.


Kevin Klockenga, CEO, 546-3210
Debra Miller's, Vice President of Human Resources, 525-5225

Or write to either of them at:

1165 Montgomery Drive
Santa Rosa, California 95405

Does anyone have the extension to the CEO's voicemail?

Zombies catch election fever

A little background to explain why the Zombies are all of a sudden struck with election fever.

Post-trusteeship, the former leaders of UHW formed NUHW and quickly got down to the task of orchestrating the members gathering signatures for decertification of the newly Zombie-fied UHW. The Zombies naturally filed blocking charges to slow down, frustrate and hold their members hostage indefinitely. It appears that Zombies took stock of what they had to deal with (an underdog union supported by devoted UHW members dying to get out of the Zombies deathgrip, more than 100 community and political leaders supporting a fair and free from intimidation election, and losing 7 out of 9 elections in 2009) and reasoned that if they are going to win an election this year they had better focus their efforts on facilities where NUHW support is weaker, hence their appeal to the NLRB. NUHW viewed this as the Zombies trying to manipulate election scheduling, which ought to be handled by the NLRB with no bias for any party, be it union or employer, and tried to appeal to the NLRB's sense of reason. Unfortunately this request was not honored and the Zombies view NUHW's actions as being anti-member. Lame for sure.

* * *

Shown below is the Zombies attempt to prove substantial member backing for their desperate plea in getting NUHW to back off decert elections.  The astute reader will notice a none-too-clever attempt by the Zombies to increase the number of signatures.

A quick glance at the signatures in the right hand column shows that the first 5 listed are the same as the last 5! C'mon Zombies at least move the signatures around a little bit and make me work a bit for these blog
-entries...you make it too easy! I guess the proofreader was at lunch when this gem was pushed out via the UHW Report. Tasty over at Stern Burger with Fries, notes that this leaves 52 unique signatures. I wonder about the authenticity of these unique signatures since I am not able to match signatures to faces of people I know. Given the Zombies propensity for deceit it seems reasonable that some of these signatures could be forgeries.

So 52 signatures at 51 facilities...does this mean that there is one signature for 50 facilities and a staggering 2 for the remaining facility? Or did the Zombie(s) charged with collecting these signatures get smart and visit just a few facilities to round up a bunch of signatures? Either way the Zombies are desperate to publicize the names of their few supporters, no matter how pathetic that support looks. How pathetic could their support be? Heh heh heh, read on.

* * *

The Zombies, being a shifty group of sellouts, scabs and fighters fond of backhanding actually make things a whole lot worse for themselves by issuing a press release about most of the facilities where elections are soon to be scheduled.

When one compares the list of facilities shown in the open letter to those shown in the press release a number of discrepancies appear. First off are the facilities that appeared in the open letter but are not shown in the press release:

• Brookside Skilled Nursing Hospital
• Emerald Gardens Nursing Center
• Gilroy Healthcare and Rehab Center
• Golden Living Center - Fresno
• Grant Cuesta Sub-Acute and Rehab Center
• Heritage Care Center
• Home for Jewish Parents
• McClure Convalescent
• Northgate Care Center
• Palo Alto Nursing Center
• St. Francis Convalescent Pavilion
• St. Francis Heights Convalescent Hospital
• Valley Point Nursing Center
• Willow Tree Nursing Center

Is this an oversight or more likely a realization that these 14 facilities are still very much pro NUHW?

Second are the facilities they've added:

• Centinela Hospital Medical Center (Inglewood)
• Clovis Convalescent Hospital
• Creekside Care Center (Heritage) (Stockton)
• Enloe Medical Center (Crothall)
• In-Home Supportive Services Consortium (San Francisco)
• O'Connor Hospital (San Jose)
• Prison Health Services (Dublin)
• Saint Louise Regional Hospital (Gilroy)
• St. Francis Medical Center (Lynwood)
• Sutter Delta Medical Center (Antioch)
• Sutter Eden Medical Center (Castro Valley)
• Sutter Solano Medical Center (Vallejo)
• Tiburcio Vasquez Health Center (Hayward)

They have picked up 13 facilities totaling 4,080 members. Looks good for the Zombies, right? Well I have 3 things for you to keep in mind:

1. in the press release, the number of members shown after each facility doesn't indicate support for the Zombies; it's merely a count of the number of workers eligible to vote,
2. in the open letter, the number of workers at the 14 facilities listed above don't show their member count so a net loss or gain in voters is impossible to determine, and
3. net loss for facilities: 1

When one considers the open letter and the press release a startling fact can be derived: of the 6715 voting member, just 52 signed the open letter. That's just 0.77% -- less than one percent and folks, that's messed up. Zombies: if members are truly happy with your dismal representation, where's the support to back it up? There is virtually no member support for staying with the Zombies, period. At Memorial you lost badly: 21 NUHW votes for each SEIU vote. How badly do you think you are going to go down in this dress rehearsal for the Kaiser election this June? Tasty was right: math is hard!

NLRB decides in favor of Memorial workers; recap of employer objections hearing

After just four days of NLRB hearings, replete with conflicting witness accounts and relentless attempts to delay the inevitable the NLRB performed a lightning quick turn around on and dismissal of the unfair labor practices charges Memorial management filed.

Check out the NLRB's dismissal below then check out what NUHW has to say about remaining 4 objections brought about by Memorial management and what's next for workers.

(Click to super size above letter.)

Here's NUHW's recap of the hearing, and prospects on future actions. The most shocking part of this recap: the amount of money Memorial management spent on a very expensive expert witness testimony that failed to offer an opinion in management's favor. Image what that sum of money could have been better spent on. Oh, let me count the ways....

(Click to super size above flier.)

So perhaps not the last hurdle I had hoped it would be; however, when these hurdles are confronted they are easily cleared. I'm sure management is going to throw their own employees under the bus at every turn, by spending obscene amounts of cash to frustrate and delay the workers choice to unionize just so they can satisfy top management's need for ever bigger bonuses, dictatorial control, and downsizing in the name of "efficient" patient care. Stay strong fellow healthcare workers, you're almost at the end of this election dismissing nonsense!

Community support for Memorial continues... (part 3)

Who can figure out what the Press Democrat will print, especially when it's letters to the editor. It seems to me half the time I glance at the paper on the way out of the grocery store I see the median price of homes in Sonoma county as the above-the-fold story. We have some real news here and they can barely get it together to print a few letters to the editor. Recently they published a little and none too well researched article about the hospital's allegations of misconduct by NUHW and Labor Board agents itself. Seriously folks, Memorial management backed out of 6 of the 10 objections they submitted, not the NLRB, but somehow this is not newsworthy. Anyway, here's what little coverage it did get and better yet a couple letters to the editor that don't pull any punches.

 

Too bad the PD editor can't be bothered with presenting the voices of the community, as shown below.

Dear Editor:

I was shocked at the spare and biased article regarding the Santa Rosa Memorial Hospital Union elections.  It announced this Monday's National Labor Relations Board (NLRB) hearing to address hospital management's complaints that the union which employees have been STRUGGLING TO BRING TO MEMORIAL FOR FIVE YEARS clearly won.  Managements captive audience meetings to discourage workers from voting pro union failed.  MILLIONS OF DOLLARS spent by the "intervening" union, SEIU, failed to split the pro union ticket.  Out of 600+ eligible votes, SEIU got 13 even though they had filled the Petaluma Sheraton Hotel with paid "union organizers" brought in from all over the country.

Now management has bought time in order to deteriorate working conditions.  This is in preparations for the up coming dreaded legitimately won labor negotiations.  Their lawyers' tactics appear to be "Throw any allegations you can think of at the union.  Something is bound to stick."  But those I consider Memorial managements' partners in crime, SEIU, would not agree to ANY rules of conduct prior to the election.  NUHW fiercely tried to come to some sort of decent arrangement with management. But thanks to intervening Johny-come-lately union SEIU, no rules of conduct could be had.

The complaint that NUHW supporters were electioneering by wearing emblems, t-shirts, buttons and the like is particularly amusing to me.  Memorial is a Catholic hospital.  Some of the clergy were wearing NUHW buttons and such.  At least one of them was a Monsignor.  An open letter of support for Memorial Hospital's employees labor union organizing from Catholic Academics is on file.  Why was none of this information included in the article?

I was there the night of the vote count.  It was going to be held in a large conference room in the main hospital building.  At the last minute, perhaps because too many community people (like me) showed up, it was moved to a small trailer across the street.  Greeting us at the door was a security guard and the hospital's lawyer.  NUHW's lawyer had to ARGUE his way in to observe the count.  NLRB reps witnessed this nonsense.  We Memorial Hospital Employees' supporters deferred entry to employees, but even some of them were turned away.  This is clearly a case of the pot (management) calling the kettle (NUHW) black.  

Why do I care???  Because I look forward to the day we have an election in Sonoma County IHSS so we can throw the SEIU bums out.   They stripped us of our leadership, colluded with the governor to trash our contracts, harass us workers, and are talking of raising our union dues to boot.  I don't want to give them one red cent, let alone a raise.  They give unionizing a very very bad name.  I want my NUHW leadership back.  It's a union I do believe in.

Sincerely,

Mrs. Elsa Stevens

Here's another.

Dear Editor;

I am writing in disbelief of Bleys Rose's "Hearing Set for Memorial Workers", February 6.

First of all, why was there no pro-union comments from the SRMH workers?  A hearing is really unnecessary and could be avoided due to the following facts:

 Hospital management filed objections with the National Labor Relations Board,(NLRB), which have no significance. They had confirmed that the majority of employees who voted, did so to form a union with NUHW.  However, weeks before and up to the election voting day, SRMH Management had meetings to try to persuade workers to vote against a union, and refused to comply with the Fair Election Oversight Commission, (FEOC), who are community members, whose role was and is to defend the employee's right to understand about forming a union in an workplace that would be null of intimidation, misinformation and pressure tactics., as well as helping set ground rules for the election.  Instead, management held anti-union meetings, with one-sided misleading information on strikes, bargaining, and dues.,further creating undue pressure and stress on their employees prior to voting, etc.

They now need in all good conscience to finally respect the worker's decision and begin to bargain in good faith without further delay, and respect their employee's final decision to form a union with NUHW...

Management and St. Joseph Health System is going against their own "principles" of dignity, service, excellence and justice by contradicting themselves, having promised that: "If workers held a secret ballot election through the NLRB, they would stand steadfast by their decision."  This history making vote and victory by SRMH workers should be celebrated !

I and other elected officials as well as community leaders believe that SRMH Management needs to withdraw the remaining objections and end this unnecessary conflict so that a fair contract can benefit everyone.

Andria Callas

Last hurdle for Memorial workers?

The Memorial workers are a patient group. First, they approached SEIU for unionization about 7 years ago; later came the backing of the US Conference of Catholic Bishops. Uncharacteristic of UHW at the time they were kicked to the curb by the Zombies around the time the trusteeship came down. Of course they tried to blame NUHW but all the Zombies had to do was pick up the phone and say "we've been a  little busy adjusting to our new management here in Oakland, but we're ready to continue our efforts". But as shown here they did...nothing! So when the good folks at Memorial were approached by NUHW to continue their unionization efforts, this awoke the Zombie beast with an onslaught of pricey and very ineffective mailers. Throw in some turkey, cake and a "this is the only support we're giving you" rally and you could see why they were both exhausted and yet very ready to vote for NUHW.

It appears all that's left is a hearing to discuss (and hopefully resolve) the remaining 4 of management's original 10 objections. They've recanted 6 of their objections probably to avoid the embarrassment of having them dismissed by the NLRB. Here are the remaining 4 objections.

 

(click image above to read all objections)

FULL DISCLOSURE: the above referenced document was originally 9 pages but the pages discussing the contested votes were removed to prevent further publicizing the names of the contested voters.

I can't believe "font and font styles" (#9) as well as the Board agents failing to man handle voters (#8) complaints remain. However, it is what it is and the workers would sincerely appreciate a strong turn out at the Federal Building at 777 Sonoma Ave (at D Street), Santa Rosa. The hearing will begin at 9:00 a.m. on Monday, February 22 in Room 215 and will likely run all of Monday and into Tuesday.

So read the modified complaints and show up to the hearing next Monday at 9. See you there!

One step closer to a contract for Memorial workers

Hey everybody, I have some great news to share with you.

The election at Memorial has finally been resolved. This is the final, authoritative and definitive response I was waiting for. What we all felt in our hearts December 18, now has the backing of the slowly waking up to the SEIU-induced nonsense NLRB.

I'd like to highlight my favorite part



It reads:

The remaining undetermined challenged ballots, if any, shown in the Final Tally column are (not) sufficient to affect the results of the election. A majority of the valid votes plus challenged ballots as shown in the Final Tally column has (not) been cast for NUHW.

So, despite the best efforts of the Zombies and the Memorial Bridge "let's just deal with management directly" folks, the voice of the majority has been heard. NUHW is in, the Zombies are out. The next and hopefully final hurdle is a hearing to resolve the remaining 4 of the original 10 objections submitted by Memorial management.

Yeah Memorial workers, you're one step closer

Once again Internet newshound Andria Callas scoops all the bloggers be sending me the link to the article shown below. Turns out the NLRB has officially confirmed the 12 of the 17 contested ballots at the recent landslide election for union representation for 675 workers at Memorial were ineligible and therefore will have no effect on the election. Now, on to these lame objections filed by the hospital itself.

NLRB moves quick-ish to resolve Memorial contested ballots

Tim Peck of the NLRB stated:

We sent letters to both contenders to see if the parties would resolve their ballot challenge differences voluntarily with a requirement that they reply on or before Dec. 29. There will be no certification of the election until ballot challenge issues are resolved.

which is must quicker than I expected, especially since the Zombies, with their disgraceful 13 votes didn't want to do the right thing for their organization, their dues paying members or anyone else involved in this slow-motion train wreck and just throw in the towel after the beating the received Friday night.