NUHW wins at Providence Tarzana 282 to 69

First, the vote count:

NUHW: 282 (72.5%)
SEIU: 69 (17.17%)
No union: 38 (9.8%)
Total valid votes (sum of the above the numbers): 389

After the last stalling tactic SEIU met its fate at Providence Tarzana Hospital. Months of bullying, delaying, lieing all amounted to just 69 votes out of 389 valid votes cast, that's just 17.7%. It's a shame what has happened to UHW since the trusteeship, but it's undeniably clear that given the choice between a member led union and one that's used every underhanded and evil tactic to further its own goals, the choice is clear: NUHW. Will the Zombies ever learn from their mistakes? Well first they'd have to admit they made a mistake, and that's a realization that will only occur when they are at their wits end and too many former UHW prisoners have jumped ship. I wonder how they will spin this first of many devastating losses coming this summer and fall.

Thanks to my mystery tipper for forwarding this good news.

What ever happened to the Zombie UHW Report?

I take my Zombie UHW report here at the blog so I thought maybe they had deleted my email address. I guess they are so focused on fighting with and threatening members that the pure propaganda piece is no longer high on their list or priorities. Or maybe they finally realized no one cares what they have to say.

Homecare fraud by the numbers

So the numbers are in from the Great Homecare Scare of 2009/2010. As you may recall from last year's budget fight in Sacramento, the idea of screening homecare providers for criminal convictions was made into law. At first ANY felony conviction would bar a prospective or current provider from working in the program. After a lawsuit was filed, the barring convictions were reduced to just those that defrauded the government, as well as convictions of sexual abuse or child abuse.

Oddly enough convictions in rape, murder, robbery are still "acceptable" to the State. Just wait: next year these will be used to eliminate providers matching this criteria. (Eventually that parking ticket in Boston is going to catch up with, I just know it!) Hmmm, funny how for years the State wanted nothing to do with who did the work. Just do the work, be happy with minimum wage and don't ask for lofty rewards for your hard work like healthcare, sick pay or a pension. At least SEIU was able to bargain some contracts sporting better than minimum wage and worker only benefits. (We'll see how long that lasts!)

But now the legislature passed this law hoping to curb the Governator's 2007 estimate of 25% fraud in the program, only to find out in a study he commissioned that the waste was at best 1%. Now with the cut-off date of June 30, 2010 for current providers behind us we can see just how many of the State's 350,000+ providers are kicked out of the program.

So as of 6/29/2010, 446 out of 396,956 homecare workers are ineligible for employment. That's 0.11% (not a typo and not 11%), or just barely more than 1 in one thousand. Kind of makes all the bad press about homecare seem more like angry propaganda from conservative lawmakers who have no idea bout how the program works, the money it saves or the humanity inherent in living in and being cared for in the home instead of a nursing home. Keep in mind as "independent contractors" we had to pay for our own background checks and fingerprinting. Mine was among the cheapest in Sonoma county $52 for both. Multiply this by hundreds of thousands and you can see the great and bankrupt State of California made the vast majority of underpaid and desperately poor homecare workers pay for the cost of proving their innocence.

It gets worse: in Sonoma County, home of the Red Revolt, we see:

Do you see that? Out of 2719 providers, 1 lost his/her job. Put another way: $52 x 2719 = $141,388, minimum cost paid by the honest providers to disqualify one worker. Can I have my $52 back now? Can we all have our pay to prove we're innocent money back?

I can hardly wait until this year's budget is passed to see what money wasting, provider humiliating anti-fraud laws are forced on the poor and overwhelmingly innocent workers.

"WWIII" begins...

...with the first battle being fought in the Service and Technical group for Kaiser Permanente in Northern California, size unknown as of this writing, but I suspect this is the 48,000+ group we've all been waiting for.

More as it happens. Thanks to retired blogger Sierra Spartan for the tip off.

UDW excels where the Zombies fail

UDW, (United Domestic Workers), the counterpart to SEIU with respect to homecare workers in California have yet again succeeded where the Zombies have failed. The latest example of UDW shining through the muck of state politics and Zombie propaganda is this email I received. The absence of an email from is all the proof I need that the Zombie have abandoned homecare workers in the counties which UHW has contracts. The Zombie aren't even trying to help their dues paying members anymore any more. See Stern Burger's write up on yesterday's failure de jour! I wonder if Erica Boddie still has such an lofty of post trusteeship UHW.

Sacramento rally canceled due to Zombie ultra-fail

I don't feel so bad for missing the rally for work yesterday. I knew attendance would be low but this is just ridiculous! Go check out the link, it's hilarious. You'd think the all powerful and well funded Zombie UHW would be able to handle the simple process of securing a permit before the rally at the state capital. Clearly they are so consumed with defeating NUHW, they can't even pull off a rally at the capital. They used to do several a summer, now, just one and they still messed it up. This is the new, democracy free UHW, home of the slacker. Thanks to Stern Burger for the reporting!

"We just write the rules, we don't follow them"

This is essentially what Memorial management is saying to the workers and the community in which we all live.
They fought 2 different unions organization efforts and lost. The pushed a no union vote and lost. They filed objections about the election and either rescinded them or had them trounced by the NLRB. Yet they still fight the inevitable.

Shame on them! If you are as outraged as me we can all voice our opinion by contacting Sister Katherine Gray, CSJ (General Superior of the Sisters of St. Joseph of Orange), and writing a respectful but unambiguous email stating your concern for Memorial management's disregard for it's own rules, mission statements, and the decision made by voter in December election, we can hopefully and finally get the hospital to behave and move forward instead of backward.

kgray@csjorange.org

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.

Blatantly leading journalism

The Press Democrat, the major local, leading paper, owned by the New York Times, prints what sells, not necessarily what is important or useful to its readers. An example would be the pseudo-random poll of select readers shown below. Is it just me or does this seem like a rigged vote trying to masquerade as poll of potential voters? At least they pointed out this was not a scientific survey, and it is on the opinion page. Perhaps this a last ditch effort to sway voters. Whatever, objective reporting is dead.

A KP "Takeway Committee" Really?!

I don't often quote or even refer to NUHW literature in my ongoing quest to make this blog my own but this caught my eye, because it is one of the few golden NUHW documents based on SEIU-related material. This time it's the benefits takeaway committee. I thought the bargaining committee assembled by SEIU for Sonoma County homecare workers (who were totally unaware of the wool being pulled over their eyes) was a dizzying achievement in presenting member manipulation as member involvement, but here the Zombies have cut members out of the process entirely. Clearly, they aren't even trying to trick their must gullible member supporters. As you will see at the bottom of the first page, the Zombies have agreed to some slippery language, similar to the "contingent upon available funding" found littered in the Sonoma County homecare contract.