SEIU: united by the belief in the dignity and worth of workers and the services they provide, and dedicated to improving the lives of workers and their families and creating a more just and humane society.
Ned Lamont. Donna Edwards. Jon Tester.
Some of the most important moments in our emerging progressive movement have come during primary election campaigns. It's in large part where we have the most leverage to shape the face of the Democratic Party.
That's why SEIU is set to endorse a "Justice for All" platform during our June Convention -- a plan that includes $150 million and a 1/4 of our organizing staff budgeted to win health care, restore the middle class, work towards ending the war, and hold politicians accountable AFTER the election.
This also includes SEIU running and RECRUITING primary challenges in some cases. We consider our support of Donna Edwards to be a dramatic preview of the "Accountability Project."
Learn more about the central issues in the campaign, and how this works.
You should also know that in addition to Donna Edwards, SEIU sponsored a group of relatively unknown pro-worker candidates who ousted seven incumbent Chicago Alderman allied with the Chicago Mayor Daley political machine.
We really hope to foster a partnership with you in this project. SEIU is already a founding member of "They work for us," and we see this as a financial and organizational extension of that commitment.
I'll be around to answer any questions you might have about the program.
~Michelle Ringuette, speaking for the Service Employees International Union (SEIU)
By now you may feel like you've heard quite enough of the back-and-forth between SEIU and the CNA over union representation of nurses and healthcare workers in Ohio. You may have also heard that the dispute runs deep and wide and goes back years and across state lines into Nevada, California, Texas and several others, and that the encounters have become more extreme.
And perhaps you're wondering--why should I care?
If this were just about CNA and SEIU, or even just about a dispute at an isolated hospital in one state, you could move on. The thing is, these struggles are not taking place in a vacuum--and what becomes of them has far-reaching impact that touches us all. At a time when the economy is bad and getting worse, and the number of workers represented by a union in this country is an anemic 12%, labor unions face a choice...and workers everywhere face the consequences.
Unions can fight for turf within the ever-shrinking pool of unionized workers, or we can get back on the offensive by reaching out to help more workers join unions to strengthen the hand of more working families.
Lately there have been lots of stories in the press and the blogs about the California Nurse's Association (CNA). The stories tell about how this "militant," nurse-only union has been breaking up other union's organizing efforts and marching into unionized hospitals in Houston, Los Angeles, and Las Vegas to convince the nurses that they should decertify and join with CNA instead.
It's a sad and confusing story. One union fighting over another union's members? But it's also a critical story to understand so that we can put an end to it and start building the kind of worker-friendly union movement that we all really need in America right now.
In an effort to move beyond the rhetoric that is flying around the blogosphere, I wanted to pass along this testimonial written by Susan Horne, RN. Susan is a nurse at Mt. Airy Hospital in Cincinnati, Ohio who was on the ER ward when CNA organizers stormed the place with anti-union, anti-SEIU flyers days before the entire hospital staff was scheduled to vote to join with SEIU and establish the first-ever union there. This Ohio CNA incident---also well documented in the news--happened about a month ago. Here is Susan Horne's account.
CNA Doesn't Speak for Us; Stay Out of Our Hospitals
After more than three years of struggle to stand up for ourselves and have a chance to form a union at Mercy Mt. Airy hospital in Cincinnati, my colleagues and I were robbed. Days before a vote for union representation with the Service Employees International Union (SEIU), a group of aggressive out-of-state organizers with the California Nurses Association (CNA) swarmed our ER hallways making the environment so toxic that we had to call the vote off.
Some of us were already planning the negotiations around retirement, staffing, and overtime when the CNA organizers showed up and started harassing us. They called the work phone numbers of the nurses on the floor. They blanketed the place with union-busting flyers and even tried bribing our staff with pizza just to urge us to vote against SEIU. It was disgusting.
I suppose I would understand if the union-busting came from management or even if it had come from union dissenters within our own staff. But for an outside group that doesn't know anything about our struggle, it just doesn't make sense.
CNA hasn't been here for the past three years while we've been organizing for our rights. We talked with our colleagues, spoke in churches, and met with community leaders and priests who could help us hospital workers take a stand and set up a union for all Mt Airy staff. We were excited about joining with SEIU and uniting all the hospital workers (not just registered nurses) for a chance to improve patient care, hospital efficiency, and the overall quality of life for caregivers and our patients. If the union vote succeeded, it wasn't just going to be the nurses or the maintenance workers divided into their own union factions. In our experiences, it's only when all the hospital staff has equal protections and rights that we can deliver high quality care as a unified team.
Even if CNA has a different strategy for organizing, they had no right to storm our facilities and intervene in our affairs. Those out-of-state organizers don't know anything about my life, about my struggle or about the progress that we've been making here. They just came out of nowhere--for no clear reason--to take away our chance for a voice.
I can't begin to express my disappointment and my confusion over such a cruel and misplaced attack, and I hope and pray that we will get another chance to vote for union representation.
In the meantime, my conscience will not allow me to remain on the sidelines while I stand witness to injustice. And that's why I'm speaking out. I speak for my closest colleagues when I say to CNA and their team of bullies, shame on you. Shame on you for pretending to speak for us and pretending to represent our needs. And shame on you for tarnishing our honest hard work with your petty political games.
- Susan Horne, RN
For more information on CNA's actions, you can check out www.ShameonCNA.com. I also hope to post another account later today from an Ohio nurse who has been in California trying to speak with CNA Excecutive Offers and staff about what CNA did to her and her colleagues in Ohio. Since coming to California and having first hand experience of similar CNA tactics in LA County hospitals, Sue is demoralized and wants to share her thoughts. Stay tuned.
- Ali Jost, SEIU Staff (writing in place of Michelle Ringuette-also an SEIU staff member)
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