I wanted to update readers here since my last two diaries, Gina and democracy is a muscle were written on either side of an essay called United Healthcare Workers: Holding our Ground by Amy Thigpen, a healthcare worker writing from the about-to-be-taken-over offices of her union, SEIU-UHW West.
So much has happened since that time. So much is about to happen. I'd like to share a bit of that with you...
On April 25th of 700 healthcare workers met at the historic Everett Middle School in San Francisco to shape the future of their union, NUHW, the National Union of Healthcare Workers.
Carl Finamore, reporting from that convention in an essay that serves as an excellent introduction to NUHW's founding principles, wrote:
It’s not every day that a new national union is formed in the United States. But that’s exactly what happened on April 25 in San Francisco. If the National Union of Healthcare Workers (NUHW) turns out as planned, it’s a date for the history books.
"You will be able to tell your grandchildren in years to come," NUHW leader Sal Rosselli boldly predicted to 700 cheering delegates, "that you attended the founding convention of a five-million member healthcare workers’ union."
The convention approved a Constitution and elected interim officers which are basic legal requirements for certification by the Federal government. Provisions of the new Constitution include the right to elect and recall officers and stewards, regular membership meetings and an extensive steward structure and training program.
They are now off and running with their first scheduled election only a few weeks away.
At stake are 10,000 homecare workers employed by the California county of Fresno, four hours south of San Francisco. It’s a contest that pits the upstart NUHW directly against the powerful two million member Service Employees International Union (SEIU), the bargaining representative of the Fresno group.
These public workers are very dissatisfied with SEIU’s plan to place them in a separate local divided from other union healthcare workers at hospitals and clinics across California.
Displacing such a formidable opponent will test NUHW’s capacities and viability. It is arguably the most important union election in the country.
The reason Carl argues that NUHW's member-led, worker-empowered model is so important is because labor stands at a crossroads. At question is whether a top-down, corporate-alliance-making model (the model favored by Andy Stern's SEIU) will prevail, or whether a grassroots, bottom-up, democratic model will shape the future of the American labor movement.
The difference is fundamental and can be expressed in a simple question: Do workers' have an authentic voice and vote in the decisions and contracts that shape their lives?
As Carl Finamore wrote:
As part of their efforts to expand the union power base, a massive steward training and education program was launched. Individual worksite steward councils were formed and met regularly. These formations are encoded in the NUHW Constitution.
The combination of education, training and delegation of duties both inspired and prepared members to take more active responsibility for enforcing their rights. Workers on the job obviously have a more direct relationship with the employer and potentially can collectively exert far more pressure than individual staff representatives.
It is a philosophy that believes the union apparatus should encourage and support members at the base where real union power lives rather than headquarters’ staff viewing themselves as the primary source of power within the union.
Under this new approach adopted some years ago by SEIU UHW-West, the union’s extensive and experienced staff reinforced rather than substituted for the new worksite leadership. As a result, members gained confidence and would not automatically defer to union officials.
In essence, these policies democratized the union and made it stronger. Years of leadership training produced hundreds of informed, articulate and active unionists, many of whom were seen and heard at the founding convention of NUHW.
NUHW, the new union that I work for argues that workers are most powerful when they are in control of their union and their contracts. Elected bargaining committees and worker leadership and training form the centerpiece of NUHW's model. SEIU's approach to negotiations is to fly in bargaining teams from Washington D.C. SEIU simply doesn't trust workers. In fact, when SEIU trusteed SEIU-UHW West they spent $2 million in members' dues money on expensive security firms to "defend" themselves from members of their own union! That smells.
Top-down versus bottom-up is a struggle that we are all familiar with. Most of you know me as an ardent advocate for Barack Obama and his community-organizing approach to politics. That grassroots, community-organizing approach to politics is precisely why NUHW is a good fit for me.
On one side of the election in Fresno are workers who have banded together to demand a voice in bargaining their contracts. 2,500 of 10,000, or 25%, of Fresno homecare workers petitioned to leave SEIU and join NUHW, that was 1,000 more petition signatures than the 15% that were needed. Those signatures were gathered worker-to-worker doing grassroots organizing. In homecare elections, where a high turnout is 30% of the total workers, those 2,500 signatures speak volumes about the will of Fresno's homecare workers.
On the other side is a union that uses highly-paid consultants, robo-calls, slick mailers, expensive blogads and have flown in organizers from out-of-state to subvert the democratic will of Fresno's homecare workers. SEIU is powerful. Witness their omnipresent ads and press releases. But hype is no substitute for democracy. When an arbitration was held on Fresno homecare workers' future, SEIU locked the elected bargaining unit of its own union out. A respected SEIU staffer resigned in protest of this decision. He wasn't the first.
The bottom line in Fresno is this: the reason there is an election in Fresno is because the workers demanded one.
On June 1st Fresno's homecare workers will have a choice to make about their future. Carl Finamore is right, that election is the most important union election in the country. I can tell you that tonight, Fresno's homecare workers are reaching out, worker-to-worker, all over Fresno County, to build a powerful grassroots movement that is very much the David to the Goliath that is SEIU.
You can help Fresno's homecare workers by doing two things.
First, visit our website, NUHW.org.
Second, if you are persuaded that these workers deserve your support, join NUHW's Facebook Solidarity page.
Thanks for reading. I look forward to sharing more about the workers building NUHW with you.