A majority of hospital workers want to decertify the SEIU-UHW, but the union and NLRB are doing all they can to stop it, says worker.
A majority of workers represented by the Service Employees International Union-United Healthcare Workers West (SEIU-UHW) at a hospital in California who are trying to kick the union out of their workplace are facing repeated roadblocks being thrown at them by the union, as well as the National Labor Relations Board, according to one of the workers.
Three years ago, the SEIU-UHW unionized USC Verdugo Hills Hospital in Glendale, California. Since then, however, the union has allegedly failed to live up to the promises of pay raises and free health care it had promised.
“They were promising us these big raises and these great benefits, but they went and pretty much accepted the first contract they were offered. They didn’t really help us or protect us at all,” Andrew Brown, a surgical buyer at the hospital who never wanted union representation, told the LA Times.
In October, during the 30-day window period before the union’s contract expired, Brown and his co-workers filed a decertification petition with the NLRB.
However, the NLRB dismissed the petition because the petition was allegedly filed two days after the window-period closed.
Then, once the union’s contract was finally expired, the workers re-filed their decertification petition with the NLRB again.
However, the NLRB is still refusing to hold a decertification because the SEIU-UHW has filed unfair labor practice charges, accusing the hospital of helping the employees, as well as bad-faith bargaining.
The filing of “blocking charges”—so named because they block employees ability to vote—is a common tactic used by unions when facing employee decertification efforts.
Brown said that all he wants is a secret election, so employees can express their views about SEIU, “but the union and NLRB are working overtime to prevent that from happening.”
