Cindy Walsh blogs during the week and on weekends posts political actions and while the elections are on-----the election process!
BALTIMORE HAS MANY LABOR AND JUSTICE LEADERS THAT REALLY WORK TO GAIN A VOICE FOR ALL PEOPLE. I AM RECOGNIZING JUST A FEW IN THIS MONTH OF LABOR AND JUSTICE-----MAY 2014
PLEASE SUPPORT THESE GROUPS WITH DONATIONS AND YOUR PRESENCE AT PROTESTS AND RALLIES!
Margaret Flowers is a powerhouse of an activist and she is now focused on ending net neutrality. This is the most important issue in a time of important issues-----right up there with Trans Pacific Trade Pact....TPP. Check Margaret's activist websites-----Clearing the Fog, Expanded and Improved Medicare for All, and Flush the TPP among others! These are the media and pundits labor and justice need to turn to as corporate media is no longer telling the truth.
Share this to show your support for the dedicated people who are sleeping out in front of the FCC day and night to demand Net Neutrality and an equal internet for all! http://cms.fightforthefuture.org/save-internet — with Alan Dawson and 9 others.
Morning visit from Homeland Security with Margaret Margaret F...Back to AlbumPrevious ·
Flush the TPP's photo.
While communities from Manila to Kuala Lumpur protested President Obama's trip to finalize the TPP and build up U.S. military presence in the Asia Pacific region, Philippine human rights activists and trade justice allies took over the Office of the U.S. Trade Representative to demand #USOutOfAsPac and make it clear that #AsPacNot4Sale!
________________________________________
I love these actions but the labor leader Fred Mason of the MD AFL-CIO should not be there pretending to be against all these labor abuses while pushing to elect the corporate pols doing the damage. We need labor and justice organizations to
WAKE UP-----SHAKE THE LABOR AND JUSTICE LEADERSHIP OUT AS THEY ARE CAPTURED BY CORPORATE INTERESTS!
Tom Dodge with the Post Office union is a great labor leader in Maryland. We thank he and the Post Office union for shouting out against Post Office privatization.
#MayDay in Baltimore w/ Tom Dodge of Community & Postal Workers United
Published on May 2, 2014
This May Day in Baltimore the Community and Postal Workers United accompanied the People's Power Assembly at McKeldin Square near the Inner Harbor of Baltimore. They marched to the main Post Office to protest the privatization services to the Stapes office supply store at 82 locations in Georgia, Southern California, Pennsylvania, and Massachusetts.
Tom Dodge of the Community and Postal Workers United group explains that this will result in the closures of post offices. Training of postal handling has been greatly diminished as he says, "Staples employees get 4 hours of training, postal employees get 2 weeks of training." Mr. Dodge suggests this poses a security risk to the general public, "What if somebody puts something dangerous in the mail?"
After more than a decade of the federal government tightening security, times are changing. Austerity and privatization is now the priority of federal agendas from the White House and throughout congress in reducing spending.
For more information: http://cpwunited.com/home & http://peoplespowerassemblies.org/
__________________________________________
Unite Here 7 in Maryland is doing a great job in shouting out for low-wage workers. We thank them for their strong activism!!!
AIRMALL USA: The Wrong Choice for Your Airport
uniteherevideos·30 videos
37 301+ views 3 0 Published on May 5, 2014
The AIRMALL-managed concessions program at the Baltimore-Washington International Airport (BWI) has been embroiled in a labor dispute for almost a year-and-half. UNITE HERE has produced a short video that presents some of the public criticism AIRMALL has received from workers and elected officials in Maryland.
_________________________________________
Red Emma's does a good job in giving voice on important issues and a meeting place for open discussion.
As a social democrat wanting people to get out an vote----I do hope these groups get out and vote.
Red Emma's Bookstore Coffeehouse's photo. May 7 · Edited
Today
at 7:30pm
Starts in about 11 hours · 60°F Mostly Cloudy
Show Map
Red Emma's Bookstore Coffeehouse
30 W. North Avenue, Baltimore, Maryland 21201
As Silicon Valley continues to hypergentrify San Francisco, people like Fred Sherburn-Zimmer are fighting back—blocking evictions, calling out speculative landlords and predatory tech executives, and blocking the private transportation buses that are facilitating the transformation of a great city into the playground of the neoliberal elite. Don't miss this chance to hear directly from an organizer with Eviction Free SF!
__________________________________________
Sharon Black and the People's Power Assembly does a great job organizing for awareness in Baltimore. We see below that protesters were arrested for simple organizing efforts and then let go. This is intimidation and is common in Baltimore as well. When peaceful and legal protest is threatened with intimidation and jailing by police------YOU NO LONGER HAVE THOSE RIGHTS AS CITIZENS!
Caravan starts in LA and comes through Baltimore!
Sharon Black with Lee Patterson and Steven Ceci
23 hrs ·
ARRESTED FOR ORGANIZING - ALL CHARGES DROPPED TODAY! VICTORY
Lee Patterson, a retired government worker and Steven Ceci, a low wage tipped worker in the picture were falsely arrested... See MoreARRESTED FOR ORGANIZING - ALL CHARGES DROPPED TODAY! VICTORY
Lee Patterson, a retired government worker and Steven Ceci, a low wage tipped worker in the picture were falsely arrested in Washington D.C. while legally putting up posters for ... See More — with Lee Patterson and Steven Ceci.
_____________________________________________
United Workers does a great job in building structures for people to have a voice. We thank them for their activism.
Join United Workers for a night of fun, food and celebration!
It has been an incredible year in the life of the United Workers. Please join us to celebrate amazing leaders, and breakthroughs in the Fair Development Campaign. Along with our human rights champion awards, this year's event will be special in that we create a Dinner Theater where guests will be treated to excerpts from Anu Yadav's play "Meena's Dream". Her play grapples with complexities of poverty, immigration and our inadequate healthcare system.
Tickets are $20 and can be purchased in advance on EventBrite- http://www.eventbrite.com/e/united-workers-9th-annual-human-rights-dinner-tickets-11470676101?aff=erelexporg
We look forward to celebrating with you!
_____________________________________________
The Baltimore Black Think Tank does a great job in shouting out truth to power. They are focused on civil rights and liberties and rebuilding the public justice in Baltimore and Maryland-----a TOP PRIORITY FOR ALL JUSTICE ORGANIZATIONS.
While I do not support republicans or some of the issues this group embraces-----I do recognize the value of their voices and actions! Thanks to the Black Think Tank for all their work.
Duane 'Shorty' Davis and Anthony Wiggins are the voice of justice.
Doni Morton Glover: I heard your cries, and frustration with the political status quo in Baltimore City and Maryland, if your objective is to hold the entrenched incumbents accountable for their fraud, waste, abuse, malfeasance, misfeasance and complicity through Jim Crow in Blackface---then, please support WIGGINS FOR SHERIFF OF BALTIMORE CITY 2014.
_________________________________________
Labor unions are taking a corporate structure as they restructure to embrace Trans Pacific Trade Pact and global corporate rule. With credit unions that give out credit cards acting like Wall Street banks national labor union leaders are now backing the most neo-liberal of candidates.
WE THE PEOPLE NEED LABOR UNIONS SO WE NEED TO SHAKE THE CORPORATE OUT OF ARE LEADERSHIP!
MARYLAND IS PARTICULARLY BAD WITH CORPORATE UNION LEADERS.
SEIU Pledges $40 Million For Bosses, Negotiates Bad Deal For Workers
Educate! Worker Rights and Jobs
By Staff, sternburgerwithfries.blogspot.com
May 8th, 2014
Powered by Translate 20
Here’s the latest news — including a new article in the Wall Street Journal — about Dave Regan’s ongoing attempt to cut a sweetheart “partnership” deal with the California Hospital Association (CHA).
Dave Regan and Duane Dauner
During recent days, SEIU-UHW’s Regan has been in active discussions with the CHA, headed by CEO Duane Dauner, about a possible partnership deal. According to the WSJ and Tasty’s sources, the following are some of the specifics under discussion:
Hospital CEOs would allow Regan to unionize 50,000 California hospital workers, without any employer opposition, in exchange for Regan’s agreement to force the workers into cheap, pre-negotiated contracts with low wages and benefits along with a lengthy ban on strikes.
Furthermore, Regan has agreed to sweeten the bosses’ pot by depositing $40 million of SEIU-UHW members’ dues money into an “advocacy fund” that the CEOs would use to promote a California ballot initiative to boost taxpayer-funded Medicaid payments to hospitals by billions of dollars a year.
Regan’s goal, of course, is to cement SEIU-UHW’s role as nothing less than the boss’s union. Here’s how Regan describes it to the WSJ:
Dave Regan, president of the SEIU’s United Healthcare Workers West,… said Friday that the union has been talking with the hospital association for more than two years to… “create a totally different paradigm for the way unions and employers deal with each other.”
If implemented, Regan’s cheap, pre-negotiated contracts for the 50,000 workers would sharply undercut the standards of already-unionized workers — including SEIU-UHW’s own members — and would accelerate the downward spiral of concessionary bargaining that Regan launched after the Purple Palace seized control of SEIU-UHW in 2009.
Since parachuting into the Golden State, Regan has slashed health benefits and eliminated the defined-benefit pensions for tens of thousands of workers atDignity Health, the Daughters of Charity Health System, and other companies.
At Kaiser Permanente, Regan has slashed the retiree health benefits for 43,000 SEIU-UHW members and has reportedly signed a secret side letter to eliminate workers’ pensions and cut their health benefits.
If Regan succeeds in banning 50,000 newly organized workers from striking, he’ll handcuff them into cheap contracts that’ll cut the legs out from underneath from already-unionized workers. Only an idiot — or someone who’s completely sold out to the CEOs — would commit such a blunder.
Here’s the full article from the Wall Street Journal
Wall Street Journal
SEIU, California Hospitals in Talks on Cooperative Deal
Health-Care Union Could Boost Its Ranks, Support Medicaid-Payment Ballot Initiative By MELANIE TROTTMAN and CHRIS MAHER
The nation’s biggest health-care union and the California hospital industry are in talks on a deal that could allow the union to boost its ranks by thousands with the cooperation of management, according to documents reviewed by The Wall Street Journal.
As part of the continuing negotiations, the Service Employees International Union and the California Hospital Association also would jointly support a ballot initiative to increase Medicaid payments to hospitals by as much as $6 billion a year, the documents show.
The latest talks came after the SEIU threatened late last year to push ballot measures far less palatable to hospitals ?including capping executive pay and limiting how much hospitals could charge consumers. Under a union proposal made to the association last week, the labor giant would withdraw support for those initiatives in exchange for hospitals providing SEIU access to employees during an organizing drive of tens of thousands of workers, the documents show.
The SEIU has been trying to negotiate an agreement for several years in which California hospitals agree to cooperate in part with an organization drive. So-called neutrality agreements are a common tactic in labor. In many such agreements, employers allow access to employees and stand aside during organizing. In turn, unions halt negative public campaigns or back political issues favored by employers.
Business groups say the deals violate labor laws, which prohibit employers from giving a “thing of value” to a union, and courts have been divided on the issue. The U.S. Supreme Court recently heard a challenge to the legality of such deals but dismissed it in December.
The 1.9 million-member SEIU is one of the few unions to increase its ranks amid years of declining union membership nationwide. The SEIU represents about 90,000 of California’s 400,000 hospital workers, in about a quarter of the state’s 430 hospitals, according to the union.
The documents reviewed by the Journal show that on April 25, the SEIU’s United Healthcare Workers West local in California proposed a three-year deal that would give the union access to as many as 60,000 nonunion employees. The union also proposed a $100 million joint “advocacy fund” with the hospital association that would be used in part to support a 2016 ballot initiative. The measure would direct the state to cover what the hospital association says are shortfalls in payments to hospitals from Medi-Cal, the state Medicaid system.
In a counteroffer authorized by the hospital association board on April 28, the industry offered a five-year deal providing access to as many as 50,000 workers and offered to pay $60 million to the advocacy fund. The union would contribute $40 million under that proposal.
Jan Emerson-Shea, a spokeswoman for the hospital association, said the documents generally outlined what has been discussed but declined to comment on specifics. She said talks were likely to continue through the weekend.
“SEIU is looking for some kind of access to nonunion workers,” she said. “As of today, the hospitals’ ability to provide the scale that SEIU is seeking—we’re not there.”
The hospital association said California hospitals lose nearly $6 billion a year treating Medi-Cal patients.
Dave Regan, president of the SEIU’s United Healthcare Workers West, which says it has 150,000 health-care workers as members, said Friday that the union has been talking with the hospital association for more than two years to find strategies to reduce health-care costs, improve the state’s Medicaid system and “create a totally different paradigm for the way unions and employers deal with each other.”
“We have been exchanging proposals,” he said Friday. “We continue in discussions and we expect to continue talking today and perhaps over the weekend,” he added.
Mr. Regan said finding a smoother-than-typical path to union organizing is part of the union’s agenda, though he said the union isn’t seeking a deal that would forbid the association from “respectfully” suggesting to workers that they shouldn’t join the union. “We’re not going to disparage each other,” he said. “We never said to the hospitals that you can’t give your point of view, and they’ve never said to us that they’re beyond criticism.” Mr. Regan said the agreement being sought is something other than a so-called “neutrality” deal.
“We’re talking about working together on a scale that is unprecedented for unions and employers,” he said.
BALTIMORE HAS MANY LABOR AND JUSTICE LEADERS THAT REALLY WORK TO GAIN A VOICE FOR ALL PEOPLE. I AM RECOGNIZING JUST A FEW IN THIS MONTH OF LABOR AND JUSTICE-----MAY 2014
PLEASE SUPPORT THESE GROUPS WITH DONATIONS AND YOUR PRESENCE AT PROTESTS AND RALLIES!
Margaret Flowers is a powerhouse of an activist and she is now focused on ending net neutrality. This is the most important issue in a time of important issues-----right up there with Trans Pacific Trade Pact....TPP. Check Margaret's activist websites-----Clearing the Fog, Expanded and Improved Medicare for All, and Flush the TPP among others! These are the media and pundits labor and justice need to turn to as corporate media is no longer telling the truth.
Share this to show your support for the dedicated people who are sleeping out in front of the FCC day and night to demand Net Neutrality and an equal internet for all! http://cms.fightforthefuture.org/save-internet — with Alan Dawson and 9 others.
Morning visit from Homeland Security with Margaret Margaret F...Back to AlbumPrevious ·
Flush the TPP's photo.
While communities from Manila to Kuala Lumpur protested President Obama's trip to finalize the TPP and build up U.S. military presence in the Asia Pacific region, Philippine human rights activists and trade justice allies took over the Office of the U.S. Trade Representative to demand #USOutOfAsPac and make it clear that #AsPacNot4Sale!
________________________________________
I love these actions but the labor leader Fred Mason of the MD AFL-CIO should not be there pretending to be against all these labor abuses while pushing to elect the corporate pols doing the damage. We need labor and justice organizations to
WAKE UP-----SHAKE THE LABOR AND JUSTICE LEADERSHIP OUT AS THEY ARE CAPTURED BY CORPORATE INTERESTS!
Tom Dodge with the Post Office union is a great labor leader in Maryland. We thank he and the Post Office union for shouting out against Post Office privatization.
#MayDay in Baltimore w/ Tom Dodge of Community & Postal Workers United
Published on May 2, 2014
This May Day in Baltimore the Community and Postal Workers United accompanied the People's Power Assembly at McKeldin Square near the Inner Harbor of Baltimore. They marched to the main Post Office to protest the privatization services to the Stapes office supply store at 82 locations in Georgia, Southern California, Pennsylvania, and Massachusetts.
Tom Dodge of the Community and Postal Workers United group explains that this will result in the closures of post offices. Training of postal handling has been greatly diminished as he says, "Staples employees get 4 hours of training, postal employees get 2 weeks of training." Mr. Dodge suggests this poses a security risk to the general public, "What if somebody puts something dangerous in the mail?"
After more than a decade of the federal government tightening security, times are changing. Austerity and privatization is now the priority of federal agendas from the White House and throughout congress in reducing spending.
For more information: http://cpwunited.com/home & http://peoplespowerassemblies.org/
__________________________________________
Unite Here 7 in Maryland is doing a great job in shouting out for low-wage workers. We thank them for their strong activism!!!
AIRMALL USA: The Wrong Choice for Your Airport
uniteherevideos·30 videos
37 301+ views 3 0 Published on May 5, 2014
The AIRMALL-managed concessions program at the Baltimore-Washington International Airport (BWI) has been embroiled in a labor dispute for almost a year-and-half. UNITE HERE has produced a short video that presents some of the public criticism AIRMALL has received from workers and elected officials in Maryland.
_________________________________________
Red Emma's does a good job in giving voice on important issues and a meeting place for open discussion.
As a social democrat wanting people to get out an vote----I do hope these groups get out and vote.
Red Emma's Bookstore Coffeehouse's photo. May 7 · Edited
Today
at 7:30pm
Starts in about 11 hours · 60°F Mostly Cloudy
Show Map
Red Emma's Bookstore Coffeehouse
30 W. North Avenue, Baltimore, Maryland 21201
As Silicon Valley continues to hypergentrify San Francisco, people like Fred Sherburn-Zimmer are fighting back—blocking evictions, calling out speculative landlords and predatory tech executives, and blocking the private transportation buses that are facilitating the transformation of a great city into the playground of the neoliberal elite. Don't miss this chance to hear directly from an organizer with Eviction Free SF!
__________________________________________
Sharon Black and the People's Power Assembly does a great job organizing for awareness in Baltimore. We see below that protesters were arrested for simple organizing efforts and then let go. This is intimidation and is common in Baltimore as well. When peaceful and legal protest is threatened with intimidation and jailing by police------YOU NO LONGER HAVE THOSE RIGHTS AS CITIZENS!
Caravan starts in LA and comes through Baltimore!
- Saturday, May 10at 12:00pm in PDTStarts in about 5 hours
Gather at Harriet Tubman Center for Social Justice, 5278 W Pico Blvd, L.A.
Sharon Black with Lee Patterson and Steven Ceci
23 hrs ·
ARRESTED FOR ORGANIZING - ALL CHARGES DROPPED TODAY! VICTORY
Lee Patterson, a retired government worker and Steven Ceci, a low wage tipped worker in the picture were falsely arrested... See MoreARRESTED FOR ORGANIZING - ALL CHARGES DROPPED TODAY! VICTORY
Lee Patterson, a retired government worker and Steven Ceci, a low wage tipped worker in the picture were falsely arrested in Washington D.C. while legally putting up posters for ... See More — with Lee Patterson and Steven Ceci.
_____________________________________________
United Workers does a great job in building structures for people to have a voice. We thank them for their activism.
Join United Workers for a night of fun, food and celebration!
Sunday, June 8at 6:00pm
Show MapSpace 26402640 St. Paul Street, Baltimore, Maryland 21218
Find TicketsTickets Availablewww.eventbrite.com
It has been an incredible year in the life of the United Workers. Please join us to celebrate amazing leaders, and breakthroughs in the Fair Development Campaign. Along with our human rights champion awards, this year's event will be special in that we create a Dinner Theater where guests will be treated to excerpts from Anu Yadav's play "Meena's Dream". Her play grapples with complexities of poverty, immigration and our inadequate healthcare system.
Tickets are $20 and can be purchased in advance on EventBrite- http://www.eventbrite.com/e/united-workers-9th-annual-human-rights-dinner-tickets-11470676101?aff=erelexporg
We look forward to celebrating with you!
_____________________________________________
The Baltimore Black Think Tank does a great job in shouting out truth to power. They are focused on civil rights and liberties and rebuilding the public justice in Baltimore and Maryland-----a TOP PRIORITY FOR ALL JUSTICE ORGANIZATIONS.
While I do not support republicans or some of the issues this group embraces-----I do recognize the value of their voices and actions! Thanks to the Black Think Tank for all their work.
Duane 'Shorty' Davis and Anthony Wiggins are the voice of justice.
Doni Morton Glover: I heard your cries, and frustration with the political status quo in Baltimore City and Maryland, if your objective is to hold the entrenched incumbents accountable for their fraud, waste, abuse, malfeasance, misfeasance and complicity through Jim Crow in Blackface---then, please support WIGGINS FOR SHERIFF OF BALTIMORE CITY 2014.
_________________________________________
Labor unions are taking a corporate structure as they restructure to embrace Trans Pacific Trade Pact and global corporate rule. With credit unions that give out credit cards acting like Wall Street banks national labor union leaders are now backing the most neo-liberal of candidates.
WE THE PEOPLE NEED LABOR UNIONS SO WE NEED TO SHAKE THE CORPORATE OUT OF ARE LEADERSHIP!
MARYLAND IS PARTICULARLY BAD WITH CORPORATE UNION LEADERS.
SEIU Pledges $40 Million For Bosses, Negotiates Bad Deal For Workers
Educate! Worker Rights and Jobs
By Staff, sternburgerwithfries.blogspot.com
May 8th, 2014
Powered by Translate 20
Here’s the latest news — including a new article in the Wall Street Journal — about Dave Regan’s ongoing attempt to cut a sweetheart “partnership” deal with the California Hospital Association (CHA).
Dave Regan and Duane Dauner
During recent days, SEIU-UHW’s Regan has been in active discussions with the CHA, headed by CEO Duane Dauner, about a possible partnership deal. According to the WSJ and Tasty’s sources, the following are some of the specifics under discussion:
Hospital CEOs would allow Regan to unionize 50,000 California hospital workers, without any employer opposition, in exchange for Regan’s agreement to force the workers into cheap, pre-negotiated contracts with low wages and benefits along with a lengthy ban on strikes.
Furthermore, Regan has agreed to sweeten the bosses’ pot by depositing $40 million of SEIU-UHW members’ dues money into an “advocacy fund” that the CEOs would use to promote a California ballot initiative to boost taxpayer-funded Medicaid payments to hospitals by billions of dollars a year.
Regan’s goal, of course, is to cement SEIU-UHW’s role as nothing less than the boss’s union. Here’s how Regan describes it to the WSJ:
Dave Regan, president of the SEIU’s United Healthcare Workers West,… said Friday that the union has been talking with the hospital association for more than two years to… “create a totally different paradigm for the way unions and employers deal with each other.”
If implemented, Regan’s cheap, pre-negotiated contracts for the 50,000 workers would sharply undercut the standards of already-unionized workers — including SEIU-UHW’s own members — and would accelerate the downward spiral of concessionary bargaining that Regan launched after the Purple Palace seized control of SEIU-UHW in 2009.
Since parachuting into the Golden State, Regan has slashed health benefits and eliminated the defined-benefit pensions for tens of thousands of workers atDignity Health, the Daughters of Charity Health System, and other companies.
At Kaiser Permanente, Regan has slashed the retiree health benefits for 43,000 SEIU-UHW members and has reportedly signed a secret side letter to eliminate workers’ pensions and cut their health benefits.
If Regan succeeds in banning 50,000 newly organized workers from striking, he’ll handcuff them into cheap contracts that’ll cut the legs out from underneath from already-unionized workers. Only an idiot — or someone who’s completely sold out to the CEOs — would commit such a blunder.
Here’s the full article from the Wall Street Journal
Wall Street Journal
SEIU, California Hospitals in Talks on Cooperative Deal
Health-Care Union Could Boost Its Ranks, Support Medicaid-Payment Ballot Initiative By MELANIE TROTTMAN and CHRIS MAHER
The nation’s biggest health-care union and the California hospital industry are in talks on a deal that could allow the union to boost its ranks by thousands with the cooperation of management, according to documents reviewed by The Wall Street Journal.
As part of the continuing negotiations, the Service Employees International Union and the California Hospital Association also would jointly support a ballot initiative to increase Medicaid payments to hospitals by as much as $6 billion a year, the documents show.
The latest talks came after the SEIU threatened late last year to push ballot measures far less palatable to hospitals ?including capping executive pay and limiting how much hospitals could charge consumers. Under a union proposal made to the association last week, the labor giant would withdraw support for those initiatives in exchange for hospitals providing SEIU access to employees during an organizing drive of tens of thousands of workers, the documents show.
The SEIU has been trying to negotiate an agreement for several years in which California hospitals agree to cooperate in part with an organization drive. So-called neutrality agreements are a common tactic in labor. In many such agreements, employers allow access to employees and stand aside during organizing. In turn, unions halt negative public campaigns or back political issues favored by employers.
Business groups say the deals violate labor laws, which prohibit employers from giving a “thing of value” to a union, and courts have been divided on the issue. The U.S. Supreme Court recently heard a challenge to the legality of such deals but dismissed it in December.
The 1.9 million-member SEIU is one of the few unions to increase its ranks amid years of declining union membership nationwide. The SEIU represents about 90,000 of California’s 400,000 hospital workers, in about a quarter of the state’s 430 hospitals, according to the union.
The documents reviewed by the Journal show that on April 25, the SEIU’s United Healthcare Workers West local in California proposed a three-year deal that would give the union access to as many as 60,000 nonunion employees. The union also proposed a $100 million joint “advocacy fund” with the hospital association that would be used in part to support a 2016 ballot initiative. The measure would direct the state to cover what the hospital association says are shortfalls in payments to hospitals from Medi-Cal, the state Medicaid system.
In a counteroffer authorized by the hospital association board on April 28, the industry offered a five-year deal providing access to as many as 50,000 workers and offered to pay $60 million to the advocacy fund. The union would contribute $40 million under that proposal.
Jan Emerson-Shea, a spokeswoman for the hospital association, said the documents generally outlined what has been discussed but declined to comment on specifics. She said talks were likely to continue through the weekend.
“SEIU is looking for some kind of access to nonunion workers,” she said. “As of today, the hospitals’ ability to provide the scale that SEIU is seeking—we’re not there.”
The hospital association said California hospitals lose nearly $6 billion a year treating Medi-Cal patients.
Dave Regan, president of the SEIU’s United Healthcare Workers West, which says it has 150,000 health-care workers as members, said Friday that the union has been talking with the hospital association for more than two years to find strategies to reduce health-care costs, improve the state’s Medicaid system and “create a totally different paradigm for the way unions and employers deal with each other.”
“We have been exchanging proposals,” he said Friday. “We continue in discussions and we expect to continue talking today and perhaps over the weekend,” he added.
Mr. Regan said finding a smoother-than-typical path to union organizing is part of the union’s agenda, though he said the union isn’t seeking a deal that would forbid the association from “respectfully” suggesting to workers that they shouldn’t join the union. “We’re not going to disparage each other,” he said. “We never said to the hospitals that you can’t give your point of view, and they’ve never said to us that they’re beyond criticism.” Mr. Regan said the agreement being sought is something other than a so-called “neutrality” deal.
“We’re talking about working together on a scale that is unprecedented for unions and employers,” he said.
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