Fresno Homecare Workers Petition to Join NUHW

National Union of Healthcare Workers (NUHW) Press Release:

Today, homecare workers in Fresno County, California submitted thousands of signatures to county officials calling for an election to join the National Union of Healthcare Workers (NUHW). The election petition, covering 10,000 caregivers, increases to 90,000 the total number of healthcare workers, employed at 350 California healthcare facilities, who have petitioned to leave SEIU and join NUHW during recent weeks. Today's petition is the first by homecare workers.

In just three weeks, Fresno County 's homecare workers collected nearly twice the number of signatures required to trigger an election, despite an aggressive campaign by SEIU to mislead homecare workers that their contract and wages would be at risk if they change unions.

SEIU sent mailers to workers' homes telling them their contract would "evaporate" if they joined NUHW. SEIU organizers made multiple threats to workers for supporting NUHW - that SEIU would remove them from the county's registry of homecare workers, that caregivers would lose their Kaiser health insurance, and that workers would not receive any pay in February if they joined NUHW. SEIU also flew Michigan homecare workers to Fresno, who spread misinformation during SEIU's campaign to stop workers' signature-gathering efforts.

Connie Lara, a homecare worker in Fresno, put it this way: "We need a union that's run by California healthcare workers, not union officials in D.C. When we still had democracy in our union, homecare workers in Fresno won a living wage for the first time. We need to continue making progress. In NUHW, we'll have the power to do that."

At a press conference today, disability advocates appeared alongside homecare workers to show their support for caregivers' decision to change unions. The Fresno Labor Relations Board is expected to schedule an election within 45 days after verifying the signatures. Fresno, with nearly a million residents, is the largest county in California 's Central Valley region.

Today's announcement comes less than five weeks after SEIU officials put Fresno homecare workers' local union in trusteeship. In January, SEIU demanded that California 's healthcare union force out 65,000 homecare and nursing home workers, and make them join a separate union that would be run by SEIU appointees from Washington, D.C.

Homecare workers' elected local leaders said they would only comply if workers were allowed to vote on the transfer. Instead of allowing a vote, SEIU seized control of the union, removed its elected 100-member Executive Board and officers, and suspended its constitution.

Spurred on by Fresno 's example, thousands of homecare workers in other counties are already organizing to join NUHW for a stronger voice in California 's homecare services and a more democratic voice in their union.

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