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Indybay Feature

Fresno Homecare Workers, Consumers, and Community Members March against SEIU Harassment

by Mike Rhodes (editor [at] Fresnoalliance.com)
About 60 homecare workers and their allies rallied in front of the Service Employees International Union-UHW office in Fresno today. The workers want to disaffiliate from SEIU and join the National Union of Health Care Workers (NUHW). The union locked their doors, hid behind the curtains, took pictures of the members at the rally, and called the police. SEIU-UHW staff would not allow their own union members into the building.
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Here is the Press Release, sent out by NUHW about today’s rally:

In-Home Healthcare workers, consumers, and community members will rally and then march to SEIU-UHW's Fresno office to demand that SEIU allow their union elections to proceed free from intimidation and fear. SEIU has mounted a campaign of retaliation throughout Fresno County and across California against healthcare workers who are rejecting the scandal-plagued union. SEIU's harassment of local home healthcare workers is disrupting the quality of care being provided in people’s homes.

On March 2 more than 2,500 Fresno County homecare workers filed petitions with Fresno County calling for an election for more than 10,000 local in-home healthcare workers to leave SEIU and join the National Union of Healthcare Workers (NUHW) along with more than 80,000 of their fellow healthcare workers throughout California who have also filed for elections to leave SEIU.

SEIU has used legal tricks to block workers' elections across the state, and used threats and intimidation to prevent them from making a free choice. At some facilities, SEIU staff has colluded with management to have workers suspended or terminated for supporting NUHW.

“No lawsuits, no retaliation, no delays. We have the right to vote now!" said Mary Padilla. “We won't allow the SEIU to intimidate and harass us. We are committed to providing the highest quality care for our consumers and we won't let the SEIU get in our way."

# # #
§Writing Notes to the SEIU Staff
by Mike Rhodes
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The SEIU staff locked the doors and called the police.
§NUHW is Here to Stay
by Mike Rhodes
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§SEIU Go Away!
by Mike Rhodes
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§Our Union, Our Vote
by Mike Rhodes
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The workers want the right to vote on which union will represent them. They are tired of SEIU harassment, intimidation, and stalling tactics.
§Our Union, Our Vote
by Mike Rhodes
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Add Your Comments

Comments (Hide Comments)
by John R.
NUHW sends emails on regular basis where most information is nothing but a bunch of bull. Hey, if Sal and his goons wanted a fair view of unions he should disclose his losses at the hands of workers and at the hands of NLRB. This guy is such a blatant loser, that the best he can do is to organize self-serving protests. The motive is clear. I can only laugh at the idea that NUHW has an office in Washinghton while criticizing that SEIU has decisions made in Washinghton. Hillarious!!!
by A Worker
NUHW please let your "members" know what happened at Catholic Healthcare West?!? Yeah, tell us the truth.
by Gloria V.
Fighting for Democracy! Andy let us vote! Afraid we'll leave. You can still keep John R. and A Worker to do your bidding.
by libertythirteen
Please let us know what happened with the Catholic hospitals. What do you think we should know?

Thanks!
Sir, have you ever tried to get anyone to sign *anything*? It's hard work. Getting ten or twenty signatures a day for anything is a big deal. You need to get out of your VH-1 Cult of Personality mindset and concentrate on the people - those tens of thousands of people - who are fighting for themselves and their families. Many of them have little or no idea of who Sal R. is. It's true! Go to the next action and ask them for yourself.

If *any*person in the International had asked almost any UHW homecare worker 2 years ago why they didn't want to be part of 6434 they would have found out that it didn't have to do with Sal. It had to do with people living and working in counties right next door to each other who could see the dramatic difference in wages iand benefits that workers living in the same area doing the same work were receiving bdue to belonging to 6434 or UHW.. Two or three years ago the International could have heard about Tyrone's corruption privately from UHW homecare workers and dealt with him away from the front pages of nationally syndicated newspapers.

Maybe now SEIU can learn - it isn't Sal or Andy or Tyrone or Anna or David or Eliseo - it's being able to make a living, a real living, and receive the respect you deserve for a good job well done!

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