SEIU's concessions at Kaiser
A statement from NUHW President Sal Rosselli Two years ago, NUHW members at Kaiser Permanente made a decision: at a time when Kaiser is making billions in profits, there’s no reason for workers to agree to the benefit cuts that Kaiser put on the bargaining table. So along with our allies in the California Nurses Association and the Stationary Engineers, we fought back. Our campaign to win a fair contract for Kaiser caregivers has included four separate strikes, including the two biggest walkouts in Kaiser’s history. Through these actions, we have stopped Kaiser from imposing any cuts on NUHW members.

Kaiser and SEIU reached a tentative collective bargaining agreement at 3am Friday morning. We do not know what that agreement contains. SEIU, as usual, is refusing to share the language of the agreement with members. Withholding contract language and misleading members about what was agreed to has become standard practice for SEIU officials. In the past, SEIU claimed to have settled a contract with no takeaways at Catholic Healthcare West. Later on, workers learned that their pension benefits had been given away.

What we have heard about the tentative agreement, however, points to substantial shortcomings. We understand that the tentative agreement includes cuts to retiree health benefits. When the former leadership of UHW prior to the trusteeship achieved retiree health coverage at Kaiser, it was a groundbreaking achievement. SEIU allowing Kaiser to weaken that standard is a significant setback. We also know that SEIU is forcing workers into a ‘wellness program’ that requires employees to divulge private, personal information for Kaiser’s benefit. We know that SEIU has allowed the wage gap between Northern and Southern California Kaiser workers to widen still further. And we know that once again, there will be no local bargaining following ratification, so locally focused concerns will go entirely unaddressed.

On Friday, Kaiser announced that in the first quarter of this year, the company generated another $770 million in profits. Why, at a time when Kaiser has made nearly $7 billion in profits in the last three years, is SEIU agreeing to any concessions at all?

We await further information about SEIU’s settlement with Kaiser, especially as it pertains to healthcare coverage and retirement benefits. Over the last few weeks, thousands of SEIU members at Kaiser have signed our petition to “Just Say No” to a contract with benefit cuts, in order to prevent Kaiser and SEIU from making the back room deal we know they’ve been negotiating for months behind closed doors. We hope that the commitment and determination of the many workers who signed that petition had its intended effect, and that SEIU’s agreement with Kaiser really does preserve existing healthcare and retirement benefits for tens of thousands of Kaiser workers. If so, our fight will have been a victory for everyone.

Sincerely,

Sal Rosselli

President, National Union of Healthcare Workers

Lessons for Wisconsin From the Flint Sit Down Strikes of 1936-37

Dr Mark Naison

Fordham University

With the state legislature in Wisconsion occupied and surrounded by thousands of state workers and their supporters, and with schools closed throughout the state because of teachers calling in sick, I cannot help but think of the greatest strike and building occupation in the history of the American labor movement- the Flint Sit Down Strikes of 1936-37. Though the Wisconsin struggle is being led by government workers, and the Flint Strikes involved workers involved in automobile production, both movements took place during the worst economic crisis of their era and were fighting for the same goal- collective bargaining rights for working people through a union of their own choosing- and were much more about dignity and respect than about income.

The Flint Strike, which involved the occupation of 9 General Motors automobile plants over a six week period, transformed the history of the industrial labor movement. During December of 1936, when the first GM plant was seized and occupied, the entire automobile and steel industries in the United States were union free. When the strike was finally settled, both General Motors and United States Steel agreed to bargain collectively with the CIO ( Congress of Industrial Organizations) unions seeking to organize their industries.

The Flint Strike , though it was precipitated by local conditions- a fierce unrelenting speed up on the GM assembly line , the involvement of a Ku Klux Klan like organization called the Black Legion in suppressing labor unrest in GM plants- was part of a national movement to win bargaining rights for industrial workers. As a result, the Flint workers were supported by the national leadership of the CIO-led by the formidable John L Lewis- as well as their own national union, and numerous leftwing organizations including the Communist Party. Though only GM workers actually occupied the factories, at key points in the strike, thousands of union workers were mobilized to come down from other cities to make sure that right wing Citizens Committees were unable to storm the plants, and that food and medical supplies were delivered to the striking workers. There were also doctors, nurses, lawyers, and journalists who came from all over the country to help the strikers. By the second week of the sit-down strikes, it was clear to everyone involved that this had become a truly national movement

The same dynamic must operate if the Wisconsin movement is to achieve its main goal- removal from the governor’s legislative program of any effort to weaken the bargaining rights of public workers in the state. Unions around the nation who face similar initiatives ( in Ohio, Tennessee and New Jersey) must send delegations to join the occupation and the protests and give whatever financial and legal support is necessary to teachers who are keeping the local schools closed. National union leaders who have a high public profile, people like Richard Trumka and Randy Weingarten, must not only come to Madison to offer their support of the movement, they must head straight to the White House to demand that President Obama and Democratic Congressional leaders come out aggressively in support of the Madison movement. Student social justice organizations must send delegations to Madison to join the thousands of students at the state’s public universities who have been a central part of this movement from the beginning.

This movement has to be approached as the single most important labor struggle in the United States in the 21st Century. If the governor destroys collective bargaining for public workers in Wisconsin, you can be sure that similar initiatives will succeed in other states. If he

Is forced to take attacks on collective bargaining off the table by the strength of the protest, it will reinvigorate not only the entire labor movement in the United States, but the movement to prevent Congress and state legislatures from destroying what little of a safety net we have in the United States of America

The stakes could not be higher. So if you are in a union or part of a progressive organization, press your leadership to send people to Wisconsin. Insist your elected representatives pass resolutions in support of the Wisconsin movement. And get ready to fight the same battle in your own state when the time comes

Solidarity Foreover!

Mark Naison

February 18, 2011