When two SEIU members attempted to support a rival union (UNITE HERE), SEIU retaliated by attempting to include contract language during the latest round of talks with their employer to reduce their pay and advancement opportunities. The NLRB lodged an unfair labor practice against the Rochester Regional Joint Board of Workers United (an SEIU affiliate). In its ongoing battle with the NUHW, a judge denied the SEIU’s request to squelch the activities of the NUHW by increasing the amount of the bond the NUHW was required to post after the April $1.57 million jury verdict. “The court is convinced that the true reasons motivating plaintiffs’ counsel and plaintiffs have to do with vengeance and retribution and not with maintaining the integrity of the Bar of the State of California,” the judge stated in court documents. SEIU lost approximately another 1,500 Kaiser mental health professionals and optical workers in Northern California from the Kaiser health system fight. The behavioral science unit vote was a landslide, 603 for NUHW to 196 for SEIU, while the optical unit was much closer.
