SEIU is collecting signatures in California to put two measures on the ballot this fall. Both measures are written in a manner that rewards the two major hospital chains with SEIU contracts and punishes hospitals the union has been unsuccessful in organizing. 
Dignity Health, the state’s largest hospital chain, and Kaiser Permanente, the largest HMO, will not be subject to the proposals. SEIU represents nearly 60,000 workers in those two systems. The measures would prohibit their private competitors from charging more than 25% above the actual cost of providing care and require nonprofits to devote at least 5% of their patient revenue to free care for the poor. At least a quarter of California’s private hospitals would be exempted from the measures, according to the state’s nonpartisan legislative analyst. Public hospitals are exempted as well, because most of their patients receive government assistance. “This is really about a union using the initiative process to try to get targeted hospitals to buckle to their union demands,” said Jan Emerson-Shea, a spokeswoman for the California Hospital Association. When SEIU members kicked off the signature drive they started in a familiar location: Sutter General Hospital in Sacramento. The union has tried unsuccessfully to organize Sutter hospitals for years.
