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In this issue:
Labor Relations Insight by Phil Wilson Union Bailout Update LRIOnline 2013 Annual Report Feature Love You or Leave You by Eric Vanetti SEIU Watch, Scoreboard, Sticky Fingers, and more…
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Labor Relations Insight by Phil Wilson
Unions love to hate companies, especially publicly traded ones. After all, attacking big companies lets unions combine some of their favorite pastimes. They get to rail against the 1%, hang out with politicians and celebrities, get on TV and, perhaps most important of all, bring out The Rat.
Scabby the Rat
Continue reading Labor Relations INK ~ February 2013
Trending more than ever among scorned and alienated SEIU members, is the instinct to fight back against their oppressor – by becoming key players in the Big Labor arena through the creation of new unions.
The California League of City Employee Associations (CLOCEA), which was formed by Bill Shawhan in 2011 after an SEIU Local fired him, recently won a nearly two-year battle for a contract for Kings County employees.
According to Shawhan, CLOCEA doesn’t get involved in partisan politics and does not financially support politics in Sacramento or Washington, D.C.
Sal Rosselli started the trend in 2009 when he split from SEIU and founded the NUHW which recently joined forces with the California Nurses Association (CNA), and is about to embark on a long-awaitedContinue reading SEIU Watch
After years of fighting over some 45,000 California-based Kaiser Permanente employees, Service Employees International Union, United Healthcare Workers – West (SEIU-UHW) and the National Union of Healthcare Workers (NUHW), which originated as a breakaway union from SEIU, will finally face off in a re-run election set to take place in April.
SEIU-UHW currently holds the reigns but the NUHW has long been on their heels, fighting tooth and nail to spite their archrival with the steal of such a large unit, in what happens to be the largest private-sector union election since the 1940s. The upcoming election is a do-over of the October 2010 election where voters favored the SEIU-UHW. The original results were tossed due to multiple violations by SEIU-UHW, which the Judge ruled as interference with the employees’ “free and reasoned choice.”
With the recent merger of NUHW and the California Nurses Association, some
Continue reading Kaiser Permanente Re-Run Election Announced: SEIU-UHW, NUHW Face Off

In this issue: Labor Relations Insight by Phil Wilson Union Bailout Update Right-To-Work Revival Employee Advantage by Eric Vanetti SEIU Watch, Scoreboard, Social Media Update, Sticky Fingers, and more…
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Labor Relations Insight by Phil Wilson
Could Right to Work Save the Labor Movement?
Unions are dead. Kaput. Finished. At least that’s what you’d think if you spent much time reading the labor press the last few weeks.
First, Michigan went right-to-work. Then, this week, the Department of Labor announced that union membership declined to its
Continue reading INK ~ January 24, 2013
 The bitter battle between the California Nurses Association (CNA) and the Service Employees International Union (SEIU) that raged until the installation of a noncompetition agreement in 2009 recently reignited when the CNA and the National Union of Healthcare Workers (NUHW) officially announced an affiliation agreementbetween the two groups.According to the new alliance, the two groups will remain autonomous while sharing personnel and financial resources, namely in an effort to steer the market of the unionization of healthcare workers toward themselves and away from SEIU, of which nearly half of its members are in the healthcare industry.
The alliance’s (NUHW-CNA) top priority is the acquisition of 43,000 unionized Kaiser Permanente service and technical workers, which would suck more than $40 million a
Continue reading NUHW and CNA Align Against SEIU
Mary Kay Henry, International President of SEIU spoke in support of “Freedom From Workplace Bullies Week” last week at a press conference in Washington DC, despite the consistent record of abuse allegations against SEIU and their affiliates that earned the union the nickname “purple people beaters,” courtesy of victims of SEIU-thuggery.
Last issue, we brought you news of a RICO suit that has been filed against SEIU affiliates in Connecticut and New Jersey. In the suit, the companies allege that two SEIU locals have made them the target of criminal activities including defamation and sabotage. (Sounds like bullying to us.)
Moreover, the same day that Henry showed her hypocrisy by boasting views of anti-workplace bullying, a civil rights lawsuit was filed in California
Continue reading SEIU Watch
The California state Public Employment Relations Board (PERB) issued a complaint late last month against SEIU that charges the union with physically threatening its members who want to join another union. The complaint is based on SEIU’s bad behavior during the run-up to a 2009 election against the National Union of Healthcare Workers (NUHW) for representation rights for central California homecare workers. SEIU won that election by a slim margin and the complaint is part of an attempt by NUHW to have that election overturned.
The complaint alleges that SEIU staff threatened their members who supported NUHW by “kicking in a bargaining unit member’s screen door,” “threatening to physically assault,” and forcibly removing pro-NUHW signs from “the private property of a bargaining unit member.” The complaint also charges SEIU with engaging
Continue reading SEIU Watch

In this issue:
* Union Bailout Update
* Astronomical Union Political Spending Coming to Light
* Dispute Over Two Union Jobs Cripples a Region
* Healthcare Workers & Machinists – An Unlikely Union?
* SEIU Watch, Only In A Union, Scoreboard and more…
The bottom of each story contains a link to the individual post on our site.
NOTICE: You can make a PDF of this issue of INK directly from the post. Click here for instructions on how to do so.
http://lrionline.com/easy-way-to-make-our-posts-and-ink-issues-into-pdfs
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Do Unions Kill Businesses? Join a Discussion Between a Union Business Agent and Phil Wilson
This morning I had an email waiting
Continue reading INK ~ July 19, 2012
File this one in the strange bedfellows department: the National Union of Healthcare Workers (NUHW) – which was formed after a spectacular breakup with the SEIU – announced its intention to affiliate with an industrial union, the Machinists (IAM) earlier this year in February. The alliance has not been formalized, but if (and most likely when) it does, it would unite 9,000 NUHW members with 720,000 IAM members.
This month Labor Notes printed an interesting interview with the key players in the merger. The “merger” would put NUHW into the AFL-CIO. Remember that SEIU was a key mover of the revolt that created the Change to Win coalition and SEIU is upset that this arch-rival will now be aligned with AFL-CIO. The SEIU has responded to
Continue reading Healthcare Workers & Machinists – An Unlikely Union?
The Machinists union (IAM) and the National Union of Healthcare Workers (NUHW) made a surprise announcement last week that the two unions were looking into affiliation. And while the marriage might seem a head scratcher, the rationale for the move is simple – NUHW has healthcare turf cred and the Machinists have money.
The IAM has been in the headlines this year for their attack on Boeing through their friends at the NLRB. NUHW is the infamous upstart union of Sal Roselli that broke away from SEIU in 2009 and then went to war with the purple Godzilla to maintain that autonomy. NUHW continues to raid SEIU shops in California and Michigan and is establishing itself as the skilled organizing force to be reckoned with in healthcare, but
Continue reading Strange Hospital Bedfellows
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