Victories: Coast to Coast and Beyond

CALIFORNIA — MASSACHUSETTS — PUERTO RICO

Organizing victories on both coasts recently brought 1,300 new members into AFSCME’s family. Hundreds more are ex-pected to join in Puerto Rico.

In California, about 640 nurses at Kaiser Anaheim — who had been trying to organize since the company bought the hospital 20 years ago — joined the United Nurses Associations of California/NUHHCE/AFSCME in March. Another 60 Kaiser physician assistants in Harbor City, Panorama City and Bakersfield also joined UNAC.

That organizing campaign, started last September, was the first conducted under a Kaiser/ union partnership agreement that mandates the company’s neutrality during organizing efforts. The agreement also provides for work-site organizing meetings and access to employee lists once 30 percent of the workers sign cards.

The neutrality agreement also requires that if a major-ity of the organizing unit signs cards seeking to unionize, the employer will recognize the union once the cards have been certified by a federal mediator.

Council 93/State Healthcare and Research Employees (SHARE) has added 600 staff members of the University of Massachusetts Memorial Hospital in Worcester. Organizers obtained 70 percent of the signatures on organizing cards in each of the three units (non-professional, clerical and technical). At that point, the employer recognized the union, avoiding the need for an election. AFSCME/SHARE now represents a total of 2,800 workers at the facility.

In Puerto Rico, 81 percent of 1,100 workers in two bargaining units of the Department of Natural Resources have voted to unionize in the first step of a two-step voting process. The election drew a smashing turnout of 93 percent.

In a second election on the island, scheduled for April 11 and 12, the workers will decide whether to join Servidores Públicos Unidos/AFSCME, which is the only union on the ballot.