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As expected, the NUHW filed objections with the NLRB in the fledgling union’s battle with SEIU to represent 42,000 Kaiser employees in California, the largest union election in more than a half century. On October 7, the NLRB announced that SEIU-UHW had prevailed with 61% of the vote. NUHW is the union created by former leaders of an SEIU local in a bitter and litigious parting.
According to a statement by NUHW, the newly filed objections include "a number of overt and unfair labor practices by Kaiser management against its workers." Specifically, NUHW alleges that just as Kaiser illegally withheld more than $1 million in wages and benefits from Kaiser workers in Southern California who voted to join NUHW earlier this year, it threatened the same action in the recent election in order to influence the vote. In addition, NUHW claims that the company provided logistical and financial support to SEIU-UHW's campaign. The National Labor Relations Act forbids an employer from threatening wage cuts in order to dissuade employee support for the union and forbids an employer from supporting a particular labor organization. As a result, NUHW argues, the election results should be discarded and the election rerun.
An SEIU spokesperson counters the objections: "When you lose by a significant margin and get repudiated by workers by a substantial margin, I can see why you'd want to save face."
Meanwhile, NUHW has withdrawn petitions at two California hospitals, presumably in light of a failure to attract members, and lost its challenges to a vote at a nursing home chain, where SEIU has now been certified the winner. In an effort to underscore what may be a diminishing rivalry between the unions, SEIU in a recent statement notes that more than 124,000 members have now voted in SEIU vs. NUHW elections, and 120,000 workers have voted to continue SEIU representation. It is unclear where those numbers come from, given that over 11,000 Kaiser workers in the latest election voted for NUHW (compared to 18,000 for SEIU) , but clearly the upstart NUHW is experiencing significant growing pains.