New Kaiser union election recommended after SEIU found guilty of misconduct
After finding the Service Employees International Union (SEIU) guilty of misconduct, a National Labor Relations Board (NLRB) administrative law judge has recommended throwing out the results of the election last fall between the National Union of Healthcare Workers (NUHW) and the SEIU for representation of 43,000 Kaiser Permanente employees in California.
On Monday, Administrative Law Judge Lana H. Parke found SEIU guilty of misconduct, with collusion from Kaiser Permanente that impeded the employees’ exercise of a free and reasoned choice.
[See also: California's Kaiser vote gives healthcare unions a chance to rejoice - and worry]
In the 34-page ruling, Parke determined that the SEIU campaign “tended to stoke unwarranted and coercive voter fears. . . conduct [which] viewed objectively, had a reasonable tendency to interfere with unit employees’ free and uncoerced choice in the election.”
Kaiser withheld wage increases and other promised benefits to 2,300 southern California professional employees and registered nurses who voted to be represented by NUHW in January 2010.
An NLRB administrative law judge previously determined that Kaiser’s conduct was illegal and forced the healthcare giant to pay millions in back pay to those employees.
In her ruling, Parke wrote that in the election, SEIU's communications to employees about possible benefit losses were “silent, menacing reminders that Kaiser not only could, but already had, unilaterally withheld benefits when other employees had chosen to be represented by NUHW.”
Parke also found that SEIU “was joined in its warnings by Kaiser's President [Ben] Chu, who informed employees that only members of coalition unions were guaranteed PSP incentive bonuses. [SEIU] widely disseminated Chu's statement, giving weight to [SEIU's] repeated forewarnings that representational change might endanger PSP incentive bonuses. In these circumstances, widely disseminated warnings that the PSP incentive bonuses would not survive a change of representative must also have tended to interfere with employees' freedom of choice," Parke stated in her ruling.
