NUHW explores affiliation with machinists union
The National Union of Healthcare Workers (NUHW) and the International Association of Machinists and Aerospace Workers (IAM) have formed a partnership that may lead toward a formal affiliation the NUHW announced last week.
The partnership and potential affiliation will put NUHW in a stronger position said NUHW’s president, Sal Roselli. “In the short term (the partnership will mean) huge resources to accomplish NUHW’s vision of uniting healthcare workers and fighting employers like Kaiser,” he said.
“In the long term,” Roselli continued, “I think that in general, leaders in the labor movement have lost their way. And there’s so many efforts to organize employers in a top-down way as opposed to workers in a bottom-up way. The machinists, to us, feels like the right partner to do the opposite, to revitalize the labor movement by empowering workers to control the relationship with their employer.”
NUHW is a relatively young healthcare union, formed in 2009 following an internal struggle with the Service Employees International Union (SEIU).
Considered one of the fastest growing healthcare unions in the country, NUHW continues to compete with SEIU. The partnership with IAM, a long-standing national union 700,000 members strong affiliated with the AFL-CIO, is expected to help the young union in an election re-match with SEIU.
Last summer, an administrative law judge for the National Labor Relations Board tossed out the results of an election held in the fall between the NUHW and the SEIU for the right to represent 43,000 Kaiser Permanente workers in California, accusing the SEIU of misconduct. The re-match is expected to take place this year.
[See also: New Kaiser union election recommended after SEIU found guilty of misconduct.]
At first glance, a healthcare union affiliating with a union that represents manufacturers may seem odd, but it is not unprecedented and it’s pragmatic and beneficial for both entities says Robert Bruno, a labor expert from the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign’s School of Labor and Employment Relations.
From a practical perspective, it gives NUHW the resources associated with a large and powerful union and from IAM’s point of view it gets them a voice with healthcare providers.
“There are a lot of unions that have looked to organize in healthcare,” said Bruno. “Not just because that’s where the money is, that’s where the growth is, but what’s the biggest issue during every collective bargaining session? What’s been driving difficult bargaining? What has been the cost for the employer? It’s been healthcare.”
For healthcare employers, such as Kaiser Permanente, the partnership between NUHW and IAM and their potential affiliation means that they’ll be facing a more formidable bargaining partner, pointed out Bruno.
“It’s going to mean that (NUHW’s) going to be a much tougher bargaining partner and one that is going to be not just working on collective bargaining issues but is going to be much more influential on larger healthcare policy.”
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