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NEWS & LETTERS, June - July 2008
Hospital guards fight for a union
Oakland, Cal.--More than 1,500 California security workers are in year three of their struggle to form a union with SEIU. Many of these security workers work at Kaiser facilities throughout California. Kaiser and Inter-Con, the contractor, continue to use harassment and intimidation against employees in violation of federal law.
The security officers are a crucial component of our healthcare system. They are there to provide safety and security when there are code-red fire-emergencies and code-blues, fights between patients, assaults on staff. They screen for weapons and respond to potential HazMat threats. Often, our patients are suffering from one kind of mental illness or another, and the officers provide security and reassurance.
Inter-Con officers contracted at Kaiser get capricious work schedules, don't have access to fair wages, free family healthcare, paid sick days, or the protection of a union all other workers at Kaiser take for granted.
Our unions should not take some of our lowest paid brothers and sisters in the shop for granted. It is highly disrespectful for our union to come out with a namby-pamby statement like, "The union can't take a position on the Security officers' picket line." Because of the "Labor-Management partnership," they have to remain "neutral"! SEIU leaders promoted "employer neutrality agreements" when they gave away crucial rights (like the right to strike or criticize management), just to gain the right to organize. But now that security officers want to organize, they are claiming the same "neutrality" blocks them from organizing?
--Kaiser worker
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