Legal Updates

SEIU's Formation of a National Health Care Union: Implications for Employers

The Service Employees International Union (“SEIU”) has announced that it will consolidate its division representing hospital workers with its division representing home health and nursing home workers to create a single national health care union.  The new union, which will have nearly 1 million members, will be called SEIU Healthcare.  The consolidation is expected to take place later this year.

The establishment of SEIU Healthcare appears to be the first step in a broader strategy to organize all health care workers under the SEIU umbrella.  In this respect, SEIU will be targeting not only non-unionized health care workers but also the approximately 400,000 health care workers belonging to some 30 other unions.  SEIU will also seek to “partner” with unions representing registered nurses, although it is not clear what such partnerships will entail.  SEIU’s stated goal is to increase SEIU Healthcare’s membership to 9 million.

SEIU has selected Dennis Rivera, President of 1199 SEIU United Healthcare Workers East to chair SEIU Healthcare.  This division of SEIU presently represents about 300,000 healthcare workers in New York, Maryland, the District of Columbia and Massachusetts.  At least initially, this group of workers will represent the largest contingent of SEIU Healthcare.

Several of the potential ramifications of SEIU’s plans are:

• Hospitals whose registered nurses are represented by a non-SEIU nurses union (e.g., the Massachusetts Nurses Association) and whose other workers are represented by a SEIU local (e.g., 1199 SEIU United Healthcare Workers East) might anticipate greater coordination between these unions as a result of SEIU’s efforts to “partner” with other nurses unions.

• Such partnerships also may result in SEIU lending resources and support to independent nurses unions such as the Massachusetts Nurses Association relative to contract negotiations and/or other labor matters.

• Health care holding companies should anticipate an SEIU organizing campaign at all non-union facilities, including, but not limited to, hospitals, nursing homes or home health providers.

• Health care facilities whose workers are presently represented by non-SEIU unions should anticipate a sudden SEIU presence as SEIU Healthcare attempts either to raid these unions for members or to “partner” with them, as the case may be.

For those health care facilities that are presently union-free, this may be an opportune time to develop an action plan for responding to a union organizing campaign.  Such a plan might include, among other things, implementation of a legally appropriate non-solicitation/non-distribution policy, a union avoidance protocol and the establishment of a corporate communications plan.  As the saying goes, an ounce of prevention is worth a pound of a cure.