[caption id="attachment_4182" align="alignleft" width="300"]Election day at Tri-City Regional Medical Center.[/caption]

Nurses at Tri-City Regional Medical Center in Hawaiian Gardens voted by 71% in favor of forming their Union on October 15 and 16. Despite ongoing anti-union meetings, a full-on “Vote No” campaign by management and investors at the hospital, and management’s threat to close the hospital, nurses stood strong and won by an overwhelming majority.

The nurses organized for a variety of reasons, but mainly to improve safety, patient care, and training. Tri-City Regional Medical Center recently implemented a new Psychiatric ward without providing MAB training to its nurses. Moreover, new grads receive only a few days of training before being thrown onto the floors with a full patient load.

“In my 40-plus years of nursing experience, this is the first hospital where I’ve seen new grads given only three to seven days of orientation. It’s not fair to put their license and patients at risk.” – Naty Camayag, RN, Tri-City Regional Medical Center

[caption id="attachment_4183" align="alignleft" width="225"]Celebrating victory at Kindred Hospital Ontario.[/caption]

Just a few days later, on October 23, nurses at Kindred Hospital Ontario – part of the country’s fourth largest healthcare system – voted by 68% in favor of forming their Union. Kindred held a 45 day-long battle of daily ongoing anti-union meetings, made promises of "fixing" the problems, and created an environment of fear and hostility, which included locking the hospital gate to prevent employees from leaving the hospital on their own lunch time. In spite of all of this, not only did the nurses remain unified, but their strong, family-like solidarity helped bring it home for service and tech workers who won their own election by 69% in favor of joining our sister union, SEIU-UHW.

“At Kindred, our patients want quality care and we strive for it, but unfortunately it seems Kindred only wants profit even if that means risking patient safety and our license." -- Hazel Jaleco, RN, Kindred Hospital Ontario

Nurses organized around having a voice at work, improving patient care, and increasing safety. Kindred Hospital Ontario workers have high turnover of managers, each implementing their own policies and procedures even if that means risking patient safety and overruling doctors’ orders.

Please join us in welcoming our new sisters and brothers into the SEIU 121RN family!