It's looking like the Service Employees International Union (SEIU) could be gaining a new foothold in Massachusetts, where it's working hard to organize workers within Boston's influential teaching hospitals. The SEIU branch backing the vote, 1199SEIU, says it's 300,000 and retirees already make it the largest union local in the world. The union will learn today whether the state's 22,000 home healthcare workers have also voted to unionize.
Adding this new group of workers wouldn't just boost its membership, it would also give the SEIU local group more leverage in efforts to organize at the teaching hospitals, which will employ some of the home healthcare workers. It might possibly give it more juice in some tough negotiations with the hospitals, as well. The SEIU is currently asking hospitals to voluntarily give up some of their rights under the National Labor Relations Act, and among other things, allow the union to schedule an organizing vote earlier than the rules allow.
To learn more about the SEIU's efforts:
- read this piece in The Boston Globe
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