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This past Monday thousands of health care workers from across California marched in Manhattan Beach for their rights. But they were not protesting a heavy-handed employer – rather they were marching against their own parent union, SEIU. What motivated over 5000 union members to publicly call attention to an internal conflict was a series of hearings organized by SEIU in Manhattan Beach to determine which local should represent the so-called long-term care workers in California. The 65,000 long-term care workers at stake are currently represented by SEIU’s United Healthcare Workers West and 97% of them voted to stay with UHW. But SEIU and it’s national leadership under Andrew Stern, want the long-term care workers to change membership from UHW to local 6434. The UHW workers are up in arms, calling this week’s hearings a “kangaroo court.” They claim that the move by the international was retaliation for UHW’s recent criticism of SEIU’s decision to proceed with what it considers “concessionary” alliance deals with nursing home operators. UHW also says it is far more bottom-up and democratic, and demands higher labor standards, than its parent union. The health workers union joined with other reformers of SEIU at the 2008 Service Employees convention held in Puerto Rico this June where top leaders revealed plans to dramatically restructure the union.

GUESTS: Ella Raiford, Executive Board member of the Long Term Care Division at SEIU UHW-West, and a UHW member for over 40 years, currently a homecare provider in Sacramento County, Robert Hernandez, a UHW Executive Board member for the Kaiser Division, been with Kaiser for over 18 years, Blinker Wood, Communications Specialist with SEIU UHW-West