The United Food and Commercial Workers International Union (UFCW) is a labor union representing approximately 1.3 million workers in the United States and Canada in industries including retail; meatpacking, food processing and manufacturing; hospitality; agriculture; cannabis; chemical trades; security; textile, and health care. UFCW is affiliated with the Canadian Labour Congress (CLC) and the AFL–CIO; it disaffiliated from the AFL–CIO in 2005 but reaffiliated in 2013. UFCW is also affiliated to UNI Global Union and the IUF.
Kaiser Permanente, commonly known simply as Kaiser, is an American integrated managed care consortium, based in Oakland, California, United States, founded in 1945 by industrialist Henry J. Kaiser and physician Sidney Garfield. Kaiser Permanente is made up of three distinct but interdependent groups of entities: the Kaiser Foundation Health Plan, Inc. (KFHP) and its regional operating subsidiaries; Kaiser Foundation Hospitals; and the regional Permanente Medical Groups. As of 2017, Kaiser Permanente operates in eight states and the District of Columbia, and is the largest managed care organization in the United States.
Service Employees International Union (SEIU) is a labor union representing almost 1.9 million workers in over 100 occupations in the United States and Canada. SEIU is focused on organizing workers in three sectors: healthcare, including hospital, home care and nursing home workers; public services ; and property services.
The SEIU United Healthcare Workers West is a statewide local union of the Service Employees International Union in California in the United States. In 2020, it had 97,000 members, down from nearly 150,000 in 2013.
The Health Professionals and Allied Employees (HPAE) is a health care labor union in New Jersey and Pennsylvania that represents registered nurses and other health care workers in hospitals, nursing homes, blood banks and clinics in the public and private sector. It is an affiliate of the American Federation of Teachers (AFT) and the AFL–CIO.
Kaiser Richmond Medical Center is a large Kaiser Permanente hospital in downtown Richmond, California which serves 77,000 members registered under its medical plans. It opened in 1995 replacing the historic 1942 Richmond Field Hospital that serviced Liberty shipyard workers and thus gave birth to the HMO. However it was deemed seismically unsafe and this new campus was built.
A comprehensive campaign is labor union organizing or a collective bargaining campaign with a heavy focus on research, the use of community coalition-building, publicity and public pressure, political and regulatory pressure, and economic and legal pressure in addition to traditional organizing tactics.
The Southern California supermarket strike of 2003–2004 was a strike by the United Food and Commercial Workers union (UFCW) against four supermarket chains in Southern California. Management and the unions arrived at a contract after twenty weeks, with both sides claiming victory.
Sutter Health is a not-for-profit integrated health delivery system headquartered in Sacramento, California. It operates 24 acute care hospitals and over 200 clinics in Northern California.
The California Nurses Association/National Nurses Organizing Committee (CNA/NNOC), an affiliate of National Nurses United, is a trade union labor union and professional association of registered nurses in the United States. Since 2018, CNA/NNOC has been led by Executive Director Bonnie Castillo, RN.
SEIU Member Activists for Reform Today (SMART) is a national organization of rank-and-file union members working for the democratic reform of the Service Employees International Union (SEIU). SEIU primarily represents workers in the public sector, healthcare industry, and property services. Today it is America's largest and fastest growing union with 2 million members, many of whom are minorities, immigrants, and women.
Mary Kay Henry is an American labor union activist who was elected International President of the Service Employees International Union (SEIU) on May 8, 2010. She is the first woman to lead the union. While serving with the union in California, she helped pioneer SEIU's use of card check agreements, non-traditional collective bargaining agreements, comprehensive campaigns, and system-wide health care organizing strategies. Henry was included on Time's 100 Most Influential People of 2020.
Kaiser Oakland Medical Center is a hospital in Oakland, California. It is located at the intersection of Broadway and West MacArthur Boulevard, immediately north of Downtown. It is the flagship hospital of Kaiser Permanente, the largest managed care organization in the United States, through its Kaiser Foundation Hospitals division.
The SEIU Healthcare 1199NW strike of 2014 was a 24-hour strike called by the Service Employees Union healthcare Local 1199NW. The strike was begun on Tuesday, November 18, 2014 at 7:00 A.M. There were 1,100 workers at two Pierce County hospital operated by CHI Franciscan Health in Tacoma participated in the strike event. The two hospitals are St. Joseph Medical Center in Tacoma and St. Clare Hospital in Lakewood. Nurse assistants, licensed practical nurses, unit secretaries, dietary workers, housekeepers, sterile processors, technical workers and other services of the two hospitals were walked off the job to participate in the strike. The strike did not include nurses and doctors. The union members were demanding CHI Franciscan Health to improve wages, improve on health care, improve on their charity care policy, and end unfair labor practices.
The 2019 Stop & Shop strike began on April 11, 2019 when approximately 31,000 workers, represented by United Food and Commercial Workers, walked off the job and began picketing Stop & Shop locations across New England, in the states of Massachusetts, Rhode Island, and Connecticut. The strike was in response to the company not agreeing after extensive negotiations to a contract which did not reduce employee pay and benefits. The strike ended eleven days later on April 21.
The Kaiser Permanente Bernard J. Tyson School of Medicine is a medical school associated with the Kaiser Permanente health system and located in Pasadena, California. The school matriculated its inaugural class of 50 students in July 2020. In November 2019, the school was renamed in honor of late Kaiser Permanente Chairman and CEO Bernard J. Tyson.
The 1985–1986 Hormel strike was a labor strike that involved approximately 1,500 workers of the Hormel meatpacking plant in Austin, Minnesota in the United States. The strike, beginning August 17, 1985 and lasting until September 13 of the following year, is considered one of the longest strikes in Minnesota history and ended in failure for the striking workers.
The 2020 University of Illinois Hospital strikes were the result of a breakdown in contract negotiations between labor unions and hospital management over salaries, staffing levels, and access to personal protective equipment.
The 2021 St. Charles Bend strike was a labor strike involving technical workers at the St. Charles Medical Center – Bend in Bend, Oregon, United States. The strike was precipitated when, in 2019, the workers at the hospital unionized with the Oregon Federation of Nurses and Health Professionals. Following this, the union's bargaining unit began to negotiate a labor contract between the workers and the hospital, with several dozen negotiating meetings following over the next year. By December 2020, however, both sides were at an impasse, and in February 2021, the union filed a strike notice. Despite legal challenges by the hospital, the strike commenced on March 4. On March 13, both sides agreed to a proposal by a federal mediator, with workers to return to work while both sides continued to negotiate a contract, with a deadline of March 31. The strike officially ended on March 15 and workers returned to the hospital. A contract was eventually ratified between the union and hospital by the end of that month.
Striketober was the labor strike wave in October 2021 by workers in the United States in the context of strikes during the COVID-19 pandemic. During the month, more than 100,000 workers in the United States either participated in or prepared for strikes in one of the largest increases of organized labor in the twenty-first century.
