UHW unity inspires member to fight for union democracy

By Ellen Dillinger, Medical Transcriber and SEIU-UHW member

I participated in organizing the union (then Local 250, now UHW) at my workplace, Mercy General Hospital in Sacramento. It was hard work, but an exhilarating experience. Health care employees learning to be union members required an act of faith–that we wouldn't all be fired, that we could work together, that management would honor a contract with employees. Once we were union, we had to learn how to be shop stewards, bargaining committee members, lobbyists for health care issues, and to sit at the table with management as equals.

If I had known at the beginning of the union process all that would be required, I wouldn't have thought myself capable of the assignment. However, with education and inspiration at every step, I became a person who was able to do what was needed. I remember a Local 250 shop stewards' meeting in Oakland where Union President Sal Rosselli told us that to have a real union culture in our workplace, we needed a union newsletter. On the van ride back to Sacramento, our group decided to create a union employee-written newsletter, and very soon, we did! Union staff printed and distributed our newsletter for the years that it existed. (For a look at our first newsletter, see: http://dillingertoons.dillwood.org/newsletter/2002/octpaper.pdf)

When I read of the dispute between Sal Roselli and Andy Stern, I thought, "Is this how it's going to end?" Decades of work by thousands of people and we're going to prove once again that progressive groups inevitably self-destruct.

Well, after reading this "Purple Uprising in Oakland" article, I feel more optimistic and ready to resist this business unionism of Andy Stern. The only way this country is going to improve is by regular working people learning to organize and participate in political change, starting in the workplace. UHW has served as an inspiring and educative force in this regard and I would not like to see that function curtailed!