SEIU Home Care Workers Call on Activist Group to Denounce UHW Attempts to Bar Rank-and-File From Participation in Union Election

WASHINGTON, April 18 /PRNewswire-USNewswire/ -- As union member criticisms of a delegate election by United Healthcare Workers-West escalate, home care workers are calling upon a group of SEIU activists to denounce illegal attempts by UHW to bar rank-and-file members from participating in a recent election for delegates to the 2008 SEIU convention.

A letter sent by SEIU home care workers in Washington state asked the leaders of an organization called "S.M.A.R.T." to urge UHW to run a new convention delegate election in a manner that respects the voices and intelligence of its rank-and-file members.

"We are members of SEIU Healthcare 775NW and like the supporters of
the S.M.A.R.T platform we are fully committed to member-driven, rank- and-file democracy in our local union, and throughout SEIU. That's why
we were extremely disappointed to learn earlier this week that UHW had
intentionally barred more than 98 percent of its own membership from
running in elections for delegates to the 2008 SEIU convention..."

"This was not part of a noble effort to 'expand' democratic
participation to more members, as some at UHW have claimed. Rather, it
is clear that UHW leaders felt rank-and-file members who did not
already hold an elected position were simply not competent or
qualified to understand and weigh issues on their merits at convention.
This was not only illegal under federal law, undemocratic, and in
violation of the SEIU international constitution, it was fundamentally
paternalistic..."

Full text of the letter is at www.SEIUFactchecker.org .

First Call Analyst:
FCMN Contact:

Source: Service Employees International Union

CONTACT: Andrew McDonald, +1-202-730-7338, Andrew.mcdonald@seiu.org

Web site: http://www.seiu.org/
http://www.seiufactchecker.org/

2008-04-18 22:06:04 0339954 PRNEWSWIRE