The SEIU wants to push UPMC employees into the union, forcing employees to pay SEIU dues just to get or keep their jobs at UPMC hospitals, according to a recent opinion piece in the Pittsburgh Tribune-Review.
To do this, the SEIU must first become the exclusive bargaining agent for UPMC workers. This can be accomplished in two ways:
The traditional method is a secret-ballot election, which would allow union officials and UPMC to be heard and also permits workers to make their own choices in a private ballot booth.
The “unreliable and often coersive method” is the card check method, which would allow the SEIU to “pressure workers face to face until they sign authorization cards.” These cards are then counted as votes for unionization.
The catch is that the SEIU must first persuade UPMC to accept authorization cards as votes and waive its right to hold a secret-ballot election that would allow the workers a private vote.
According to the article, the SEIU’s strategy is to attack UPMC until it agrees to a card check, and “if union officials can’t win through a secret-ballot vote, they don’t deserve to win at all.”
