SEIU 1107 is a small but energetic local of about 25,000 workers in nevada, mostly based in the vegas area. The union originally began when the workers of first clark county, and later the big public hospital UMC, organized in the 80s. Later on they affiliated into SEIU, which was then first emerging as a nationwide coalition of building service workers, healthcare workers and west-coast public- sector employees that was building the most effective external organizing program in the country. The local went about trying to organize the private hospitals in vegas, but due to well-funded employer anti-union fights, was only able to organize a couple isolated units. So SEIU fought one of its first comprehensive corporate campaigns on the company that eventually became HCA (largest healthcare company in the world) demanding an employer code of conduct for union elections at sunrise hospital. After eventually winning this in the mid-90s, seiu 1107 went on to organize almost all of the acute-care hospitals in the region. This gave this local union a significant degree of power, especially for a union in a right to work state like nevada. So, in 2004-2006, the union lined up all its major contracts to expire at the same time. The idea was to create such a large battle at one moment to threaten a citywide crisis in healthcare, and to use the resulting public anger with the bosses to extract concessions from on issues that are usually impossible to win outside of the union-dense powerhouse states of CA and NY. Specifically, the workers priorities were to win organizing rights for part-time county workers, to win staffing ratios (for ALL hospital workers, not just nurses--- shocking, I know, for a union to advocate on behalf of poor workers as well as rich workers, huh steven and doug. If only we were more like the cna), and to win defined-benefit pension retirement plans (which are essentially no longer possible to win in the private sector anywhere in 2008). The marketwide contract fight was largely a success--- organizing rights were won, pensions were not, and a variety of half-measures on staffing were agreed to. The economics of the contracts were frankly outstanding. The contracts at St Rose in particular are far and away the best contracts in nevada, the best contracts anywhere in the us outside ca and ny in fact. And the union only had to strike its biggest enemy, local corporation UHS.
After the fight was over, a factional fight developed inside the union. At first it pit the 'old guard' of leaders from the original local's county employees chapter, against the exec director Jane McAlevey. Altho Jane's plan for a marketwide confrontation had been successful and the contract gains were wildly popular, the increasing focus of the local on the healthcare industry (that now makes up the large bulk of its members) led to tension with the old leaders from the county, and some very toxic personality conflicts developed. They eventually made a surprise move to push her out after some relatively uncontested e-board elections. Jane responded (tragically in my view) by using a technicality to get those elections re-run. And altho her faction of the local won the resultant follow-up elections, the use of the technically-valid but arguably unfair technicality polarized a great many activists in the hospital units against her, and the opposition afterwards concluded it could not abide by her continued leadership. So, after another few months of very destructive internal fighting, Jane agreed to resign and leave. In the intervening time, however, the cna parachuted organizers in to vegas to try to raid the local while it was in disarray. At first they did quite well owing to the ongoing conflict with and about Jane. After Jane left and the local began the process of reorganizing and holding new leadership elections, however, the cna lost a good deal of their original rationale for raiding. They've kept up the raid, however.
Its certainly true that the St Rose hospital nurses are fairly divided between the cna and seiu. At this point, the main thrust of the divide is that nurses who think they should have a separate professional association or craft union want the cna, and nurses that would rather be united with the lower-paid workers prefer seiu. Having had plenty of conversations with workers in these circumstances myself, I can tell you straight up that the rationale for the cna is a lot uglier than leftists like to fantasize. The fact of the matter is that lots of rich workers would rather not be united with poor workers, and they have a lot of very ugly ways of saying so that would probably shock the ears of the cna's campus and sect-based support network. So while the unit in question remains fairly divided, in the final union election seiu most certainly did win the majority. The cna, unwilling to give up one of the few of its destructive raids that they actually might win, has filed lots of baloney charges about how organizers (like me) threaten workers (becuase thats what we do, right?). Their charges won't stand up, and eventually cna will leave town, leaving seiu to try to pick up the pieces before the next contract comes up, with the bosses licking their chops to try to take back the benefits recently won in a fight with the greatly-weakened union.
Facts and messy reality are probably too messy to pique steven's interest the way an anti-union screed about seiu does, but, what the heck, now he can never say he just didn't know.