Health care workers at Samaritan Lebanon Community Hospital voted to join the Service Employees International Union in early March, The New Era has learned.
SEIU is a major labor union representing approximately 2 million workers across the United States, Canada, and Puerto Rico, focusing on healthcare, public services, and property services.
According reports by the SEIU Local 49, which numbers about 15,000 members, the vote to unionize was 133-6. Those included nutrition services, housekeeping and certified nursing assistants.
“The union is something so cool because you can make decisions together with administration and we both create something that is good for us as employees,” CNA Adilson Nuñez told the National AFL-CIO News. “We work together for a purpose – we work together for the same goal.”
According to multiple union reports, Nuñez has been organizing with his coworkers for years. He said they have a good relationship with management and hopes this decision benefits both sides.
“The union is something so cool because you can make decisions together with administration,” he said, “and we both create something that is good for us as employees. We work together for a purpose, we work together for the same goal.”
Nurses at Samaritan Lebanon Community Hospital are already unionized, represented by the Oregon Nurses Association (ONA).
Nuñez said workers want to negotiate for better pay and health care and will form a bargaining team to negotiate a contract, alongside the other four Samaritan hospitals, in Corvallis, Albany, Newport and Lincoln City, which are already unionized.