Guardian intern Joe Sciarrillo was at Friday’s takeover of the UHW by SEIU and has these words and images:
Friday afternoon at the United Healthcare Workers headquarters, eight Oakland Police officers mediated a dispute between UHW members resisting the takeover by Service Employees International Union and SEIU representatives who showed up to take custody of the building. Both sides sought to convince the police to let their respective groups stay in the building.
Lover Joyce, a former UHW Executive Board member and medical assistant at Kaiser Walnut Creek, explained to reporters what the SEIU representatives had done around 11am. “They broke into the building, pushed our members” after using bolt-cutters to open the doors. Joyce and several other members had been sleeping at the office for a little over a week, so when SEIU leaders arrived, they called the Oakland Police Department. “We have the deed to the property!” he continued to assure the police and reporters. “It belongs to the Unity Healthcare Workers Corporation, not UHW or SEIU.”
Tara Gorewitz, a contract specialist for UHW at Walnut Creek Kaiser, later explained the history of why the building was legally given to the Unity Healthcare Workers Corporation and not to UHW or SEIU. She noted that Shirley Ware, the late Secretary-Treasurer of SEIU UHW- West Local 250, set up the deed in this manner so that the members, rather than the union, could retain rights to use the building in the case of a split.