Sacramento, CA — Today, the Californians for Health Care Workers’ Right to Vote campaign submitted nearly 1 million signatures to county elections offices to qualify the Health Care Union Transparency, Accountability & Union Member Right to Vote Act for California’s November ballot. The measure will give health care workers the right to vote on how their hard-earned dues dollars are spent on political campaigns and will provide more transparency and accountability for health care workers.
“More than 1 million California voters signed our petition to empower health care workers by giving them a right to vote on how their hard-earned dues are spent on political activities,” said Carmela Coyle, President & CEO of the California Hospital Association. “We are confident voters will pass this measure giving health care union members have a greater voice with more transparency and oversight.”
The measure applies to large health care unions with more than 50,000 members, where more than half of their members work for a health care provider. When passed, the measure:
- Gives health care workers the right to vote on how their dues are spent on ballot measure campaigns. Large health care unions would be required to get a vote of approval directly from their members before they can spend more than $1 million on a statewide ballot measure or $100,000 or more on a local ballot measure.
- Adds more transparency and accountability. Large health care unions would be required to provide their members with a detailed account of how their dues are spent on campaigns and politics every year — by mail and email — including the per member cost of that political spending.
Right now, health care union members have little to no say in how their dues are spent and there is very little transparency or accountability. A few health care union executives in California have spent more than $150 million of their members’ dues on ballot measure campaigns in the last 15 years without getting approval from the very members that pay those dues. Decisions are often made by a small group of union executives, not rank-and-file members. For one large California health care union, decisions on where to spend money on politics are made by executives representing just one quarter of 1 percent of their membership.
Labor unions have a right to spend money on political issues and measures. But union members also have a right to vote to decide how their dues money is spent and a right to know exactly where their hard-earned dues money is going.
“The initiative process is a trusted process to ensure that everyone’s voice is heard, but that process is being abused for political purposes rather than to solve real problems, harming the very communities it was meant to uplift,” said Francisco J. Silva, President and CEO of the California Primary Care Association Advocates, representing thousands of community health centers and clinics. “This measure is about ensuring our workers have a strong voice in that process by providing transparency and accountability.”