SEIU seeks a union vote by medical workers.

Byline: Jeff St. John

Aug. 28--In what organizers said could be the largest private-sector union organizing effort in Fresno history, the Service Employees International Union on Monday kicked off a drive to unionize about 2,000 workers at Community Medical Centers.

Saying that they are overworked and underpaid, pro-union workers called on the nonprofit hospital chain to agree to a fair union election process during a rally outside Community Regional Medical Center in downtown Fresno.

"We are here today because of serious problems in our hospitals, and we want to fix them," Lydia Martinez, a licensed vocational nurse who has worked for 32 years for the hospital chain, told a crowd of about 200 supporters.

Martinez and other union supporters are seeking to join SEIU's United Healthcare Workers West, which represents about 140,000 medical workers across California.

In Fresno, the union represents workers at Kaiser Permanente, as well as some Fresno County home health care workers and employees at some nursing homes.

Martinez said that she and her co-workers are paid less and offered less generous health benefits than unionized workers in similar jobs, and that understaffing sometimes forced them to rush patient care.