(Reuters) - The Service Employees International Union fended off an upstart rival last week in a union-on-union battle over California healthcare workers, a symptom not of labor's decline but of its growth in the health sector. The SEIU-United Healthcare Workers West, in the largest private-sector election since Ford Motor Company was unionized in the 1940s, bested the National Union of Healthcare Workers-California Nurses Association after receiving 58 percent of nearly 33,000 votes cast by Kaiser Permanente workers. The replay of the SEIU's 2010 election victory, which was thrown out by the National Labor Relations Board, was three years in the making, spawned dozens of unfair labor charges and cost both unions millions of dollars.
