A National Labor Relations Board administrative law judge on Wednesday ordered California-based dialysis provider Satellite Healthcare to cease from punishing workers for their choice to unionize, to repay unionized employees for withheld merit raises and to rehire a registered nurse after repeatedly violating the National Labor Relations Act.
Judge Brian Gee held that Satellite Healthcare violated labor law when it allegedly withheld merit-based increases, threatened retaliation and “discharged a key union supporter” and changed workplace policies to punish unionized workers during and after a contract bargaining process with Service Employees International Union (SEIU) and workers at several Bay Area locations.
HR Dive reached out to Satellite Healthcare and the SEIU about the ruling, but did not hear back by the time of publication.
Under Gee’s cease-and-desist order, Satellite cannot:
- Tell employees that being represented by SEIU’s healthcare worker branch would be “futile,”
- Threaten workers with plant closure,
- Blame the union for withheld merit increases in wages,
- Tell workers they can’t have union representatives present during investigatory interviews, and
- Discharge or discipline employees because of their union involvement.
Satellite Healthcare must also post a notice stating that it violated the NLRA.
Judge Rita F. Lin of the U.S. District Court of the Northern District of California had issued an injunction in the case on Dec. 23, 2024, against Satellite Healthcare, requiring the company to restore its annual merit-based wage increases for workers. The Satellite location had to rescind changes to workers’ terms and conditions of employment, and widely communicate that it had violated the NLRA to workers, pending a final decision by the NLRB.
Previously, in January 2024, a cohort of unionized dialysis workers, represented by SEIU-United Healthcare Workers West, rallied on Capitol Hill to speak about the staffing challenges in this specific caregiving niche. Workers for Satellite Healthcare were joined by employees at Fresenius and DaVita.
“What these workers do to provide this vital treatment has been rewarded with overwork and underpay,” Rep. Zoe Lofgren, D-Calif., said at the 2024 press conference. “These massive companies have not bargained in good faith. And that’s simply wrong.”
Congressperson Adam Schiff, who now serves as a senator from California, also said at the time, “Given the critical role that dialysis plays and keeping patients with kidney failure alive, it is a travesty that the health care workers who care for our veterans and all of our citizens are underpaid and short staffed in a nation as prosperous as the United States of America.”