UNAC/UHCP Welcomes New Staff Mike Boccio and Linda Calderon, CNM

March 2014

Mike Boccio, our new SPNN Staff Representative, joined his first union at 19 as an apprentice electrician. He was born in Brooklyn and raised on Long Island, and he’s still got the accent to prove it. His grandmother was a union seamstress, and he remembers his mother striking with the International Garment Workers when he was a teenager. In his twenties, while raising a family in Florida, and after time spent as a volunteer firefighter, a paramedic, and working for the phone company, Mike decided to become a nurse. He gladly went out on lost time to help organize his and ten other Healthcare Corporation of America hospitals with the National Nurses Organizing Committee. He became Chief Nurse Rep (equivalent to our affiliate President), while also helping NNOC to organize hospitals in Texas.

In a sign of our changing times, he did his first interview for the SPNN position via Skype, but once hired he was out here in two weeks, with big plans to help unite more members so they can be stronger for 2014’s negotiations. His wife Lisa expects to join him here in February. He’s not sure how many of his four adult children and two step-daughters might follow along later. In his free time, Mike has a lot of toys in his garage to play with, including a couple of Harleys and a small fleet of radio controlled airplanes.

 

Linda Calderon had questions and she wanted answers. But after becoming a Certified Nurse Midwife (CNM) and coming to Kaiser Permanente, she noticed a big difference between the unionized RNs and the non-union CNMS. Non-union midwives were expected to get to work and ask no questions. Not Linda. She wanted a voice, fair pay practices and fair scheduling for everybody. So she helped organize the CNMs to join UNAC/UHCP, served on their bargaining team and became their first affiliate Vice President. Now she has decided to retire from KP to become their UNAC/UHCP Staff Representative. She wants to engage more members, bring them into the workings of the affiliate and make sure everyone is well-represented.

Linda was born and raised for her first ten years in New Jersey, before moving to California. She was always interested in helping people and in the sciences, which is how she got into nursing. As a nurse, she always thought she could do more, but she didn’t want to go to medical school, so she took the in-between step of becoming a midwife. She liked everything about it, especially explaining to people about their bodies, their health and the birth process. In her almost 30 years as a midwife she birthed over 6,000 babies. Her family includes her husband, retired from the City of Pasadena; their three adult children; and a hyper Jack Russell Terrier named Chica. She and her husband love to travel whenever and wherever they can, most recently to the Alaskan interior. And they also love to ski.