CALIFORNIA BRIEFING / LOS ANGELES

The standstill continued Monday between a California healthcare union and its parent organization in Washington as United Healthcare Workers West gave the Service Employees International Union its own set of demands for peace.

The groups have been locked in a dispute for the last year over whether 65,000 of United Healthcare’s members would join members of two other California SEIU local unions to create a new group representing only home health aides.

A hearing officer’s recommendation, ratified by SEIU last week, gave United Healthcare five days to agree to accept the merger and other conditions or be subject to trusteeship. United Healthcare responded in a letter to the SEIU board Monday that it would agree to the merger only if its members were given a separate secret-ballot election -- rather than a group mail-in vote, which was held recently and which United Healthcare boycotted as undemocratic -- allowing both sides to campaign.