SEIU Says Ohio Nurses Election Is No Sweetheart Deal, Effort Is Three Years Old

[Omaha Steve]

http://www.laborradio.org/node/8123

By Doug Cunningham

The SEIU says its efforts to unionize Ohio nurses at Catholic Healthcare Partners is not a top-down sweetheart deal with the employer, but a legitimate effort. An election that had been scheduled for this week was called off. The California Nurses Association says nurses at the hospital chain didn’t know about the deal SEIU reached with the employer. SEIU’s Dave Regan says that’s not true. He says it took three years of effort, including protests by hundreds of workers to get the union election. Several nurses at Catholic healthcare Partners wrote an open letter to CNA Executive Director Rose Ann Demoro saying they've worked with SEIU for three years to get a union at the hospital chain. The nurses say the CNA sent a "bullying staff' to Ohio to destroy what they've worked so hard to build. The CNA is competing with SEIU to organize the nurses at the Catholic Healthcare Partners hospital chain.

[BleedingHeartPatriot]

1. The nursing care view is

well suited to collective bargaining, especially a CB unit which understands the fact that nurses operate from Maslow's hierarchy.

Smart, caring doctors can provide the overview, nurses provide the hands on care and tell the the overview doc where things aren't working, based on what people must have to be healthy.

If the people for whom we care are made better, we have done our job.

[OhioOrganizer]

2. Letter from the Ohio Nurses denied a union by the CNA

An Open Letter to CNA/NNOC Executive Director Rose Ann DeMoro

This week, nearly 8,000 nurses and other healthcare workers in Ohio saw their dreams of forming a union derailed after the California Nurses Association (CNA) flooded the state with hostile organizers and bombarded workers with wildly false and misleading leaflets and phone calls urging them to vote against the union.

For three years the workers joined with Service Employees International Union (SEIU) members, leaders and staff to form their union. They sent letters to Catholic Healthcare Partners (CHP) officials, mobilized community support, campaigned for fair organizing rules, and signed petitions saying they wanted to unite in SEIU. The effort resulted in ground rules agreed to by both the workers and CHP that were designed to put the interests of workers first—not the union or employer. They called for quick elections without delays, equal access to information from both sides, and guidelines to ensure honest discourse.

Because of the union-busting onslaught by CNA, the ethical, fair and democratic elections scheduled for today and Friday at nine (CHP) hospitals in Ohio have been suspended.

The following is an open letter from representatives of the nurses who were denied the chance to unite this week for better jobs and healthcare to Rose Ann DeMoro, executive director of the California Nurses Association:

March 12, 2008


Dear Rose Ann DeMoro,

It’s hard for us to imagine how someone who calls herself a labor leader could purposely do what you have done to us and our families. You don’t know any of us. You have never been to our homes or met our children. You have never visited us on our shifts, or walked in our shoes. You don’t know a thing a bout the struggle that brought us to the verge of our dream to have a union. And yet without talking to a single one of us you send your bullying staff to come in and spread terrible lies for no other reason than to destroy what we worked so hard to build.

For three years we have worked with SEIU members, leaders and staff to form our union. We sent letters to hospital officials and mobilized community support for fair organizing rules. SEIU has supported and encouraged us through some very hard times, and helped us stand up for ourselves. We are caregivers—registered nurses and respiratory therapists, dietary and housekeeping staff, lab techs and other employees. SEIU helped us understand how we could do more by speaking with one voice and standing together for our families and our patients. SEIU respected our intelligence and our ability to make our own decisions.

You say you stand for democracy. But then you come in with a goal of destroying our campaign without ever asking us what we think about SEIU and our agreement for fair election ground rules—ground rules we now understand you have made use of many times in California.

You say you stand for justice. But then you deny us our opportunity for a fair vote free of misleading propaganda and scare tactics.

Our efforts to unite for better jobs and health care were not a secret. At any time during those three years you could have come and presented your union, compared yourself to SEIU, and asked us to make a choice. But you didn’t. So it is obvious to us that your sole intention was to destroy what we have built. What kind of organization sets out to destroy the efforts of the very people you claim to stand for, and then tries to pretend it’s a moral cause?

Here in Ohio, union organizers and representatives don’t behave the way yours do. They show respect for hard-working people. We have read all the words about how you try to justify this, but when compared to the needs of our families and the needs of our patients, they show a complete disregard for basic fairness and decency. You have brought harm to thousands of workers and families in Ohio, and you should be ashamed of what you have done.

Signed,

Linda Kirby, RN
Mercy Anderson
Anderson Township, OH

Sue Koch
ER Tech
Mercy Western Hills
Cincinnati, OH

Barbara Matlie, RN
Mercy Western Hills
Cincinnati, OH

Michaela Silver, RCP
Springfield Regional Medical Center
Springfield, OH

Diana Stamler, RN
Mercy Fairfield
Fairfield, OH

Sally Baker, RN
Springfield Regional Medical Center
Springfield, OH

Mary Ann Wolf,
Lead Cook
Mercy Anderson
Anderson Township, OH

Peggy Vaughn, RN
Mercy Western Hills
Cincinnati, OH

Sue Allen, RN
Springfield Regional Medical Center
Springfield, OH

Lorie Compton, RCP
Mercy Memorial Hospital
Urbana, OH

Colleen Gresham, RN
Mercy Mt. Airy
Cincinnati, OH

Betty White, MLT
Mercy Fairfield
Fairfield, OH

Susan Home, RN
Mercy Mt. Airy
Cincinnati, OH

Alecia Davis, RN
Springfield Regional Medical Center
Springfield, OH

Marianne Heider, RN
Mercy Western Hills
Cincinnati, OH

[OhioOrganizer]

3. California Nurses Betrayal

The title of my previous post is misleading - apologies. In fact, the California Nurses Association, an RN craft union, came here and ran a straight-up VOTE NO campaign. When workers said they were not RNs, CNA organizers said, "we're also asking you to VOTE NO."

I was present to hear and witness what the CNA did to workers in Ohio. In their literature, they demeaned and insulted non-RN staff, and the idea that RNs should unite together with other hospital staff. I have been working with CHP employees for three years. They are the most courageous people I know, and deserve better than to have their hopes attacked by a so-called union.

RNs in our union have always stood together with other hospital employees. just ask the nurses at CHP's hospital in Lorain, Ohio who organized with SEIU several years ago, and who have been overwhelmingly supportive of the long organizing drive across the CHP system.

The California Nurses Association betrayed and insulted Ohio workers and trade union values. Their shame is a disgrace to the movement, and their despicable behavior is an impediment to building workers' organizations, to change this country.

I would put out a plea, that members of the California Nurses Association demand their leadership stop using your dues money to attack workers here in Ohio. Hospital workers in the US are less than 14% organized, so there are plenty of places your money could be used in a positive way, to help local organizing drives instead of bullying non-RNs, and RNs trying to organize with other unions.