St. Agnes Investigated for Unfair Tactics

...The California Nurses Association had a large staff of paid, professional organizers working to win the vote. The association represents more than 60,000 nurses and has annual revenues of $60 million. The association could have collected nearly $1 million in annual dues had St. Agnes nurses voted to join.

Last year a group of St. Agnes nurses began a self-funded effort to oppose association organizers, citing the organization’s pro-abortion agenda. On May 15 nurses rallied against joining the association, saying the organization’s values conflicted with those of a Catholic hospital. They cited the association’s support even for partial-birth abortion.

St. Agnes Hospital chaplain Father Henry Williams also spoke out against abortion and urged nurses to consider the organization’s abortion position in deciding their vote.

“Some of the views of CNA just didn’t gel with the views and philosophy St. Agnes has and that was a huge concern for many of the voters,” Inge Schlegel, one of the nurses opposing the California Nurses Association, told KMPH-26 television news after the election.

Representatives from the California Nurses Association said they would challenge the results of the latest election, which had a 94 percent turnout. The medical center’s nurses had previously rejected association representation in 1998 by a margin of only six votes.

...Opponents of CNA union representation at the Catholic hospital say, however, the “harassment, coercion and threats” come from the CNA. Union organizers, say the opponents, are able to obtain full, private contact information, including home addresses and telephone numbers of all the nurses at a targeted facility once the union has obtained signed cards from 30 percent of the RNs. Professional CNA organizers, note those opposed to the union, can then call and visit individual nurses and pressure them to vote in favor of CNA representation. In addition, say foes of the union, the CNA tries to block hospital management from providing assistance to nurses who object to the union, demanding that the hospital remain “neutral,” resulting in an unfair mismatch. ...