1500 RNs unionize! What do you think?

[pickledpepperRN]

Associated Press Online

December 14, 2002 Saturday 9:18 AM Eastern Time

Nurses at Large Calif. Hospital Unionize

BYLINE: CHRISTINA ALMEIDA; Associated Press Writer

DATELINE: LOS ANGELES

Nurses at the West Coast's largest nonprofit hospital voted to join the California Nurses Association, a decision that union officials say will curb the state's nursing shortage.

Registered nurses at Cedars-Sinai Medical Center voted 695-627 Friday in favor of unionizing. The National Labor Relations Board supervised the vote. "It will be a sea of change in terms of how nursing is enhanced in Southern California," said Rose Ann DeMoro, executive director of the union.

DeMoro said the Cedars-Sinai nurses' vote coupled with future contract negotiations will attract more nurses and help reduce a severe nursing shortage in California, a state expected to need an estimated 30,000 new registered in the next four years.

The vote also will help Southern California nurses, who earn on average 25 percent less than their Northern California counterparts, she said.

Last week, the CNA secured a contract with Long Beach Memorial Medical Center, the state's second largest private hospital, giving nurses there an average 21 percent pay raise over three years.

"This is a tremendous victory for Cedars-Sinai RNs that will improve the standards of nursing practice and patient care at our hospital," said registered nurse Carmelita Dell Mundo.

In a statement issued Friday, Cedars-Sinai said it would examine the union's conduct to determine whether any election objections should be filed prior to the certification of the vote.

"While we continue to firmly believe that the interests of our nurses are best served without the intervention of an outside third-party, we will respect the vote of our nurses if the election results are certified," the statement said.

Contract negotiations with Cedars-Sinai were expected to begin soon, union officials said.

With more than 47,000 members, the CNA is the largest union of registered nurses in the state.

[-jt]

For a very large teaching hospital the doctors are very polite, friendly, and respectful of the nurses.>

It has to be a good place for nurses to work & it must be doing something right. It wouldnt have won a Magnet Award from the ANCC if it wasnt. But a place doesnt have to be the pits in order for RNs to want the rights they would have as a union. The Magnet Award recognizes facilities that value nurses, and an environment of respect towards nurses is one of the criteria that must be met, so I can believe that Cedars is a good place to work even non-union. But still, having a legally binding voice in the decision making only comes when you are a union, so I can see why nurses want that too -- even at a good place to work.

Only a few dozen facilities nationwide have received the award - Cedars is one of them - & they all very proudly use it to market to the public & to recruit/retain nurses. But an added benefit

is that doctors and other disciplines are also attracted to the hospital with this designation because it speaks volumes about the attitude, management, enviornment, and staff moral of the facility that has received the award.

There is a set of criteria that the hospital must maintain to keep the award & their designation as place of nursing excellence. They could be risking that prestigious award & title if they battle the RNs & fight their right to unionize. Union-busting tactics do not exactly respect or value nurses.

Maybe the hospital will just accept the vote & not risk their Magnet status. With that out of the way, the focus could be on bringing the nurses together.

[pickledpepperRN]

"How can any Union claim to be able to solve staffing problems, or any problem, until they have an actual contract? "

CNA's 10-year campaign for Safe Staffing Ratios

All of the following initiatives were introduced by CNA.

1993 First ratio legislation, AB 1445

1996 Proposition 216: Ratios were a core component of this HMO reform ballot initiative, co-sponsored by CNA. 3.2 million Californians vote for 216.

1998 Staffing ratios bill (AB 695) wins approval in the legislature for the first time. Governor vetoes bill after extensive lobbying by the hospital industry.

1999 AB 394 introduced by then-Assemblymember Sheila Kuehl. CNA gathers over 14,000 letters in support and commissions public opinion poll showing 80% public support for bill.

AB 394 passed by legislature after CNA mobilizes 1,500 RNs for rally on steps of the Capitol on the day Senate votes on bill. Governor Gray Davis signs the bill, making California the first in the nation to legislate staffing ratios.

2001 CNA mobilizes over 2,000 RNs for a rally in Sacramento demanding adoption of CNA's proposed ratios. The hospital industry proposes 1:10 for medical-surgical, telemetry and oncology units.

2002 In January, Governor Davis and Department of Health Services hold press conference in Los Angeles with CNA Board of Directors to announce specific unit ratios. Hospital industry's proposed ratios soundly defeated.

In September, official ratio numbers are released by DHS. Official public comment period set including public hearings in Los Angeles, San Francisco and Fresno.

2003 Implementation of ratios

[pickledpepperRN]

Have any of you been through a difficult union campaign?

LOS ANGELES

Cedars-Sinai to Challenge Union Vote

The filing of objections with the National Labor Relations Board over 'misconduct' in nurses' election could delay certification of vote.

By Charles Ornstein and Peter Y. Hong

Times Staff Writers

December 21 2002

Cedars-Sinai Medical Center said Friday that it will challenge a vote by its 1,500 registered nurses to join a labor union.

Officials at Cedars-Sinai, the largest private hospital in the West, accused the California Nurses Assn. of intimidation, property damage and "interference with the right to vote." Last week, the nurses voted in favor of union representation, 695 to 627.

The filing of objections with the National Labor Relations Board could delay the certification of the election by weeks or months, both sides said.

"There are rules set forth in the election that both parties need to abide by -- and that includes the CNA," said Jeanne Flores, the hospital's senior vice president for human resources.

"To the extent that we believe that there was misconduct, we have a right and a duty to our nurses to raise the issue and let the NLRB decide."

Flores refused to disclose examples of misconduct, saying, "We do have specifics, but we prefer to raise those with the NLRB in the legal process."

Officials of the California Nurses Assn. called the hospital's allegations baseless and outrageous. If anything, they said, the labor board should sanction Cedars-Sinai for its conduct during the election.

"Ultimately, they're trying to win through legal maneuvering what they failed to win at the ballot box," said Rose Ann DeMoro, executive director of the union, which represents more than 45,000 nurses in the state.

"They invested so much money into this anti-union campaign that I imagine they're embarrassed, and they're looking for some way to save face."

DeMoro added: "They ran a vile, vicious campaign against the nurses."

Lawmakers and actors rallied to the union's side during the nasty union battle. They accused Cedars-Sinai of misrepresenting the union's positions and forcing nurses to attend anti-union meetings. Several pro-union nurses also said that they were threatened with retaliation.

Some labor advocates contend that, by aggressively opposing the union campaign, Cedars-Sinai is betraying, not only workers, but its own heritage as a Jewish institution born a century ago on the Eastside.

"The Star of David is not there by accident," said Assemblyman Paul Koretz (D-West Hollywood), referring to the symbol of Judaism atop the hospital's main building.

"I've always hoped Cedars-Sinai would reflect positive Jewish values. I'm so disappointed," he said, referring to allegations by pro-union nurses of heavy-handed anti-union tactics by hospital officials.

Thomas M. Priselac, Cedars-Sinai's president and chief executive, has said the lawmakers and actors made such statements based on misinformation.

Priselac also rejected assertions that the hospital had breached Jewish values. "My impression is that the Jewish community has a diversity of opinions about matters related to unions, as is true in the community in general," he said earlier this month.

Hospital industry officials say facilities like Cedars-Sinai prefer to work directly with their employees, without a union set on increasing its ranks.

A union "really complicates a lot of situations, and it really handcuffs the hospital in terms of being more creative and in terms of being able to deal directly with their employees," said Jan Emerson, a spokeswoman for the California Healthcare Assn.

Long before it became the hospital for the stars, with towering buildings named for Max Factor and George Burns, the hospital was an institution for the city's working poor, many of whom were Jewish.

The hospital began in 1902 as Kaspare Cohn Hospital, named for a financier who made an early fortune lending money to Basque sheepherders in Los Angeles and who would later found Union Bank, the leading bank in the city's garment district. In 1910, it moved from Echo Park to East Los Angeles, on what is now Whittier Boulevard.

In 1929, the hospital changed its name to Cedars of Lebanon. The same year, Mt. Sinai Home for the Chronic Invalids, which would later merge to create Cedars-Sinai, was established in East Los Angeles.

A bustling community of immigrant Jewish workers relied on Cedars of Lebanon's clinic, which offered care free or for 10 cents. Many of them also did what they could to contribute to the hospitals. Both Cedars of Lebanon and Mt. Sinai hospitals benefited from fund-raising by groups such as the Workmen's Circle, or Arbeter Ring, a leftist community service group.

"Those institutions welcomed support from mass organizations such as the Workmen's Circle," Eric A. Gordon, director of the Workmen's Circle Southern California district, said of hospitals like the forerunners to Cedars-Sinai. With that history, "it's kind of embarrassing for any Jewish place to be fighting unions," he said.

Cedars-Sinai officials disagreed. "There has been an implication that the fact that we simply campaigned has been somehow anti-democratic, and I don't think that's at all true," Flores said. "We are in favor of a free and fair election, and of allowing our employees to make the decision for themselves."

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