California Nurses Association Loses in 2nd attempt to organize Western Medical Center

Published

Specializes in Cardiac Critical Care, Trauma, Neuro..

Nurses voted 170 to 149 NOT to unionize with the California Nurses Association. This was the 2nd attempt by the CNA to organize at WMCSA. CNA organizers made it very clear that there will be challenges to the election and this will delay certification of the vote. 423 nurses were eligable to vote and 323 of them let their voice be heard. Scheduling the election between Christmas and New Years may be the reason 100 nurses did not or could not vote.

Emotions ran high at West Med but most nurses maintained a professional attitude throughout the last few days before the vote.

Western Medical Center Santa Ana is located in central Orange County (the "OC") California and is one of three designated Shock/Trauma Centers in the county.

Up Vote Up Vote ×

Sherwood: just about everything you've ever posted here is anti-CNA. You're certainly entitled to your opinion but ... it's getting to the point that you're doing nothing but spamming for your anti-union website.

If you were actually participating as a member in other discussions and voicing your opinions in addition to that ... it would be one thing but ... you're not doing that. You're just slamming CNA every chance you get and trying to drive traffic to your website.

At a certain point ... it's just not right. I don't think that's what this board is for.

:typing

Up Vote Up Vote ×
Specializes in Cardiac Critical Care, Trauma, Neuro..
Sherwood: just about everything you've ever posted here is anti-CNA. You're certainly entitled to your opinion but ... it's getting to the point that you're doing nothing but spamming for your anti-union website.

If you were actually participating as a member in other discussions and voicing your opinions in addition to that ... it would be one thing but ... you're not doing that. You're just slamming CNA every chance you get and trying to drive traffic to your website.

At a certain point ... it's just not right. I don't think that's what this board is for.

:typing

Point well taken Lizz. I will just get to the point and get out. I think the announcement was important though.

Up Vote Up Vote ×
Point well taken Lizz. I will just get to the point and get out. I think the announcement was important though.

It is ... CNA has lost some but they've also have won some recent elections. While they lost Western, they just picked up USC in LA and Community Hospital in Los Gatos.

I don't know why you're making a big deal about the union challenging votes in close elections. Both you and other union opponents have challenged close votes when things didn't go your way, and you don't seem to have a problem when those challenges work in your favor.

Some of these elections do come down to just a few votes. I think it's good for either side to challenge just to make sure the result is valid.

:typing

Up Vote Up Vote ×
Specializes in Cardiac Critical Care, Trauma, Neuro..
It is ... CNA has lost some but they've also have won some recent elections. While they lost Western, they just picked up USC in LA and Community Hospital in Los Gatos.

I don't know why you're making a big deal about the union challenging votes in close elections. Both you and other union opponents have challenged close votes when things didn't go your way, and you don't seem to have a problem when those challenges work in your favor.

Some of these elections do come down to just a few votes. I think it's good for either side to challenge just to make sure the result is valid.

:typing

Have you ever noticed that when the California Nurses Association is organizing a hospital they don't announce it? Have you ever noticed that no where on their website do they mention that they LOST an election? Have you noticed that they do not inform the public when there is a decertification petition filed? A couple of hundred nurses at Tri-City hospital have and are angry and do not want CNA representation but the CNA is silent about it. The nurses of Inland Valley Medical Center actually won their vote to decertify the CNA! No announcement from the CNA.

I think everyone should know that the California Nurses Association tried to organize Western Medical Center Santa Ana for months now. They have spent thousands and thousands of dollars. They provided food almost every day for two shifts for weeks on end.

The California Nurses Association is claims to be the "Voice For Nurses". Well it's not true. They are the voice for some nurses and it's actually a very vocal minority of nurses.

We worked very hard at Western Medical Center to care for our patients during the last few months we had to do that and work around all the union negativity. We have voted against the CNA twice now and I am sure they will be back again. We are proud of that and we want you to know it.

Up Vote Up Vote ×
Have you ever noticed that when the California Nurses Association is organizing a hospital they don't announce it? Have you ever noticed that no where on their website do they mention that they LOST an election? Have you noticed that they do not inform the public when there is a decertification petition filed? A couple of hundred nurses at Tri-City hospital have and are angry and do not want CNA representation but the CNA is silent about it. The nurses of Inland Valley Medical Center actually won their vote to decertify the CNA! No announcement from the CNA.

And, just as conveniently ... you are now failing to point out CNA's victories: they lost Western Medical but they've just won two elections at USC LA and Community Hospital in Los Gatos.

While you mention the anti-union Inland Valley Medical Center victory, you're conveniently failing to mention your decertification defeats at St. Vincent's and Scripps. Right now ... you've only won 1 out of 3 decertification elections for which you posted threads on this board ... but you're not telling people about that.

Don't get me wrong: I don't expect you to write press releases for CNA but why are you expecting CNA to write press releases for you? I wouldn't expect either side to highlight their failures but ... why does that make CNA the evil empire when you're doing the same thing?

:typing

Up Vote Up Vote ×
Specializes in Cardiac Critical Care, Trauma, Neuro..
And, just as conveniently ... you are now failing to point out CNA's victories: they lost Western Medical but they've just won two elections at USC LA and Community Hospital in Los Gatos.

While you mention the anti-union Inland Valley Medical Center victory, you're conveniently failing to mention your decertification defeats at St. Vincent's and Scripps. Right now ... you've only won 1 out of 3 decertification elections for which you posted threads on this board ... but you're not telling people about that.

Don't get me wrong: I don't expect you to write press releases for CNA but why are you expecting CNA to write press releases for you? I wouldn't expect either side to highlight their failures but ... why does that make CNA the evil empire when you're doing the same thing?

:typing

The CNA already announces their wins so I don't need to. I have announced it when nurses lost to the CNA on my website many times.

You referred to Scripps, I believe you mean Scripps Encinitas? While the CNA can claim Scripps Encinitas as unionized you must remember that the CNA had to concede to an open shop contract there. If they did not they would be out of there already.

I do not know about all of CNA's activity. I get involved when I am asked. Scripps Encinitas, Inland Valley, Cedars-Sinai, Los Gatos (the first time when we beat the CNA) Tr-City, St Vincents and a few more. They asked and I helped where I could and when I could. The last few months I had my own battle to fight so my resources were limited.

I am happy that for the time being my hospital is united and not unionized. Many good nurses are dissapointed that the CNA lost. Others are excited and look forward to a bright future at Western Medical Center and a Happy New Year. In the end we will continue to work together to provide the great care our patients expect and deserve. Thats what its all about.

I am sure everyone is sick of our banter now Lizz so I am done. I leave you to get in the last word or words if you desire. I appreciate your comments and your insight. It is clear that you care and caring is what nurses do. What more could I ask?

Sherwood

Up Vote Up Vote ×
Specializes in Day Surgery/Infusion/ED.

That's just Sherwood's schtick, lizz. I've often wondered if he/she was in administration or management.

Up Vote Up Vote ×
Specializes in Cardiac Critical Care, Trauma, Neuro..
The CNA already announces their wins so I don't need to. I have announced it when nurses lost to the CNA on my website many times.

You referred to Scripps, I believe you mean Scripps Encinitas? While the CNA can claim Scripps Encinitas as unionized you must remember that the CNA had to concede to an open shop contract there. If they did not they would be out of there already.

I do not know about all of CNA's activity. I get involved when I am asked. Scripps Encinitas, Inland Valley, Cedars-Sinai, Los Gatos (the first time when we beat the CNA) Tr-City, St Vincents and a few more. They asked and I helped where I could and when I could. The last few months I had my own battle to fight so my resources were limited.

I am happy that for the time being my hospital is united and not unionized. Many good nurses are dissapointed that the CNA lost. Others are excited and look forward to a bright future at Western Medical Center and a Happy New Year. In the end we will continue to work together to provide the great care our patients expect and deserve. Thats what its all about.

I am sure everyone is sick of our banter now Lizz so I am done. I leave you to get in the last word or words if you desire. I appreciate your comments and your insight. It is clear that you care and caring is what nurses do. What more could I ask?

Sherwood

I had to add this update:

April 24th 2007 - The California Nurses Association has withdrawn its petition to represent Registered Nurses at Western Medical Center Santa Ana. After losing in an NLRB supervised election held December 27th and 28th 2006, the CNA filed multiple objections in an attempt to overturn the election and receive a revote. The NLRB scheduled a hearing for March 20th of 2007 to rule on those objections.

On March 19th 2007 the CNA realizing the inevitable confirmation of their loss pulled out and filed to withdraw the election petition altogether. The translation is that although Registered Nurses of Western Medical Center made a professional decision to be heard by voting in an election the CNA demanded, the CNA did not like what they heard and withdrew the election altogether so the loss is not recorded by the NLRB. We witnessed it. We Participated. We Know it happened and the CNA cannot respect or accept it. This is the union who claims to be the "voice for nurses".

See NLRB Website for more information: http://www.nlrb.gov/shared_files/Regional%20Decisions/2007/21-RC-00936-3-2-07.pdf

I am sure you will not see this on the CNA website or in any letter to its members. With the CNA moving into other states, it is important for Nurses to know how they handled this. The California Nuses Association had to spend more than $150,000.00 in two attempts over three years to organize Western Medical Center Santa Ana. Paying multiple organizers to spend 12 to 16 hours a day for months to camp out at our hospital. They served free lunch and dinner daily for weeks to get nurses to come and listen to their sales speech and give them flyers, brochures, key chains and ID badge lanyards. Debra Burger flew down and spent a couple of days with us. Legal fees and and arbitration costs. All this and they then gave up.

Up Vote Up Vote ×

I think that in the presence of Employee free choice these are the real numbers:

Some 60 million U.S. workers say they would join a union if they could, based on research conducted by Peter D. Hart Research Associates in December 2006. But when workers try to gain a voice on the job by forming a union, employers routinely respond with intimidation, harassment and retaliation.

During union election campaigns, management routinely coerces employees to convince them not to choose union representation. According to a survey of National Labor Relations Board (NLRB) election campaigns in 1998 and 1999 by Cornell University scholar Kate Bronfenbrenner, private-sector employers illegally fire employees for union activity in at least 25 percent of all efforts to join a union.

Employees not fired fear losing their jobs if they support union representation. According to the Bronfenbrenner survey, management forces employees to attend group anti-union presentations in 92 percent of all union campaigns. Brent Garren, senior associate counsel for UNITE HERE, told a House subcommittee this past September that 79 percent of workers agreed workers are “very” or “somewhat” likely to be fired for trying to form a union.

http://www.aflcio.org/joinaunion/voiceatwork/efca/57million.cfm

http://www.americanrightsatwork.org/takeaction/efca/

Up Vote Up Vote ×
Specializes in Cardiac Critical Care, Trauma, Neuro..
I think that in the presence of Employee free choice these are the real numbers:

http://www.aflcio.org/joinaunion/voiceatwork/efca/57million.cfm

http://www.americanrightsatwork.org/takeaction/efca/

I did lead a campaign to keep the CNA out of my hospital. I never intimidated anyone. Our management never fired anyone over their union opinion. The intimidation I saw came purely from the pro-union side, not from my co-workers but from union organizers. When I was outside my hospital passing flyers, mysterious figures would "hide" and take photographs of me from behind a car or from a passing car. The knew I could see them, they were not really "hiding". An "anonymous" flyers of me depicted as a puppet manipulated by management was sent to the homes of a couple of hundred nurses....no return address. I could go on and on.

The "employee free choice act" you refer to is scary, it takes away a right that people all over the world have and would die for. The right to walk into a voting booth and make a choice free from intimidation, free from fear of retaliation. Card signings in the back parking lot while cornered by your "friends" encouraging you to sign NOW because it's the "right thing to do is not they way to run an election. Do you think we should vote for President this way? How about local offices in your hometown? How about in Los Angeles, New York or Chicago? Bagdad or Mogadishu?

Go ahead, say your peace.....speak your mind about unionizing or not. Let me say mine. Then let all of us enter the privacy of the voting booth in an NLRB supervised election. I believe in employee free choice, I believe that that choice should be made unintimidated in the privacy of the voting booth. I support the Secret Ballot Protection Act.

http://www.uschamber.com/NR/rdonlyres/eidlsku6ej3zrhlmm4qllk62iiteydn7dezcttkwhxmvkz4u4nh5pp6naz6l2t2r2cvl5ravsot3wq43yv76ktnds2d/04072004cardcheckFactsheet.pdf

http://republicans.edlabor.house.gov/archive/press/press109/first/02feb/secretballot021705.htm

Up Vote Up Vote ×
I did lead a campaign to keep the CNA out of my hospital. I never intimidated anyone. Our management never fired anyone over their union opinion. The intimidation I saw came purely from the pro-union side, not from my co-workers but from union organizers. When I was outside my hospital passing flyers, mysterious figures would "hide" and take photographs of me from behind a car or from a passing car. The knew I could see them, they were not really "hiding". An "anonymous" flyers of me depicted as a puppet manipulated by management was sent to the homes of a couple of hundred nurses....no return address. I could go on and on.

The "employee free choice act" you refer to is scary, it takes away a right that people all over the world have and would die for. The right to walk into a voting booth and make a choice free from intimidation, free from fear of retaliation. Card signings in the back parking lot while cornered by your "friends" encouraging you to sign NOW because it's the "right thing to do is not they way to run an election. Do you think we should vote for President this way? How about local offices in your hometown? How about in Los Angeles, New York or Chicago? Bagdad or Mogadishu?

Go ahead, say your peace.....speak your mind about unionizing or not. Let me say mine. Then let all of us enter the privacy of the voting booth in an NLRB supervised election. I believe in employee free choice, I believe that that choice should be made unintimidated in the privacy of the voting booth. I support the Secret Ballot Protection Act.

http://www.uschamber.com/NR/rdonlyres/eidlsku6ej3zrhlmm4qllk62iiteydn7dezcttkwhxmvkz4u4nh5pp6naz6l2t2r2cvl5ravsot3wq43yv76ktnds2d/04072004cardcheckFactsheet.pdf

http://republicans.edlabor.house.gov/archive/press/press109/first/02feb/secretballot021705.htm

The NLRB system is broken. The secret ballot protection act is both a joke and a travesty. Its time to restore balance to the labor management negotiations process. Under the current system management can bombard employees endlessly with antiunion propaganda and subtle intimidation without fear of legal retribution. If union organizers had legal free unfettered access to the worksite on a par with that of management then I would agree that the election system is working. The union process is democratic by definition. Bargaining priorities are established in open meetings with the use of professionally developed research and voted on by the members.

progressive-split.gif

Your faith in your ability to get the best deal for yourself over the long haul is naive at best. Some day in your worklife a manager will decide that they don't like you for whatever reason and you will end up pushed out on the curb without recourse. :trout:

In a union shop your brethren and sistern would stick up for you.

Up Vote Up Vote ×
+ Join the Discussion