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 those os us 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.
With the exception of the list of CNA's president's council and the definition of the organization, what you are quoting as fact is not--it's rhetoric.
For instance?
Your use of the word "rhetoric" with the pejorative (disparaging, derogatory, or belittling), connotation, exposes your bias and apparent maleficence towards CNA.
In the classical and more commonly accepted use of the word "rhetoric," philosophers believe that the skilled use of rhetoric was essential to the discovery of truths, because it provided the means of ordering and clarifying arguments.
You are apparently unwilling to cite any specific example from my post of any "rhetoric" that I've used to "obscure the truth."
It is essential that we clarify the issues; every discussion or post could be countered with an opposing argument. The effectiveness of the reply is derived from how likely it appears to be true to our audience. I'll take the high road...
NNOC/CNA has a very transparent agenda; we've posted links to it, http://www.calnurses.org/nnoc/ and, as the fastest growing RN union and professional RN organization in the country, we're union building from the ground up. We're democratically run, and we affirm and uphold our rights to freedom of speech and freedom of association.
I believe those are all really good "mom and apple pie" values, to be honest and forthright, and straight up. I respect your right to disagree, but I am offended by your lack of respect for our readers. I'll take Ralph Nader's assessment of our organization any day. A union with a pulse, says he. :redbeathe
Hey, I'm a mom and I taught my girl scout troop how to bake apple pies.
With the exception of the list of CNA's president's council and the definition of the organization, what you are quoting as fact is not--it's rhetoric.
For instance?
Your use of the word "rhetoric" with the pejorative (disparaging, derogatory, or belittling), connotation, exposes your bias and apparent maleficence towards CNA.
In the classical and more commonly accepted use of the word "rhetoric," philosophers believe that the skilled use of rhetoric was essential to the discovery of truths, because it provided the means of ordering and clarifying arguments.
You are apparently unwilling to cite any specific example from my post of any "rhetoric" that I've used to "obscure the truth."
It is essential that we clarify the issues; every discussion or post could be countered with an opposing argument. The effectiveness of the reply is derived from how likely it appears to be true to our audience. I'll take the high road...
NNOC/CNA has a very transparent agenda; we've posted links to it, http://www.calnurses.org/nnoc/ and, as the fastest growing RN union and professional RN organization in the country, we're union building from the ground up. We're democratically run, and we affirm and uphold our rights to freedom of speech and freedom of association.
I believe those are all really good "mom and apple pie" values, to be honest and forthright, and straight up. I respect your right to disagree, but I am offended by your lack of respect for our readers. I'll take Ralph Nader's assessment of our organization any day. A union with a pulse, says he. :redbeathe
Hey, I'm a mom and I taught my girl scout troop how to bake apple pies.
Oh, please--I was very specific about the rhetoric in your first post. Your second post contains a little more venomous rhetoric, to say nothing of being patronizing and condescending---I know I don't need an English lesson and I'm assuming that other bloggers here are pretty articulate, so, who's being disrespectful? Not to beat a dead horse, but more baseless rhetoric.
Most of us entered into this profession for all those altruistic values you have cited. I'm sure we have many shared values, otherwise we wouldn't be nurses and we wouldn't be fighting to improve the system in which we work.
I feel the need to agree to disagree---you refuse to acknowledge CNA/NNOC's indefensible behavior and their track record of union busting. This is not their first foray into that arena. And I refuse to acknowledge that CNA/NNOC is every nurses' answer and only answer to the problems in healthcare and our profession.
I am still amazed that many continue to argue that a few Californians could go to Ohio during a blizzard when hardly anybody got out anywhere and in less than a week bring a union drive to a screeching halt.
Your use of the word "rhetoric" with the pejorative (disparaging, derogatory, or belittling), connotation, exposes your bias and apparent maleficence towards CNA.
For my part, if your asking whether I like your organization, no. CNA came to Ohio and conducted itself as a pack of arrogant, union-busting scabs and thugs. It's not bias. I really just cannot abide arrogant, union-busting small-minded scabs, traitors and thugs.
"Maleficence"? The California Nurses Association betrayed 8,000 Ohio families this month. You better believe we don't like you.
Hey, I'm a mom and I taught my girl scout troop how to bake apple pies.
That's great, and highly relevant. I'm a dad and I taught my kids not to scab.
Get over yourself 1199. SEIU didn't have the backing on the ground and your 'partner' pulled out. Quit trying to shuffle blame, look yourself in the mirror and figure out how to be more desirable next time.
Scabs and thugs? I think not. CNA/NNOC went to Ohio and educated RNs about the company-union deal that SEIU/Andy Stern made with CHP. About what their future would be like with a company union. Then SEIU/CHP cancelled the election, because they were afraid of the results they would have with an informed (instead of the uninformed, and gagged--as in not allowed to even discuss the union) group of voters.
Are we to assume that everything that you have posted to date is NOT "totally biased"? Give me a break! Just because you don't agree with information that comes from a different point of reference certainly doesn't make it "misinformation". I would like to ask this question: Why is giving people full disclosure of information considered "union-busting"? If the employees of these facilities had time to sort through information from all sides of this issue and then voted yes (or no for that matter) on unionization then that would have been fine. The vote was requested by the employer and a vote was set up quickly (not by accident either) and the Ohio Hospital Association thinks "that this was a great deal" so if that doesn't smell like a rat then nothing does!
hAD TIME YO SUPPORT THIS CAMPAIGN HAS BEEN IN PROGRESS OVER THREE YEARS
Then you obviously know very little. Current, active, from the ground up organizing campaigns, at least three of them with election dates set, in four California hospitals, several Texas Hospitals, one Kentucky hospital, at least a couple in Maine and probably others I don't keep up with. An enormous and ongoing national campaign working with Michael Moore, PNHP and others for single payer healthcare (which SEIU keeps trying to ally with Walmart and the insurers to undercut). Active state campaigns for staffing ratio laws in Arizona, Texas, Illinois, Ohio and Maine at least, maybe other that I don't think of. (In most of those SEIU allies itself with the hospital industry to support fake staffing laws that protect hospital "flexibility") Each of them is a genuine fight for a ratio law, but also has the additional benefit of building nurses interest in unionizing.
SEIU, by contrast has gotten most of its growth in recent years by getting state legislators to pass laws giving them control of homecare workers and childcare providers.
Andy Stern likes to talk about "innovative new approaches to organizing" but it always seems to boil down to innovative new deals with the bosses to sell out workers.
On the other point, we do believe that the role of Registered Nurses in the healthcare system is a unique one. We are the only workers in the system with a specific call in our traditions and our practice act to patient advocacy. Which is why patient advocacy is at the center of all we do and why we could never sign the kind of agreements SEIU likes that specifically ban public patient advocacy.
We do strongly support the unionization for all workers in healthcare and otherwise. We've worked closely with other unions, including SEIU in organizing other workers. I've been on SEIU picket lines with their members at my own hospital and elsewhere. But we started life as an all RN union and continue to feel we do the best work and have the clearest voice by staying that way.
So do yu believe that child care workers and home health care workers are beneath representation? These are some of the most underpaid and dedicated workers in America. But again CNA only cares about RN's which I happen to be
Get over yourself 1199. SEIU didn't have the backing on the ground and your 'partner' pulled out. Quit trying to shuffle blame, look yourself in the mirror and figure out how to be more desirable next time.
Do you have facts to back up that statement? If those employees (not just nurses) didn't want a union--or wanted a union--they lost the opportunity to voice their opinion in a free and fair election.
Again--there's no justification for the action of CNA/NNOC...none...nada....
I am still amazed that many continue to argue that a few Californians could go to Ohio during a blizzard when hardly anybody got out anywhere and in less than a week bring a union drive to a screeching halt.
That's a pretty naive statement---if you really believe that.
What they did was inexcusable---and this is just another rationalization.
Rosiecarn says a "company-union deal." After a three-year fight? It's never happened in the history of the world.
...
The reader will have to judge for herself. My own belief is that CNA sought to bring to mind the fear of sexual violence. They then repeated Vote "No" over and over.
CNA's language of sexual violence was reiterated and reinforced with mailed flyers, a phone banking operation, picketing & leafletting, sneaking into the hospitals, and every other alley CNA could find to communicate. They even used this website.
SEIU cancelled the election because a gang of scabs and thugs called the CNA descended on the hospitals and ran a depraved and profoundly unprincipled union-busting operation.
Wow. This is really off the wall.
If you've studied labor history at all you would know that people died trying to get real union representation. They were not put off by gatling guns being fired at them and their children. They were not put off by court injunctions or fire hoses or police dogs.
I will tell you this though, 1199, nurses are put off by SEIU organizers who get into your face and scream at you as you are trying to pass out flyers; or SEIU organizers who dog you all the way to your car (and it's after work and dark) after you've said you're not interested. I saw this when you tried to organize with the blessings of the hospital's corporation at my hospital. That is scary and harassing.
The more likely scenario is that Ohio nurses saw your true colors, thought better of inviting you into their work lives and rejected you.
Quit projecting your MOs onto the nurses who went to Ohio to speak truth and shine a light on your shenanigans.
And face the facts: SEIU had no support among the rank and file workers. That is why you knew you would suffer a profound defeat and that is why you, colluding with the boss, got the boss to pull out of the election.
herring_RN, ASN, BSN
3,651 Posts
Since the past is "water under the bridge" I wonder if there is a plan for cards to be signed by nurses and other hospital workers.
Is there a plan to have an election?
If it was the employer that called off the election why not use the usual procedure being posted about?
Then the employer cannot call off the election.