SEIU Vote at Ohio Catholic Healthcare Partners

pickledpepperRN · Mar 10, 2008

RNadvocate:

Are you a nurse?

RNadvocate · Mar 10, 2008

Of course. Frankly, I've raised a lot of important issues here and am shocked that the response is to question my credentials.

The real question is why you are supporting thousands of RNs having their opportunity to form their union threatened by a group that wanted nothing to do with them until their vote was coming up.

pickledpepperRN · Mar 11, 2008

Of course. Frankly, I've raised a lot of important issues here and am shocked that the response is to question my credentials.
The real question is why you are supporting thousands of RNs having their opportunity to form their union threatened by a group that wanted nothing to do with them until their vote was coming up.

I am very sorry. That was rude. I didn't mean it that way but can understand why it seemed so. If you can possibly accept my apology I want you to know I am very sorry.

I was asking because your profile states "Nursing Education: Other"

I am supporting an informed election. It is untrue that the NNOC wanted nothing to do with the registered nurses of Ohio before this. Maybe you missed my posting a link to the Ohio nurses page:

http://www.calnurses.org/nnoc/ohio/

I have met some of these nurses when they came to our events here in California.

They have been meeting for several years. Ohio NNOC RNs met with the Board of Nursing and have drafted a safe staffing ratio law that is an improvement over what WE achieved here in California.

I have been frustrated by some actions of SEIU leadership, not the working members for many years.

In 1995 we worked together to inform people that patient care was not safe.

In 1996 the CNA had an initiative on the ballot to improve patient care. It included safe staffing ratios.

The SEIU put a "spoiler" proposition on the ballot. It was nearly identical and confused voters. Instead of working together they choose to fight their sister union. It let the industry win.

But then the top management of SEIU is more aligned with the CEOs than with the people who do the work.

Many fine people are members of SEIU and many fine people are employees.

But when a friend cannot criticize her hospital for jeopardizing patients and violating the law her union should support her. The labor/management partnership her union agreed to won't allow that.

I want to ask why the SEIU chose to make this deal with the top management and hold an election withe many RNs completely unaware of their plan?

I purchased this article to ensure accuracy. It is true.

The title is "Yes to 15 By passing the health and human services levy, voters said yes to the needy, no to the liars"

SEIU's fight against public health in Ohio
By CNA/NNOC
April 25, 2003
In 2003 SEIU Local 1199 shocked Ohio residents with a deceitful campaign against a health and human services levy in Cuyahoga County after the county refused to give them an agreement similar to the one Local 1199 just signed with Catholic Health Partners.
Here's what the Cleveland Plain Dealer said about Local 1199: "The SEIU is purposefully trying to rip an $80 million hole in Cuyahoga County's safety net by denying basic human services for needy children, the working poor and those in desperate need of mental health treatment" and "cares not a whit for the lives it will crush in the process." (April 25, 2003)
In the end, the SEIU was censured for its lies by the Ohio Elections Commission, and the levy passed despite their campaign.
http://www.calnurses.org/media-center/in-the-news/2008/march/seiu-s-fight-against-public-health-in-ohio.html?print=t

Yes to 15 By passing the health and human services levy, voters said yes to the needy, no to the liars:
http://pqasb.pqarchiver.com/plaindealer/access/333760841.html?FMT=FT&dids=333760841:333760841&FMTS=ABS:FT&type=current&date=May+7%2C+2003&author=Plain+Dealer&pub=The+Plain+Dealer&desc=Yes+to+15+By+passing+the+health+and+human+services+levy%2C+voters+said+yes+to+the+needy%2C+no+to+the+liars&pf=1

pickledpepperRN · Mar 11, 2008

hey all. things in ohio are really bad for rns. i've been doing my home work and here's what i have come up with.
be sure to check out this article: http://www.commondreams.org/news2008/0310-09.htm

here are my thoughts:

as the health care crisis worsens and staffing levels continue to fall, all registered nurses face an important choice about the best model to improve patient care and the profession.

this choice breaks down to going down a radical path based on confrontation and a path toward building a real national nurse’s union based on real partnership and cooperation.
the california nurses association/nnoc firmly believes the best way to improve nursing is to lead nurses down a path to radical conflicts with their hospitals...
(please read entire quote posted previously)

there are too many inaccurate statements here. i don't want to even try to counter each one. i won't even try to know why the seiu does whet it does. i will not claim i know what happened when i was not there.
i can state that i heard many cook county nurses tell of how they called the cna because they were not being represented by their union. hos they couldn't even meet with a union employee. and they had been paying dues for 40 years. maybe others had different experiences, i don't know.

i do know that unknown people were trying to get us to sign a decertification petition at my hospital. we asked them to leave because we run our union. i do not think it was someone from another union.

here is the nnoc page. http://www.calnurses.org/nnoc/

it is unfortunate that we have conflict with our employers.
nursing is difficult in the best of circumstances.
unfortunately partnering with managment just does not work in these times because there is a basic conflict.

as nurses we advocate for the best interest and wishes of our patients.
management advocates for the organization and the budget.

i have never been on strike. most of our cna contracts are settled without a strike.

we the nurses elect our officers and our board of directors.
we speak for our patients and our practice.

we are the union.
who are the nurses speaking for their election in ohio?

i can't even imagine voting for something so important without the opportunity to ask questions, to discuss it with my colleagues, to find out what i was voting for or against.
what kind og election is it with no campaign?

i think management chose that union because they want to prevent a union controlled by the nurses from being voted in later.
what did the management of seiu promise the hospitals to get them to give in?
frightening.

why would a union want an election before the workers had the opportunity to learn and decide.
it could only be ineffective without the unity of the nurses. that takes education and planning.

is the contract already prepared too?
that is what happened at my former hospital when seiu "won" with most nurses not voting.

these are just some of my thoughts. i am not all knowing. in face right now i am tired, forgetful, and grouchy.

pickledpepperRN · Mar 11, 2008

Ohio RNs are being denied a choice for union representation

Nine hospitals operated by Catholic Healthcare Partners in Ohio are delivering their registered nurses to the Service Employees International Union (SEIU) by holding uncontested union elections on March 12-14.

These RNs did not ask to be represented by SEIU.

They did not even know an election was being held until two weeks ago when they received a letter signed by both hospital management and the union.

The nurses are not being given the opportunity to choose a professional nurses’ union, such as the Ohio Nurses Association, which would truly represent their interests. Less than 2% of SEIU members are RNs….

http://www.nysna.org/union/main.htm

RN Power Ohio · Mar 11, 2008

hospital chain and hand picked union, seiu, forced to cancel rigged election after protests by rns and other employees - 'a victory for employees, patient care, and union democracy'

after public exposure and protests, the catholic healthcare partners chain and its hand picked union, the service employees international union, today cancelled rigged elections -- called without a single sign of support from the employees -- planned this week for 8,000 registered nurses and other employees at nine ohio hospitals in cincinnati, lima, and springfield.

"this is a significant victory for employee rights, patient care protections, and workplace democracy, and a huge setback for a hospital industry and seiu that hoped to make this shoddy abuse of what should be a democratic process into a national model," said rose ann demoro, executive director of the national nurses organizing committee/california nurses association, which challenged the sham elections.

chp and seiu arranged the votes through a top-down deal that "turned decades of labor law rights for employees on their head and made a mockery of constitutional protections of free speech," demoro noted.

with the collusion of the bush administration's national labor relations board, the employer filed for the election without any showing of support for seiu, and maneuvered to stifle opposition and block potential participation from any legitimate union, she said.

chp even resorted to the extreme action of going to court to obtain an injunction to block nnoc/cna rns from talking to the nurses about their rights and their ability to stop the hospital from imposing an unwanted union on them, while the hospitals were also blocking employees from internal discussions about the rushed vote.

demoro sharply criticized chp and seiu, along with the labor board for "determining among themselves the destiny of a workforce that is primarily women. the chauvinism and arrogance of their behavior is appalling, and has received the repudiation it so richly deserved."

"but their conspiracy of silence and the whole shoddy scheme fell apart when it was exposed to the light of day and the nurses and other employees became aware that they had alternatives to a union selected for them by their employer," said demoro.

"they pulled the election precisely because it was abundantly clear there was no support from the very employees for a union imposed on them by their employer and disgust with the underhanded abuse of their constitutional rights."

the cancelled elections, demoro added, are a "huge blow to seiu international's corrupted approach to growth at the expense of the public interest or a democratic voice of the workers."

"seiu depends on the complicity and support of employers even without any indication of support from the workers they are pretending to represent. that's not what unions should stand for, and it's not democratic," said demoro. she noted growing opposition from seiu members across the nation, reflected on the website www.reformseiu.org.

finally, demoro also criticized the role of the labor board. the planned chp elections were a template for new rules proposed by the nlrb to sanction employers filing elections without worker support, a form of company unionism that the 1935 law creating modern labor law rights was intended to stop.

but the current nlrb, stacked with anti-union appointees by the bush administration, "has been steadily gutting workers' rights, and turning the board into a vehicle for suppressing worker democracy and rights rather than protecting them. this election, and the rules now proposed, are a critical component of that ominous trend," demoro added.

http://www.calnurses.org/media-center/press-releases/2008/march/hospital-chain-and-hand-picked-union-seiu-forced-to-cancel-rigged-election-after-protests-by-rns-and-other-employees-a-victory-for-employees-patient-care-and-union-democracy.html

pickledpepperRN · Mar 12, 2008

SEIU Vote at Mercy Hospitals Cancelled

March 11, 2008

The uncontested union elections scheduled to be held on March 12-14 by the Service Employees International Union (SEIU) for 4200 workers at five hospitals operated by Catholic Healthcare Partners in Ohio have been cancelled. The vote has not been rescheduled....

http://www.ohnurses.org/AM/Template.cfm?Section=News&TEMPLATE=/CM/ContentDisplay.cfm&CONTENTID=2383

Diamax2 · Mar 12, 2008

As an RN at an Ohio Catholic Health Partners hospital, I have been aware of SEIU's attempts over the past 3 years to unionize and CHP has fought the union every step of the way, including mandatory films we had to sit through telling us why we didn't need a union. According to the newspapers, there was a class action lawsuit by CHP employees....aided by SEIU...who were denied lunch breaks and other such oversights. They apparently won some type of settlement against CHP and an agreement to allow a union vote was reached.

I am aware of no efforts by any other union to organize the employees in my hospital so it came as a total shock to find these California people invading our hospitals, getting their literature into locked lounges, and onto floors they should not have been on.....just days before the election.

Since when has a democratic vote for a union ever been considered imposing a union on employees?! The votes could have gone either way. What they have done is deny us any vote at all....a huge disappointment to those of us who don't like being totally at the mercy of management and how they want to interpret their polices, to which we have no input. I don't know how this California group could possibly get any more unprofessional. I would rather have NO union than to ever see them representing me.

pickledpepperRN · Mar 12, 2008

Vote on unionization of Catholic Healthcare nurses called off

http://www.daytondailynews.com/n/content/gen/ap/OH_Nurses_Union.html

pickledpepperRN · Mar 12, 2008

The Service Employees International Union is known for "partnering" with major corporations--whether that's Wal-Mart on healthcare reform, nursing home companies on blocking nursing home reform, or their own employers, including HMOs and hospital chains.

When they partner with their employers, they agree to work together for the good of the company, which puts the needs of members second to the needs of the employers, and ends their ability to advocate for social justice and truly progressive reforms, including single-payer healthcare.

This is a danger to the entire labor movement, and the main reason SEIU bolted from the AFL-CIO a few years ago.

But this extraordinary story--which included having the hospital chain actually file the papers for the union--is a new step for SEIU, and fortunately one that has been stopped.

One journalist reports she was told, "It's like the workers will have two bosses, and they pay dues to one of them."

http://www.mydd.com/story/2008/3/12/154714/773

nowknowhow · Mar 13, 2008

This, unfortunately, looks like another round of CNA doing what they do best - fighting workers! I was an SEIU organizer in Southern California several years ago when they pulled this move in Tenet, HCA, and CHW elections. Yay! Now they're a parasite on the whole country too!

By way of framing: employers don't like unions, and, absent a reason not to, they do anything and everything to prevent workers from organizing unions.

Here's CNA's recipe:

Step 1 - Watch while workers build a broad and powerful enough movement to get the boss to agree to fair elections (i.e. an nlrb election with agreed-upon conduct that allows workers to make a decision without coercion from the boss).

Step 2 - Destroy that workers' movement. More specifically, once workers win a fair election, CNA jumps into the organizing drive, accuses SEIU of a back room deal, and intervenes in the election, delaying and/or canceling the election, ultimately destroying any hope workers had of joining together in the near future.

They use the same messages every time:

- RN's need a "professional union" (fomenting divisions between RNs and other caregivers, and weakening the strength of the united hospital staff)

- Its a "back room deal," presenting the specter of the mob-unions of the past, despite the transparent and public efforts of hospital workers and elected union leaders to achieve the agreement.

The theory appears to be that *if* workers are able to muster a second-go on the fair election, CNA will have maneuvered its own "back room deal" to get on the ballot.

You know, why invest organizing resources on building a labor movement, when you can just steal it from other union members?

On one hand, it is incredibly discouraging that this so-called "union" continues on this anarchistic, divisive and ultimately regressive track. On the other, though, the transparency of this "bust" - where they simply moved an anti-union / "vote no" campaign - completely undermines the high-road bs coming out of their lefter-than-thou communication department in Oakland.

No matter how many times, or how loudly you shout for justice, if you're actually a union busting machine, word is going to get out.

pickledpepperRN · Mar 13, 2008

At my hospital my friend called CNA. WE met with each other for many many months before we filed with about 70% of the nurses signing cards.

WE work very well with our colleagues who are not RNs.

WE helped them get another union so they have protection too. And we were first so they got the same improved benefits we negotiated.

I have NEVER heard of management filing for a union election!

HOW did that happen?