The reproduction of a press release from the California Nurses Association on the role of the SEIU in Ohio hospitals elicited some responses from supporters or members of the SEIU (see https://solidaritymagazine.wordpress.com/2008/03/13/hospital-chain-and-hand-picked-union-seiu-forced-to-cancel-rigged-election/ ), accusing the CNA of acting like employers. We asked the CNA to respond to these criticisms. Communications Director Chuck Idelson writes below.
Nice flowery language from SEIU, but some points we’d make here:
• It was the employer, not the workers, who petitioned for the election.
• The petition did not include a single RN or other employee card requesting representation by SEIU or any other showing of employee support for SEIU.
• SEIU and the employer manipulated labor law to preclude any other organization from appearing on the ballot.
• RNs and other employees were specifically forbidden by their managers, with the agreement of SEIU, from talking about the union or the election, a dangerous violation of the constitutional rights of free speech and association.
• They were the ones who pulled this rigged election, not us. If it was such a great deal for the workers, and if there was such broad support for SEIU, why not go forward and have the vote? We, and other unions, hold elections all the time in the face of opposition — if there is actual support for the union and not just a shoddy attempt to impose a union without real support.
What’s a real depressing day for the American labor movement is when having an employer file for an election without no showing of support from the employees, maneuvering to block anyone else from participating, gagging people from talking about the election or the union, is touted as a new model for national organizing. Not surprising to us that the Ohio Hospital Association called this approach refreshing, according to the Springfield News-Sun yesterday. Is this an approach that moves union democracy forward, are these kind of rigged elections a model for praise, or do they just feed worker cynicism about unions and the perception that unions are a special interest?
And while SEIU is in their self-righteous mode, perhaps they’d like to explain what they are doing in Puerto Rico where they are conspiring with the anti-union government on the island to get rid of a militant teachers union. (see the attachments, the Daily News article and a support flyer for the teachers from a NY solidarity committee).
And perhaps they’d also like to explain their president Andy Stern appearing on the cover of HRO Today to give aid and comfort to the proponents of globalization and outsourcing or standing shoulder to shoulder with Lee Scott of Wal-Mart praising efforts to gut real health care reform. Or when he came to California in the fall to cut a back room deal with Arnold Schwarzenegger that produced a deal on a health care reform law that undercut workers but included special perks for his members at everyone else’s expense. Or what they did in Cleveland when they tried to sabotage a levy for public health in 2003 after the county refused to give them a sweetheart agreement for county workers — and ran a campaign so full of lies they were censured by the Ohio Elections Commission.
Its funny how the CNA does not respond to any of the points made be their critics of the union busting campaign that they ran in Ohio. Therefore, they ought to be repeated:
1) Nurses were involved in the organizing campaign, there were letter writing campaigns, rallies, and other types of solidarity actions which involved nurses. The workers at these hospitals faced a large amount of pressure not to be involved in the campaign, even to the point of firing workers. I guess the CNA doesn’t think these types of actions of are legitimate forms of union activities.
2) This organizing campaign has been continuing for the past three years, involving multiple actions by SEIU and the workers at these hospitals. During that three year period CNA never expressed any interest in supporting these workers efforts to organize. The CNA only came in the last minute, once these workers, through their collective effort, had gained employer neutrality. Once the CNA came in they had no plan to actually organize these workers, rather they chose to intimidate them into voting no on the union.
3) The hospital agreed not to campaign against the union after a three year corporate campaign against the hospital involving lawsuit, solidarity actions, coordination with civil rights and progressive community leaders. This is typical for most neutrality agreements in the United States, even the majority of neutrality agreements that the CNA agrees to.
4) It has come out that the CNA has worked pro-business lobbying groups such as the chamber of commers to run similar anti-union campaigns in other states such as California and to block universal health care reform California
Basically this is about a jurisdictional dispute that the CNA is having with SEIU, and the CNA has decided that it would rather have workers not have union representation and continue to work with out health insurance than have them join SEIU.
Chuck Idelson writes:
I’m happy to engage in this discussion.
1- If there was that much broad support for SEIU among the employees, why did they call off the election? SEIU and the hospital could have easily gone ahead with the vote. Their decision to cancel it is telling. If they thought they had enough support, they would have gone forward despite the presence of a handful of nurses from NNOC and other nurses who were giving the employees other information. Unions hold elections all the time in the face of opposition. if there is real support, they win anyway.
By the way, the notion that we “intimidated” the workers into voting no is actually laughable. our people on the ground were harassed and followed by SEIU staff, arrested by the hospital, and finally slammed with a TRO by the hospital. the argument SEIU is making here is that it is “intimidation” to present workers with alternatives and to tell them what a shoddy deal they were faced with.
2- They rigged the election to preclude the participation of anyone else. The employer filed for the election — again without a single card from a single employee — and the process they used barred anyone else from being on the ballot. It was a mini version of the Michigan primary, only one party allowed.
3- This is the most telling argument here, and it demonstrates so much of what is corrupt about the SEIU organizing model. they waged a big corporate campaign, so they own the workers.
4- CNA “has worked pro-business lobbying groups such as the chamber of commerce to run similar anti-union campaigns in other states such as California.” That would be big news, especially to the reporters who cover us in California. Let me give you some examples of our cozy relationship with the chamber of commerce in California. Last year we sponsored an initiative for public financing of elections and to sharply cut how much corporations can spend on initiative campaigns; 29 insurance companies and dozens of other corporations contributed millions of dollars against us to defeat the measure. The chamber of commerce has actively opposed most of the legislation we have sponsored, and their members have fought with us bitterly on political and organizing efforts. Legislative examples include the laws we sponsored to crack down on HMO abuses, protect hospital whistleblowers, pass hospital safety laws such as minimum nurse to patient staffing ratios, and our opposition to as bailout for hospitals that don’t want to seismically repair hospitals so they don’t fall down on patients and workers.
But let’s talk about who really has the ties to the corporate world.
It was Andy Stern, not us, who stood shoulder to shoulder with Wal-Mart CEO to join together for faux health care reform, and has a similar coalition with a long list of major hospital chains and HMOs — all of which have a not so hidden agenda of undercutting real health care reform, single payer.
It was Andy Stern, not us, who had secret meetings with California Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger to push a health care “reform” that would have forced everyone to buy private insurance, while undercutting union benefit plans and eviscerating real affordability protections for worker. In exchange he got special language covertly included in the law to benefit SEIU. And when the president of the largest SEIU local in California thought the deal did not offer sufficient protection for Californians and workers, Stern had him purged from the leadership of the SEIU state council.
It was Andy Stern, not us, who appeared on the front cover of a pro-outsourcing management magazine, HRO Today, voicing his willingness to accommodate globalization and outsourcing. And it was Andy Stern, not us, who had a Fortune magazine writer gushing, “Stern gets the irreversible economics of globalization.”
It is Andy Stern, not us, who routinely talks about what he can do to make employers “more competitive,” what he can do to “add value” to their business, and to help companies “share the risk of worker dislocation” — all because he is sending them signals that they should sign top down deals with him.
It is Andy Stern, not us, who has chastised unions for still thinking about concepts like “class struggle” and for “failing to recognize business realities”.
It is SEIU International and Dennis Rivera, not us, who is raiding a militant teachers union in Puerto Rico in collusion with the anti-union governor of the island.
It is SEIU international, not us, who signed a sweetheart agreement with nursing home chains in California in which they agreed to lobby against reforms to protect nursing home patients, and to allow the employer to outsource union work, and set all workplace rules — in exchange for dues units.
It was SEIU, not us, that tried to coerce the county in Cleveland to give them a sweetheart agreement to represent county workers. When the county refused to be blackmailed, SEIU then waged a deceitful campaign, that was censured by the Ohio Elections Committee for its lies, to destroy a levy to raise money for public health.
If that’s the hallmark of what constitutes a “progressive” union, then the word has about as much meaning as when Ronald Reagan called catsup a vegetable.
Springfield Regional Medical Center RN Sue Allen tells her story of hope, hard work, disappointment, and disgrace in her own words in the Springfield News-Sun today. Sue does not work for or get paid by any union. She is a nurse of 33 years who saw her dream dashed and her workplace and patients disrespected last week. Don’t miss it.
Note: I am an SEIU staffer who has been working with Sue and her colleagues to tell their story to all who want to hear the truth.
The CNA is an organization that promotes itself as an “RN only union. However, nurses only make up a small fraction of the nurses involved in this election. What about all the workers in these hospitals, where the CNA ran its anti-union campaign? The CNA told those workers to vote no too.
In its own literature CNA promotes itself as a union that only represents Nurses. Therefore I find it doubtful that the CNA does in fact have a plan to organize most of the workers in these hospitals, because most of them are not nurses.
This type of unionism that the CNA practices, which concentrates on organizing only nurses in a facility and ignores less skilled, poorer, and disproportionally minority workers in the same facility seems very elitist, classist, and borderline racist.