New face of labor has heart, drive Nurses union leader wants to help make the world better By J. Patrick Coolican Las Vegas Sun
Jane McAlevey traveled by train through Mexico and war-torn Central America in her early 20s. She has worked in Asia and Brazil and on a sheep farm in New Zealand. She rock-climbs and cycles and rides her horse at Red Rock Canyon. She's fluent in Spanish. She's an adjunct instructor at Cornell University, even though she has no college degree.
If the old image of a labor leader is a barrel-chested autoworker chomping on a cigar, McAlevey is the face of new labor: dynamic, professional, aggressive. She is executive director of the Service Employees International Union Local 1107 and the public face of 800 nurses engaged in a labor dispute with Valley Health System and its parent company, Pennsylvania-based Universal Health Services.
The nurses were locked out until elected officials intervened Tuesday and the two sides agreed to 60 days of negotiation through mediators, a development widely viewed as a victory for nurses on the political and public-relations fronts. McAlevey and the nurses have dominated the narrative, in large part because they've focused on staffing levels and quality of care, not wages.
McAlevey is one of a handful of leaders trying to reverse the long decline of organized labor in the United States, infusing it with new ideas and fresh energy. SEIU is in the forefront of that approach nationally, broadening labor's outlook beyond just wages, and its reach beyond traditional union industries. These leaders are taking on employers they perceive to be inflexible. It's a vision McAlevey has laid out in labor journals.
Historical trends aren't with them, and neither are the powerful business lobby and its Republican allies.
Nevertheless, if Valley Health System believed it would roll over McAlevey and the nurses, it was badly mistaken, say people who know her.
"She's very intelligent. She's inspired. She's energetic. Her heart's in her people," Clark County Commissioner Tom Collins said.
McAlevey is the youngest of nine children, the daughter of a progressive New York politician. Her mother died of breast cancer a week after her fifth birthday, and her dad began taking her to work. She said her suburban New York City county then was growing like Clark County is now, and what she took from her father was the conviction that those benefiting from growth should contribute their fair share.
"He taught me inequality was just not OK in a society as rich as ours, that hard work should be rewarded," she said.
She spent a couple of years in college. "But I quickly got into my passion, which is making things better on this planet."
McAlevey spent her 20s working in the environmental movement, much of the time abroad, and some of it for David Brower, one of the most influential conservationists in history. She drives a Toyota Prius.
After a high-profile job at a religious foundation handing out large grants, she was recruited by the AFL-CIO, where she was groomed to be a new kind of labor leader. One part of the philosophy, she said, "is that it's more than just what happens when you punch the clock. It's bigger than that. Do your kids have a good school to attend? A clean and safe park? Affordable housing? Transportation?"
McAlevey, 42, has long blond hair that whipped around when she chased her horse, Jalapeno, around a ring on Friday. She was dressed in business attire and cowboy boots. When she drives, she wears wraparound sunglasses befitting a cop.
She will often go a few years of working long hours before dropping everything and grabbing a "Lonely Planet" book and taking off on a trip. She's unmarried ("many opportunities") and doesn't have children. After a stint with the AFL-CIO, she went to New Zealand, where she skied, kayaked and, though a vegetarian, worked on a sheep farm during lambing season.
Around this time, SEIU in Nevada was flagging.
"Our members here in Clark County believed they could achieve more," said Mary Kay Henry, international executive vice president. "They wanted more for themselves."
In spring 2004, McAlevey parachuted in, as she does. Since then, membership has increased from 9,000 to 15,000, including workers at several new hospitals.
Her negotiating tactics have been fierce and savvy. She demanded that 160 members be allowed to witness contract negotiations for county employees, 8,300 of whom are represented by SEIU.
When negotiating the newest round of contracts for nurses, she secured a deal from the nonprofit St. Rose Dominican Group first, which trapped the for-profit hospitals into favorable terms.
Paradoxically, despite the image of the tough, finger-jabbing union leader, she also has advocated collaborating with management that is willing.
"She's the most visionary union leader I've run into in my 25 years of doing this," said Tom Schneider, president of Restructuring Associates, a consulting firm that has worked for companies such as Kaiser Permanente, General Mills and Honeywell to bring employees and management together to improve performance. "She understands there's far more benefit for both workers and the company and customers when they work collaboratively rather than confronting each other."
Schneider, whose clients include St. Rose, said labor and hospital management were at a meeting in Phoenix last year, and McAlevey was mostly quiet. When he asked if everything was OK, she said the group wasn't being truly visionary. She proposed that the hospital make it a goal to be in the top 5 percent in the nation in all categories.
It's now a goal.
Henry said McAlevey embodies the new labor drive through her obsession with results. "We've grown, we've organized additional hospitals, we've set new standards," Henry said. "Members have goals, and they're achieving the goals."
McAlevey is on her way to becoming a national labor leader. She publishes in New Labor Forum, an influential journal, and she has ties to national figures in the AFL-CIO and the SEIU. Democratic presidential contenders have already begun feting her in advance of Nevada's presidential caucus.
She seems almost contemptuous of politicians, however. She once ran campaigns, and won eight of them while losing none, only to see the officials turn on her and the working people she thought she was fighting for.
"No one's going to solve your problems for you," she said.
Running with the politicians and the national labor movement might not be in McAlevey's bones: "I like to be out in the field, playing in the mud of making the world a better place."
J. Patrick Coolican can be reached at 259-8814 or at patrick.coolican at lasvegassun.com<http://www.studioindigo.com/seiumail/src/compose.php?send_to=patrick.coolican%40lasvegassun.com>.
December 10, 2006 Labor sees new day in Southern Nevada Recent orchestration of hospital deal shows unions very much alive By Jeff German Las Vegas Sun
If there was any doubt about the resurgence of organized labor in Southern Nevada, it was erased last week when union leaders persuaded elected officials to broker a deal to get hospital nurses back to work.
Even Republican Gov.-elect Jim Gibbons, a political foe of labor, sat down behind closed doors - with three union-friendly Democrats - to force management at Desert Springs Hospital and Valley Hospital Medical Center to return to collective bargaining after locking out the nurses.
Mike Sloan, a former casino executive who has been on the other side of labor at the bargaining table, said Nevada's unions appear stronger today than anytime in the last decade.
"Under the radar," he said, "there have been a lot of things going on in terms of union participation in politics that indicate they are going to be in an ongoing assertive mode." For instance, aggressive organizing by the Service Employees International Union, which represents the nurses, has pushed local membership from 9,000 to 15,000 in the last two years.
The resurgence comes at a critical time for labor in Nevada and nationally.
The largest and most politically active Nevada local, the 60,000-member Culinary Union, is preparing for potentially hostile contract talks this spring with 40 casinos on the Strip and downtown.
More broadly, the state's entire labor movement is gearing up for Nevada's early 2008 presidential caucus, which will put issues important to working families under a national spotlight and give labor leaders clout in the selection of the next Democratic nominee for president.
Traditionally, the first two contests of the presidential primary season have been in Iowa and New Hampshire - two states without strong organized labor. Shoehorning the Nevada caucus into the calendar between Iowa and New Hampshire ensures that candidates will have to address labor's concerns, especially in Las Vegas, now the symbol of new labor and one of the most heavily unionized cities in the nation.
Labor's skill in drawing some of the state's top politicians into the hospital contract dispute concerns one veteran pro-management labor lawyer.
"This was the first real test of the strength of this new labor coalition, and management flinched," said the lawyer, who asked not to be identified. "It could change the power mix in future labor actions."
Certainly the outcome will further embolden organized labor, which has been buoyed by aggressive campaigns this year to win a ballot initiative to raise the minimum wage and to unseat a veteran state senator and two Clark County commissioners who fell out of favor with the unions.
"They showed their muscles in the last election, and it's starting to pay off," said Michael Green, a history professor at the Community College of Southern Nevada.
Danny Thompson, executive secretary-treasurer of the Nevada AFL-CIO, an organization with 200,000 members statewide, attributes labor's strength to its resolve to remain united during trying times.
"Our commitment to solidarity is stronger than ever," Thompson said. "What you're seeing are the results of us staying together."
Last year a serious split within the national labor movement created uncertainty among Nevada union leaders. Five major unions - including the New York-based UNITE HERE, the headquarters for the Culinary Union - broke away from the national AFL-CIO in a dispute over how to increase labor's declining numbers and formed their own labor organization, the Change to Win Coalition.
Together, those unions - which also include the Teamsters, Laborers, Food and Commercial Workers and the Service Employees - made up about 35 percent of the 13 million AFL-CIO members nationwide and about 80 percent of the Nevada AFL-CIO.
Through independent "solidarity" agreements approved by the national AFL-CIO, the five unions eventually were able to remain part of the state labor federation under Thompson's leadership.
"It took some time, but we crafted a solution for us," Thompson said. "That whole exercise made us stronger, and we've become more in tune together."
Thompson said the proof of that new unity occurred last week when other unions, in perhaps the quickest response he has ever seen, rallied behind the picketing nurses.
"You saw electricians, laborers, craftsmen, teamsters and many others out there walking that picket line with those nurses," he said.
Among those closely following the hospital labor dispute was D. Taylor, secretary-treasurer of the mammoth Culinary Union.
Many regard Taylor - who understands the power of union solidarity heading into his own tough contract negotiations this spring - as the most influential labor figure in Southern Nevada, and maybe the state.
Taylor said he played no official role in the efforts to get both sides talking again.
But he was a player behind the scenes.
Clark County Commission Chairman Rory Reid, the most vocal of the elected officials who met with hospital officials last week, sought Taylor's advice on how to break the impasse before heading into the meeting.
Taylor downplayed the significance of labor's ability to persuade the elected leaders to step into the fray. But he wasn't shy about voicing his opinion about the way hospital management conducted itself.
"I saw this as a bipartisan recognition of a crisis within the nursing profession," Taylor said. "It seemed idiotic that, when you have a shortage of nurses and the state is working hard to recruit nurses, you have a large out-of-state hospital chain locking out its nurses."
And although Taylor did not want to discuss labor's latest good fortunes on the political front, Thompson made it clear that the state AFL-CIO is just getting started.
"We're becoming a little more aggressive with candidates who are just giving us lip service," he said. "Everybody wants to be our friend when they're running, but after they're elected and there's an issue important to us, some of them run for the door.
"But they're no longer going to be able to take us for granted."
Much of labor's new political energy is tied to efforts to take advantage of the early Democratic presidential caucus, which Thompson worked hard to get for Nevada.
"We have a plan for the presidential caucus, and we're building on that plan today," Thompson said. "We're going to be more politically involved than ever before."
Jeff German is the Sun's senior investigative reporter. He can be reached at 259-4067 or at german at lasvegassun.com<http://www.studioindigo.com/seiumail/src/compose.php?send_to=german%40lasvegassun.com>.
Dec. 10, 2006 Copyright C Las Vegas Review-Journal
Nurses return to work after five-day lockout
Off-duty colleagues gather for unity demonstration
By JENNIFER <http://www.reviewjournal.com/about/print/rjstaff.html> ROBISON
REVIEW-JOURNAL <http://www.reviewjournal.com/lvrj_home/2006/Dec-10-Sun-2006/photos/nurses.j pg>
Chris Moore, a surgical nurse at Valley Hospital, and his daughter, Anjelica, join co-workers outside the hospital Saturday greeting nurses returning to work after a five-day lockout. Photo by Ronda <http://www.reviewjournal.com/webextras/gallery/churchill/churchill.html> Churchill.
Union nurses locked out last week from their jobs at Valley and Desert Springs hospitals returned to work Saturday without incident, though co-workers and one public figure bristled at reports that the nurses had to submit to security checks when they reported for duty.
More than 100 off-duty nurses gathered at the back of Valley Hospital Medical Center about 6:30 a.m. in a "unity" demonstration for their colleagues reporting to work after a five-day lockout.
The lockout stemmed from a labor dispute between the hospitals' owner, Valley Health System, and the Service Employees International Union, which represents about 800 nurses and 110 technicians at two hospitals.
Also at the support rally was Clark County Commissioner-elect Chris Giunchigliani.
Giunchigliani said she attended because several nurses live in her commission district. Plus, she said she wanted to see how the nurses were treated upon their return to work.
Giunchigliani said she was concerned that Valley Health was asking nurses Saturday morning to submit to verification through employee rosters and security checkpoints. The hospital operator began deploying security checks last week as part of a contingency plan to replace several hundred nurses who planned to strike.
"It's more security than I've ever seen," said Chris Moore, a surgical intensive-care nurse at Valley, as he listened to Giunchigliani.
"I would think that's not standard operating procedure," Giunchigliani said. Valley Health "knows who works at the hospital. They said they wanted to embrace their (returning) nurses. If that's how they embrace them, then they have a problem. They're not showing respect."
Gretchen Papez, a spokeswoman for Valley Hospital Medical Center, said officials maintained check-in processes to ensure they had adequate staffing for patients as the hospital transitioned between scheduled employees and contingency nurses from U.S. Nursing Corp. Nursing directors were on hand to resolve confusion and answer questions, she said.
Valley and Desert Springs hospitals held meetings Saturday morning for all nurses to review policies and procedures designed to prevent retaliation by the hospital or the union against employees based on whether they planned to strike.
Word of the security checkpoints didn't dampen the upbeat atmosphere at the unity demonstration.
Also attending the support rally was Donna West, an operating room nurse in Valley's open-heart surgery unit.
West isn't scheduled to check back into work until Monday, but she wanted to let her fellow nurses know "we're proud of them," she said.
West was among several hundred nurses who picketed Valley and Desert Springs on Monday and Tuesday. She spent the balance of her week in union meetings and training sessions covering the transition back onto the job after labor disputes.
West said she didn't have hard feelings toward co-workers who hadn't planned to take part in the proposed strike or who weren't out of work during the hospital operator's contingency plan.
"We worked really well together before (the lockout), and we'll work really well together after," she said.
Moore, the surgical nurse, wasn't scheduled to be back on the job until this morning, but he stopped by the Saturday rally on his way to a Christmas party at Sunrise Hospital for children with diabetes.
"We're here to show our support for the nurses walking in today," Moore said. "It's an apprehensive day for a lot of individuals. You never know what kinds of potential issues could come up."
Moore said he wanted to be on hand to help "prevent reprisals" as well, though he said he hadn't heard of any retaliatory activities as of about 7 a.m.
Moore, who also picketed Monday and Tuesday, said he's looking forward to going back to work and continuing negotiations with Valley Health for a new labor agreement. He and his colleagues have worked without contracts since May.
"We need to all just love one another and, most importantly, take care of our patients," he said. "We've taken a stance that patient care is important. It's essential we never lose sight of that."
Staffing ratios, some job benefits and union access to hospitals are among sticking points in labor negotiations between Valley Health and the union.
Nurses rejected Valley Health's final contract offer on Nov. 18 and authorized a strike that was scheduled to begin Monday. On the night of Dec. 3, nurses called off their walkout after Nevada Gov.-elect Jim Gibbons, Nevada Assembly Speaker-elect Barbara Buckley and Clark County Commission Chairman Rory Reid urged both sides to accept a 30-day cooling-off period. Valley Health officials refused to take part in the cooling-off session and went forward with contingency plans late Sunday.
After additional discussions with Gibbons, Buckley, Reid and Las Vegas Mayor Oscar Goodman, Valley Health executives agreed Tuesday to new talks to begin next week.
The union filed a charge Monday with the National Labor Relations Board, alleging that Valley Health engaged in a selective lockout when it brought in several hundred temporary nurses to replace nurses who said they would strike.
Valley Health officials said the week's events didn't constitute a lockout. Rather, they said, uncertainty late Sunday over whether a planned strike would proceed Monday led them to go forward with a five-day contingency plan.
The National Labor Relations Board should wrap up its investigation of the union's charge within 60 days. -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: <../attachments/20061212/4d7ae41d/attachment.htm>