> [I asked Chuck Idelson, the CNA's press person, to respond to the
> Houston Chronicle article about an agreement between CNA and Tenet
> that Mark Rickling posted here. Here are his comments, along with an
> article. I haven't included the NYSNA release because I'd posted it
> already.]
Round and round we go. I posted that here not to attack the CNA, but to demonstrate the current necessity of getting companies to sign organizing agreements given the pathetic state of labor election laws.
> We have never signed a deal that:
Which we the CNA previously castigated as a "back room," "sell-out" deal? Try again, Chuck.
> 1- has the employer file for an election without a single signed
> union card - so that it is the employer, not the workers, who choose
> the union
Workers get to vote in the election, Chuck. It is they, not the employer who chooses whether they unionize or not. SEIU was on the CHP ballot because SEIU convinced CHP it was in their best interest to let their workers have a free and fair election. CNA wasn't on the ballot because it didn't run a successful Corporate Social Responsibility campaign against CHP nor did it deploy its organizers to Ohio to get 30% of CHP workers on cards to file for an NLRB election. The CNA could have done so at any time, but didn't. It's not doing so now, which demonstrates its commitment to organizing CHP workers.
> 2- bars the workers from campaigning for the union
This is an outright lie. This doesn't even pass the smell test: non-unionized CHP workers aren't members of SEIU; how could SEIU possibly sign some contractual agreement that places limits on the behavior of a third-party? Suffice it to say that Chuck is delusional and workers were free to campaign for or against the union in Ohio. How could it have been otherwise?
> I would point out that we have never opposed neutrality agreements,
> but what they did in Ohio is very different that the Tenet agreement
> we signed. Under the Tenet pact, we still have to get the nurses to
> sign cards to petition for an election, the nurses are still involved
> in campaigning for their union, and it is their union. you'd be
> floored by the enthusiasm of the Texas RNs and how they feel this
> union is theirs.
Although you claim you never opposed neutrality agreements, you got these nurses through a deal you previously castigated as a back room, sell out agreement, you hypocritical sack of shit. There's nothing sacrosanct about getting 30% of a unit on cards to file for an NLRB election; any union worth its salt could easily do this, even in the face of a determined boss campaign. The only reason you keep whining about this is to draw some meaningless distinction between the back room, sell out deal you signed with Tenet, and the back room, sell out deal you say SEIU has with CHP. Your credibility here is nil, Chuck.
Why didn't SEIU sign a Tenet-style deal (i.e. one that allows active campaigning by the union and requires the union to get 30% of the unit on cards to file for an governed NLRB election) with CHP? Because we weren't strong enough to. We generally win approximately 85% of these agreement elections, something CHP is well aware of. In this agreement where SEIU agreed not to campaign actively prior to the election (something that was a huge sticking point for CHP), we would have won far less than 85% of the units in the election.
> By the way, I love SEIU's double standard -- whining about our raids
> while they try to destroy the New York State Nurses Union
SEIU has offered to sign a no raiding agreement with CNA and its allies among the conservative craft union set. You haven't agreed to this because you know as well as I do that the CNA can't organize on its own, without raiding already unionized units or jumping in at the last second in other union's organizing drives.