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SEIU Renews Call for Unity among Nurse Unions Following CNA Election Loss at Fresno Hospital
Mediation proposed by AFL-CIO could lead to national 'no raid' agreement
On the heels of a union election at St. Agnes Medical Center in Fresno, California, in which the California Nurses Association (CNA) failed in an attempt to organize 844 registered nurses, the Service Employees International Union (SEIU) is calling for a united effort by the nation's nurse unions to convince health care employers to abide by fair organizing ground rules.
After a vote count last Thursday night found the CNA lost 452 to 327 at St. Agnes, CNA officials accused the hospital of harassing and intimidating nurses and vowed to challenge the election results, according to a report by the Fresno Bee.
"The St. Agnes election serves as an important reminder that management can almost always stop nurses from forming a union," said Mary Kay Henry, SEIU executive vice president. "Hospital administrators routinely abuse their authority to interfere in a decision that belongs to nurses, and our labor laws do virtually nothing to stop them."
Given the failure of the nation's labor laws to guarantee workers the freedom to form a union, SEIU has been mobilizing nurses and other hospital employees to challenge their employers to agree to a fair process for organizing. Those efforts have won workers the freedom to form a union at such large hospital systems as Catholic Healthcare West, HCA, Tenet, and – most recently – Catholic Healthcare Partners (CHP) in Ohio.
"By contrast, the CNA's strategy is to fight other unions instead of fighting employers – by raiding already organized nurses and intervening in SEIU's organizing campaigns," said Henry.
Since 2001, fully 76% of the CNA's union membership growth (30,396 members) has come from "raids" of other unions (2,453), affiliation agreements (6,600), and interventions in SEIU's fair organizing agreements with CHW and Tenet (14,085). After SEIU mounted extensive multi-year campaigns to win these agreements, the CNA subsequently became a party to them by challenging them as "back-room deals" until they received similar agreements.
In addition, the CNA's interventions often serve no purpose other than to leave nurses and other hospital workers with no union at all. As a result of interference by the CNA, nearly 13,000 health care workers who had a chance to form a union with SEIU remain unorganized today. Among them are the 8,300 employees at CHP hospitals in Ohio, who had spent years fighting for a fair process but lost it in March when 36 CNA organizers descended on them with a vicious "vote no" campaign.
Ironically, CHP employees were subjected to the same kind of misleading and intimidating tactics that caused St. Agnes nurses to lose their chance to form a union – except the union-busting campaign at CHP was perpetuated not by an employer, but by the CNA.
Currently the CNA is attempting to "raid" thousands of nurses represented by SEIU and other unions in Nevada, California, and other states.
"Nurse unions should work together to win a fair process for the 85% of registered nurses in America who don't have a union – instead of fighting over the 15% who already do," said Henry. "Toward that end, SEIU is renewing our call for a mutual no-raid/no-interference agreement with the CNA and other nurse organizations. We look forward to participating in the mediation proposed by the AFL-CIO to reach that goal."
In a May 7 letter to SEIU President Andy Stern, AFL-CIO President John Sweeney asked SEIU to commit to a formal mediation process with the CNA. SEIU agreed to participate; a meeting date has not yet been set.