Catholic system schedules union vote
By Joe Carlson Posted: January 24, 2011 - 2:00 pm ET Tags: Hospitals, Labor, Management, Service Employees International Union (SEIU)
Catholic Health Partners, Cincinnati, has scheduled a union election involving about 6,500 workers this week, in a rerun of a controversial 2008 labor vote in which the Service Employees International Union canceled balloting after bitter opposition from a competing union.
Officials with the 32-hospital system and the National Labor Relations Board said the SEIU vote is scheduled for Thursday at seven hospitals and eight nursing homes—almost identical to the group of facilities involved in 2008.
The election will be conducted by secret ballot under the terms of a neutrality agreement that calls for a quick vote and strictly limits electioneering tactics by either side. Both sides collaborated on common information packets that were sent to employees in place of more traditional back-and-forth campaigning, an NLRB spokeswoman said in an e-mail.
Catholic Health Partners filed NLRB paperwork requesting the election on Jan. 13. The NLRB said an employer may request a union election without going through the traditional process of gathering signatures from 30% of the potential bargaining unit at their discretion, as was the case here.
In 2008, the SEIU struck a neutrality agreement that would have allowed for a similarly swift election, but the union withdrew its petition less than 24 hours before the vote because the California Nurses Association/National Nurses Organizing Committee had mounted a campaign opposing the SEIU.
The California union at the time had opposed the election because it said the SEIU was “handpicked” by hospital management. SEIU officials rejected that challenge, and the neutrality agreement remained in force for a future election. In March 2009, the SEIU and the California nurses' union signed a cooperation agreement that calls for the unions to work together.
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