Community Hospital Workers Want Free & Fair Elections

Community Hospital Workers Want Free & Fair Elections
By Mike Rhodes

A long anticipated report from the Fresno Fair Election Commission was made public on March 13. The commission made recommendations based on investigations over the last six months of the union organizing drive and election process at Community Hospital. Employees at the hospital are organizing and gathering signatures of co-workers in an effort to get the Service Employee International Union - United Healthcare Workers West (SEIU-UHW) to represent them.

The Fresno Fair Election Commission found that the process leading to a union election at Community Hospital is not going well. The following information is taken directly from their report. Here is what they discovered: Finding number one is that beginning in late August 2007, Community Hospital employees were frequently called away from their patient care duties for mandatory company meetings, at which management discouraged workers from supporting unionization. At one meeting, employees were warned they would lose evaluation points if they missed management’s “labor education” meetings. Workers were told they would be written up for failing to attend these mandatory anti-union meetings.

Lydia Martinez, a licensed vocational nurse at the Children’s Health Center, was ordered by her boss to attend a mandatory “labor education” meeting in September – despite having a patient with a knee laceration in need of immediate care. “They can pull us off the floor and make
us go to meetings, and we have no choice in the matter.”

Finding number two: Despite clear laws against such practices, Community Hospital management has, according to numerous employees, engaged in aggressive intimidation tactics to discourage union organizing efforts. Hospital managers have photographed and otherwise
monitored pro-union employees, threatened sanctions against staff who fail to attend mandatory anti-union meetings, and unlawfully ordered workers not to hand out union information fliers.

In several documented cases, Community Hospital senior managers and security guards have threatened workers with arrest for distributing union fliers, despite constitutional rights protecting such activity. Meanwhile, management has widely disseminated anti-union materials, including fliers and e-mails, during work hours. Employees also note a pattern of harassment, in which managers have spread disparaging rumors about pro-union employees and abruptly changed pro-union workers’ schedules despite knowing they had doctors appointments and other conflicting commitments.

According to the report, management has created an atmosphere of anti-union intimidation, regardless of the workers’ legally protected rights to discuss and support unionization.

In a subtler form of intimidation, Community Hospital managers have repeatedly interrogated employees about their sentiments regarding unionization. This tactic has included trick questions to determine an employee’s opinion about the union; offers to help staff remove themselves from union petitions; and questions to staff about their pro-union sentiments. In a number of cases, managers asked workers directly if they had signed the union petition and told employees they were keeping a list of staff who signed. Supervisors also repeatedly probed workers to find out who was signing or distributing petitions.

Finding number four by the Fresno Fair Election Commission reveled that supervisors restricted employees’ freedom of speech. The First Amendment extends to the workplace, where workers have the legally protected right to discuss union matters. Nonetheless, numerous Community Hospital management personnel have ordered employees to refrain from talking about the union at work, even as they require staff to attend mandatory meetings opposing unionization during work hours. While management has widely disseminated anti-union fliers and other materials, supervisors have removed pro-union leaflets from the worksite, and explicitly prohibited employees from sharing union information with co-workers.

Although employees are regularly free to discuss sports, news, and other matters throughout the workday without such speech being stifled, they have been prohibited from speaking about union issues while working. Hospital staff says this has created an environment of hypocrisy, in which all pro-union speech is prohibited, while management commonly uses workers’ on the job time to disseminate anti-union messages.

For example, Mary Lou Martinez, a Community Hospital patient care assistant, witnessed her supervisor removing a union flier from the break room bulletin board, and declaring that no pro-union materials could be posted. Meanwhile, Martinez saw stacks of anti-union fliers throughout the break room area. “So they can put anti-union materials everywhere, but we can’t put pro-union materials anywhere.”

Letty Mendoza, a sterile processing technician at Community Hospital, was called into her manager’s office and instructed not to discuss union issues while working. She said “I feel like they’re trying to silence me, like my freedom of speech is being taken away.”

Finding #5 - Supervisors used fear as a tactic. In addition to intimidation, managers at Community Hospital have consistently used fear tactics to discourage workers from supporting
the union. Supervisors have falsely warned employees they will lose their jobs and their homes if the union wins the election. Staff were also threatened that they could be fired for signing union petitions, and told that the union wanted their phone numbers and addresses so it could intimidate them into joining. Due to this campaign of fear and misinformation, many workers have expressed concern that they will be fired for supporting the union.

During numerous mandatory meetings, management has intensified workers’ fears, claiming that employees would not receive raises if they signed a union petition, and could be replaced if there was a strike. In one case, a top hospital official stoked fears that organizers would stalk employees – further creating an intimidating atmosphere of fear and confusion that hindered workers’ right to organize and express their views.

Latisha Jones, who is a medical records clerk at Community Regional Medical Center, said that
“On October 4, at about 6:45 a.m., I went with some co-workers to the back entrance of
Community Regional and began handing out union newsletters to co-workers who passed
by. At around 7 a.m., a few security guards appeared and began telling us that we were not
allowed to be handing out fliers. We, along with union organizers, explained that we had
the legal right to be there as long as we were not blocking any entrance or exit or disturbing
patients. The security guards insisted we leave and informed us that, if we did not, they
would call the police and press charges against us. I was scared and angry. I felt like I was
being treated like some kind of a criminal at my own hospital. I was exercising my right to
distribute information to my co-workers and they were harassing us! It’s not right. They had
five security guards there to watch two of us handing out fliers.”

The Fresno Fair Election Commission report also says that Community Hospital administration presented misleading and distorted information to employees. As part of its overall campaign to undermine workers’ union organizing, Community Hospital management has consistently used misinformation to give employees a false and negative impression of the union. Workers report being barraged on a daily basis by anti-union messages, lies, and distortions aimed at discouraging unionization.

Among the more egregious mis-characterizations, employees have been told that by signing a petition they would be giving the union power of attorney over them, that the union would sell workers’ personal information, and that signing a petition was equivalent to giving the union a “blank check.” Managers also claimed Community Hospital would go bankrupt if it were unionized. Workers say they have received daily emails from management containing such misinformation, and must frequently attend company meetings where further anti-union distortions are disseminated. These misinformation efforts have exacerbated the atmosphere of intimidation, jeopardizing workers’ rights to organize in a free and open environment. Community Hospital administration presented misleading and distorted information to employees.

Sal Torres is a document imaging technician for the Community Hospital Medical Records Department. He said “I attended an anti-union meeting. Everyone in my department had to go to it. It lasted about 30-40 minutes. They told us the union would make us pay lots of dues and that the hospital would go bankrupt if we went union. The main message to the workers was that management really didn’t want the union. Even our director, Janet Paul, was there.

After the meeting, some workers were talking about getting fired if they signed the petition. People said that workers had been fired in the past. Some of the leads were telling workers not to sign because they would have to pay really high dues. I also got emails that said that signing the petition was like signing a blank check.”

Community Hospital workers and the Fresno Fair Election Commission are calling on the hospital to agree to hold Free and Fair elections. The recommendations from the report are that Community Medical Centers should engage in dialogue with the Commission, the Union Organizing Committee and SEIU-UHW to develop a mutually respectful relationship. Community Medical Centers should end its use of anti-union consultants and refrain from using them in the future. In addition: Community Medical Centers should agree to the following Free and Fair Election Principles:

* Equal opportunity to access and present factual information
* No campaigning that attacks the motives of management or the union
* No mandatory one-on-one or group meetings to persuade employees to support or oppose forming a union
* No use of hospital resources on outside consultants to persuade employees to support or oppose forming a union
* No harassment, intimidation or discrimination against employees or management because of support for, or opposition to, forming a union
* Quick and effective enforcement of election conduct by a neutral third party
* Secret-ballot elections conducted and certified by the National Labor Relations Board

The Fresno Fair Election Commission will be presenting their report to community groups throughout the Fresno/Clovis area over the next several months. To read the complete report, go to: http://www.fresnocmcworkersunited.org/


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“Everyone shall have the right to freedom of association with others, including the right to form and join trade unions.” International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights Ratified by the United States of America in 1992