NursingLink

I can't believe what's happening in Ohio! RNs there were finally getting together and had a real chance to improve patient care, and this group comes in and ruins it for them. Here's a letter going around to the director of the CNA.

March 12, 2008

Dear Rose Ann DeMoro,

It’s hard for us to imagine how someone who calls herself a labor leader could purposely do what you have done to us and our families. You don’t know any of us. You have never been to our homes or met our children. You have never visited us on our shifts, or walked in our shoes. You don’t know a thing a bout the struggle that brought us to the verge of our dream to have a union. And yet without talking to a single one of us you send your bullying staff to come in and spread terrible lies for no other reason than to destroy what we worked so hard to build.

For three years we have worked with SEIU members, leaders and staff to form our union. We sent letters to hospital officials and mobilized community support for fair organizing rules. SEIU has supported and encouraged us through some very hard times, and helped us stand up for ourselves. We are caregivers—registered nurses and respiratory therapists, dietary and housekeeping staff, lab techs and other employees. SEIU helped us understand how we could do more by speaking with one voice and standing together for our families and our patients. SEIU respected our intelligence and our ability to make our own decisions.

You say you stand for democracy. But then you come in with a goal of destroying our campaign without ever asking us what we think about SEIU and our agreement for fair election ground rules—ground rules we now understand you have made use of many times in California.

You say you stand for justice. But then you deny us our opportunity for a fair vote free of misleading propaganda and scare tactics.

Our efforts to unite for better jobs and health care were not a secret. At any time during those three years you could have come and presented your union, compared yourself to SEIU, and asked us to make a choice. But you didn’t. So it is obvious to us that your sole intention was to destroy what we have built. What kind of organization sets out to destroy the efforts of the very people you claim to stand for, and then tries to pretend it’s a moral cause?

Here in Ohio, union organizers and representatives don’t behave the way yours do. They show respect for hard-working people. We have read all the words about how you try to justify this, but when compared to the needs of our families and the needs of our patients, they show a complete disregard for basic fairness and decency. You have brought harm to thousands of workers and families in Ohio, and you should be ashamed of what you have done.

Signed,

Linda Kirby, RN
Mercy Anderson
Anderson Township, OH

Sue Koch
ER Tech
Mercy Western Hills
Cincinnati, OH

Barbara Matlie, RN
Mercy Western Hills
Cincinnati, OH

Michaela Silver, RCP
Springfield Regional Medical Center
Springfield, OH

Diana Stamler, RN
Mercy Fairfield
Fairfield, OH

Sally Baker, RN
Springfield Regional Medical Center
Springfield, OH

Mary Ann Wolf,
Lead Cook
Mercy Anderson
Anderson Township, OH

Peggy Vaughn, RN
Mercy Western Hills
Cincinnati, OH

Sue Allen, RN
Springfield Regional Medical Center
Springfield, OH

Lorie Compton, RCP
Mercy Memorial Hospital
Urbana, OH

Colleen Gresham, RN
Mercy Mt. Airy
Cincinnati, OH

Betty White, MLT
Mercy Fairfield
Fairfield, OH

Susan Home, RN
Mercy Mt. Airy
Cincinnati, OH

Alecia Davis, RN
Springfield Regional Medical Center
Springfield, OH

Marianne Heider, RN
Mercy Western Hills
Cincinnati, OH

Nope never heard a word about it Jon, if you find anything would you post it?

From the reports I read, the employers filed for the election and the employers "chose" SEIU to represent "their" employees. When the bosses realized that the employees weren't buying into this paternalistic and offensive arrangement, they cancelled the election! So, it was the employer, not the union or the workers, who petitioned and then withdrew the petition for the election. I don't get the point of the letter and the personal attack on Rose Ann DeMoro. She is employed as the executive director of CNA/NNOC by the 80,000 direct care RN members nationally, (including Ohio), and she's an executive vice president of the AFL-CIO.

There is no finer advocate for patients or nurses or workers on the face of the planet. That fact is recognized by consumer advocates like Ralph Nader, national labor leaders like John Sweeney and Rich Trumpka, physician leaders including Quentin Young and Claudia Fegan of Physicians for a National Health Plan; MSN has named Rose Ann DeMoro, Executive Director of the California Nurses Association/National Nurses Organizing Committee, as among the "Ten Influential Women of 2006," Honored as "2006 Consumer Advocate of the Year" by the Consumer Attorneys of California; Rose Ann was presented with the "Philip Burton Public Service Award of 2006" by the Foundation for Taxpayer and Consumer Rights; Named to Modern Healthcare's "100 Most Powerful People in Healthcare" for the fifth consecutive year; Named to Modern Healthcare's "Top 25 Women in Healthcare;"

I'm a member of CNA/NNOC and many of us have been to Ohio over the past few years at the invitation of direct care registered nurses who have joined with us in a national coalition of nurse/patient advocates who fight to protect and defend the duty and the right of RNs to advocate in the exclusive interests of patients. We have "walked in your shoes" and "have visited you on your shifts" and the only bullying we've ever seen has come from employers who hire union busting firms who treat us like children and who paternalistically try to shove partnership and so-called "shared" governance and company unions down our throats. We're not gonna take it lying down without a fight!

At best, I think the letter writers may have been used and confused about whose interest they're serving by such a misplaced and misguided personal attack on someone they've never met. At worst, well... (Isaiah 5:20 Woe to those who call evil good, and good evil; Who substitute darkness for light and light for darkness; Who substitute bitter for sweet and sweet for bitter! ) CNA/NNOC HAS NO HIDDEN AGENDA. Here it is...check it out, "for basic fairness and decency": http://www.calnurses.org/nnoc/ohio/assets/pdf/rad_letter_chp_seiu_031108.pdf
and: http://www.calnurses.org/nnoc/ohio/assets/pdf/ohio_cna_qanda_seiu_031208.pdf

We should all wonder when the bosses find a union for their workers. That's basically what we have here. Such things are never done with the worker's rights in mind.

Yes 5 RN are in that signatory group, but there are thousands of nurses that work in that hospital chain. I believe the number was 8000. Those other 7995 nurses did not have a say in contract negotiation. I'm confident there was a typical ready-made SEIU contract waiting for these workers once they fell into the trap of voting 'Yes." A ready-made contract that says no strikes, no committees that are solely bed-side RNs without management (so that you can really talk about the problems you have trying to care for your patients), no speaking ill of the employer (even if they are dong underhanded; even illegal things!) and no having any issue take precedence over the financial concerns of the hospital---not even patient care standards.

I know because I was at a Tenet hospital SEIU tried this stuff on about 5 years ago.

The RNs in Ohio and certainly the patients in Ohio will be better served by a union that fights for their rights; a union like CNA/NNOC. Now that they know that better representation awaits them, they can pursue that.

theala said:

Makes me wonder what positions the signers of that statement have at those hospitals.

Having been a member of SEIU/1199W in Wisconsin I have no doubt that SEIU is capable of treating RNs like cattle. I'm glad that SEIU learned in Ohio that RNs will choose for themselves what union they will belong to. Think about it:
what anti-RN, anti-patient promises would SEIU have to promise a non-union hospital chain to convince executives to escort SEIU in--in contrast to the usual union-busting tactics? Seems to me that they were convinced that bringing SEIU in would block nurses from joining a real union like CNA/NNOC...

4Justice said:

dmazment said:

theala said:

Makes me wonder what positions the signers of that statement have at those hospitals.

I was wondering this too. Having been a member of CNA, I had never known them to be union busters, if anything they helped strengthen unions in other states.

Yes--but not these days. It's all about destruction with CNA.

Let me say as an RN with 50 years of experience both without a union and then with a union that to have the hospital administration file for SEIU speaks volumes. I have had many SEIU members come to me requesting help in representation because they,SEIU, had a "partnership" with the corporation/hospital where they worked.

What SEIU has accomplished with its ties to Wall-Mart and Safeway stating that workers do not need employer paid healthcare insurance should silance all this hog wash about a strong womens union acting to protect the rights of RN's.

I'm relieved that rn4mercy posted this letter. Many people including RNs in this country today haven't had the opportunity to see how well unions can work, or how poorly. Living outside a union environment, they don't understand the basics of union and certainly don't understand the differences among them. My heart goes out to the Ohio RNs who thought they were choosing the moderate reasonable approach to improvements offered to them by SEIU and their employer.

With more education, that offer would have set off a huge alarm. No authorization cards to prove voter interest?
Wait a minute, we hear there are other RN unions, let's google them, email them, call them, invite them here; they seem to be very accessable ...

Poor SEIU. It would have had a huge input of dues while SIGNING AWAY YOUR RIGHTS and calling it a contract.

Frederick Douglass: "Power cedes nothing without a struggle." So in the Ohio case, complete power would have been shared by the employer and SEIU, and the nurses would have had none. Fast forward 3 years until a typical contract expires and there would have been a cadre of unfortunate patients and unhappy RNs who now realize just what the deal was. Much unhappiness, the difficulty of decertification, the hard work all over again, the possibility of a life long bias against unions because of this bad example.

Realize that "half measures avail us nothing" and go for the gold standard in democratic, honest, devoted and therefore powerful representation: NNOC.

Hmmmmmm SEIU was hand picked by the hospital, so this means SEIU is controlled by the hospital. NNOC/CNA are protecting the rights of the workers at this facility. I don't understand how you think they have disrupted anything, when your hard earned money would be ill spent by having a union represent and be controlled by the hospital and not the health care workers. Patient care certainly would not improve under SEIU, ask any of the health care workers who are currently represented by them.

What's your beef with this? The docs have the AMA.........you don't think this isn't a union? Another thing, stop and ask yourself why RN's in California who belong to CNA are some of the highest paid nurses in the US......and why their benefits are getting better instead of worse? And why the nurse to patient ratio act has been implemented and why anything over 8 hours is considered overtime, not over 40 hours of a work week? The CNA was a strong vocal advocate of abolishing slavery and not getting paid overtime, especially when a nurse couldn't leave because of lack of staff.

CNA is a professional nursing organization who's goal is also for the betterment of nurses through lobbying and education. Physicians have participated in strikes in several states in recent years. You don't want to strike, you don't have to strike, all you have to do is support those who do strike. Actually, California nurses, until CNA was born, had the same comparable wages as other states. Striking is only a last resort, usually after a long time of getting absolutely no where with negotiating. No one seems to understand this, many feel a strike is called immediately. It is not taken lightly.

A little known tidbit of information. RN's throughout Northern California, in order not to disrupt patient care, back in the late 80's wanted to form an alternating team of nurses to do patient care during strikes. The hospitals absolutely refused to allow this. Why do I know this? I was there.

Has the thought ever occured to anyone, if we had the same strength in NNO/CNA as the AMA we wouldn't have to strike? Nurses are the largest part of the hospital work force. If we all stood together as one united front, things would change. Is this going to happen? Not until nurses put aside their own agendas and joined together as a united front will this happen. Do I see it happening in my life time? Maybe.