Here’s an update about the nurses’ press conference at Huntington Memorial Hospital this past Thursday.
From an attendees’ account:
Yesterday morning, clergy, city officials, nurses and organizers gathered peacefully for what was supposed to be a short and uneventful press conference to announce that the union had filed for an election and the process was beginning. Instead, we were confronted by an angry, disrespectful, rude and combative group of about 50-60 of Huntington hospital employees carrying signs, surrounding us, yelling and insulting us. City Council members were shouted down, prayers were interrupted, nurses were jeered and booed, and the energy was incredibly unpleasant, to say the least.”
The antagonistic anti-union employees ultimately demonstrated for us, in a most visceral way, the reason why we must hold Huntington administration accountable to ensure a fair and free election. The reprehensible behavior some of us saw yesterday is the type of harassment and intimidation pro-union bedside nurses have to face at work when they’re already working under a great deal of stress caring for critically ill patients.
Incidents reported by community supporters and nurses:
- A clergy leader was personally called a liar, a paid informant and told to go home when he spoke;
- City Council members were shouted down and rudely disrupted when they called for peace and respectful behavior;
- Prayers were interrupted;
- Nurses were jeered and booed; and
- A nurse was made fun of and laughed at when she talked about a patient who nearly died due to unsafe staffing.
At the end of the event, Huntington nurses told us that two-thirds of the anti-union crowd were not bedside nurses who provide direct bedside care to patients, but included respiratory therapists, radiology technicians, dietitians, clinical nurse specialists, and an EVS manager. They would not be part of the bargaining unit or eligible to vote, so it’s confusing as to why they’re fighting so aggressively to prevent a free and fair election for beside nurses.
The non beside employees don’t spend time with patients the way nurses do—they don’t have to figure out ways to make up for a lack of linens for incontinent patients, or have to walk into three different operating rooms before they can locate an IV pump for someone mid-surgery. These are the frustrations and injustices that compel nurses to fight for a voice in patient care at Huntington.
Most of the community attendees have sent letters to Huntington CEO Stephen Ralph to express their outrage at what they witnessed on Thursday.
! Excerpts from an email sent by Jen Suh, Organizer – California Nurses Association/ National Nurses Organizing Committee (CNA/NNOC), National Nurses United (NNU).
For many years I made a lot of money drawing anti-union cartoons for an Atlanta-based union-busting law firm, for campaigns in cities all around the country. Then one summer the employees at the Opryland Hotel in Nashville, where I lived, tried to organize, and the firm set up a secret command post in a suite to which I delivered cartoons and discussed new ones almost daily. The contempt which these people displayed for workers in general, and those in particular, quickly eroded the union-hating sentiments I’d been taught from childhood. And then when the vote was held, the union lost, and the organizers singled out and summarily fired – including the two “snitches” won over by the lawyers and management – I called the head guy in Atlanta and told him there would be no more cartoons.
Even if I hadn’t read that a similar firm had been hired by Huntington, I would have recognized what must have guided these people to behave with such open disrespect towards their co-workers, not to mention open contempt for clergy and elected officials. I’m sorry to say that I’ve also lost what respect I had left for Huntington Memorial.