SEIU: 'Union-Busting' by California Nurses A...( Attempt Made to Deny Union for He...),Health

Attempt Made to Deny Union for Healthcare Employees in Ohio

COLUMBUS, Ohio, March 10 /PRNewswire-USNewswire/ -- The California Nurses Association (CNA) has launched an anti-union campaign against nurses and other healthcare employees in Ohio, seeking to derail a three-year effort by the workers to unite in District 1199 of the Service Employees International Union (SEIU).

Just days before votes -- this Wednesday and Friday at nine Catholic Healthcare Partners (CHP) hospitals in Ohio -- the CNA has sent organizers and deceitful campaign materials into Ohio trying to undermine the effort - even though they cannot get on the ballot themselves.

SEIU President Andy Stern sent a letter today seeking intervention from the AFL-CIO Executive Council, of which CNA is a member, after top AFL-CIO elected officers in Washington, D.C. and Ohio refused to step in on behalf of the workers.

"The tactics being used by the CNA would make the Right-to-Work Committee proud," Stern wrote. "It's hard to believe any trade unionist would condone -- much less lead -- a campaign whose only purpose is to persuade workers to vote 'no' in a union election and to deny thousands of workers the chance to have a voice on the job.

"Union-busting is union-busting, no matter who is at the helm, and it goes against everything we have all fought for over the years," he wrote.

The votes are the culmination of a three-year effort by workers at these hospitals to form a union under a recently reached agreement with CHP specifying ground rules to ensure a fair and free vote.

"We were just days away from realizing our dream when scores of out-of-state organizers descended on our hospitals and began to frighten employees with vicious anti-union leaflets and rhetoric," says Michaela Silver, a respiratory therapist at CHP's Community Hospital in Springfield, who for years has been rallying support from community allies to win fair organizing r
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