Houston Nurses Vote for Union—Again

[Omaha Steve]

http://blog.aflcio.org/2010/04/30/houston-nurses-vote-for-unionagain/

by James Parks, Apr 30, 2010

In a dramatic expression of solidarity and support for a stronger voice to speak out for patients and themselves, nearly 300 registered nurses at Cypress Fairbanks Medical Center Hospital in Houston voted to remain members of National Nurses Organizing Committee-Texas, the state’s affiliate of National Nurses United (NNU).


Nurses at Cypress Fairbanks Medical Center in Houston reaffirmed their 2008 vote to join a union.


The vote defeated a proposal to withdraw the union at the facility, the first private-sector hospital in the state to unionize. The nurses first voted in March 2008 to join the union.

Says Erica Ramhatal, an RN at the medical center:

We stand together to make a better workplace for our patients and for ourselves. We are so proud to be part of NNU.

Last year a Cypress Fairbanks employee filed a petition with the National Labor Relations Board (NLRB) seeking the union’s decertification. Last June the NLRB conducted a decertification election among the same employees. The ballot count was delayed until this week, after several unfair labor practice charges were filed.

Click here and here to learn more. http://www.calnurses.org/ http://www.nlrb.gov/shared_files/Press%20Releases/2010/R-2741.pdf

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[Earth Bound Misfit]

1. Good for them n/t

As difficult as their struggle has been thus far, now comes the really difficult part:

The nurses at the facility are now hopeful that they will be able to reach a first contract with management.

This is yet ANOTHER example of textbook Union-busting tactics (and why we need the Employee Free Choice Act to END them) .....delay, stall, litigate, frustrate, etc...without achieving a first contract. Then get "someone" to start a de-cert campaign.

Congrats to these brave nurses for REPELLING the Union-busting snakes:

Confessions of a Union Buster, by Martin Jay Levitt, Crown Publishers Inc., 302 pp.,ISBN 0517583305, 9780517583302


Levitt’s first union-busting campaigns introduced him to the most “common strateg among management lawyers.” First, Levitt tells us, “Challenge everything ... then take every challenge to a full hearing ... then prolong each hearing” as long as possible, then “appeal every unfavorable decision.”

According to Levitt there was method to the madness. “If you make the union fight drag on long enough, workers...lose faith, lose interest, lose hope.” Taking away people’s hopes, their aspirations for a better future – that was Levitt’s job.

While Levitt understood the strategies of union busting, his understanding of why union busting is such a lucrative profession jelled later on. As Levitt chatted one night with a dinner guest, John Rogers, the “top industrial relations man at Cleveland Trust Bank,” he found out what the union-busting business was all about. “Control,” Rogers told him.

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=367x17189