Religious Leaders and Elected Officials March with Caregivers for a Free and Fair Union Election at St. Joseph Hospitals
Published July 28th, 2008
ORANGE, Calif., - One thousand hospital workers marched through the streets of Santa Ana and Orange on Saturday to ask the Sisters of St. Joseph of Orange to allow them to vote to form a union without harassment and intimidation by supervisors.
Elected leaders spoke in support of the workers at a rally in front of the Sisters’ Motherhouse at St. Joseph hospital, including California Senate Majority Leader Gloria Romero, Assemblymember Dr. Ed Hernandez (57th District), Assemblymember Mike Eng (49th), Assemblymember Warren Furutani (55th), a representative of Assemblymember Jose Solorio (69th), and Santa Ana Councilmember Michelle Martinez.
Judith Leder, a former Sister of St. Joseph of Orange, also called on the Sisters to support their caregivers. “It is amazing to me that I am standing outside the gates I first entered 50 years ago, asking the Sisters to support the values of dignity and justice that we always stood for,” she said.
In 1973, several Sisters of St. Joseph of Orange spent two weeks in a Fresno jail to support striking farmworkers. But workers in hospitals owned by the Sisters say that when began their own effort to form a union, they experienced intimidation and threats from supervisors that made a free and fair election impossible.
“My co-workers want a voice in what happens in our hospital, so we can be good advocates for our patients,” said Drina Robledo, a licensed vocational nurse at St. Joseph’s Chapman Clinic for 27 years.
“But there is just so much fear. A lot of people think they’ll be fired just for talking with each other about forming a union.”
United Farm Workers co-founder Dolores Huerta and Father Eugene Boyle joined in support at an interfaith service held outside the St. Joseph Motherhouse on the eve of the march. Former United Auto Workers leader Paul Schrade read a letter of support from former Maryland Lieutenant Governor Kathleen Kennedy-Townsend, and international human rights activist Dr. Davida Coady brought a letter from actor Martin Sheen.
The Sisters of St. Joseph of Orange said in a letter to workers on Wednesday that they would allow workers to hold a union election, but they would not agree to a set of basic ground rules to ensure that interference by supervisors and violations of labor law could be resolved quickly.
“The Sisters say they aren’t opposed to us forming a union,” said Ritchie Macadaeg, a respiratory care practitioner at St. Jude hospital in Fullerton for 13 years.
“But the truth is they’ve consistently said they want to have a ‘direct relationship’ and deal with us one-on-one instead of us having a voice together. They have made it very clear to employees they don’t want us to have a union.”
The ground rules workers have asked the Sisters to agree to are: a secret ballot election; no negative campaigning by the hospital or the union; equal access to factual information so workers can make an educated decision; no mandatory meetings to influence employees; and quick and fair enforcement of the rules by a neutral party. Other hospitals across California have agreed to these basic rules, including Catholic Healthcare West, Kaiser, Tenet Healthcare, HCA, and IHHI.
Web site: http://www.seiu-uhw.org//
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