Anti-worker campaigns threaten patient care
When we tried to form a union, the administration hired a firm to fight us, and spent hundreds of thousands of dollars. We started getting pulled off the floor, away from our patient care duties, for mandatory one-on-one meetings with our supervisors. It was really intimidating.
Then they started giving out raises, but told people if the union comes in they'd have to take the raises back. They were really playing dirty. Whenever people had information about the union, management would snatch it out of their hands and rip it apart. They went after people who were most vulnerable, who could be easily intimidated. It was very stressful."
- Barbara Cook
Massachusetts Respiratory Therapist for 27 years
Many local health care workers have tried to form unions in the recent past in order to protect patient care and improve the quality of jobs for the community. Unfortunately, instead of working with caregivers, management has always responded with campaigns of fear, misinformation and intimidation. These anti-worker campaigns drain hospital resources, take the focus off care delivery and put tremendous pressure on an already stressed workforce.
We asked hospital donors to make the demand of hospital executives that their charitable contributions not be used for the uncharitable purpose of waging a campaign against the hospitals own caregivers. Read the letter to BID Needham donors (PDF).
Workers at St. Vincent hospital recently experienced an anti-worker campaign when they tried to form a union. Watch a news clip about their situation:
Why do management campaigns poison and corrupt union elections?
Working families are often living paycheck to paycheck, struggling to make rent or house payments, cover medical expenses, buy groceries and pay for children’s school supplies, gas and utilities. Employers thereby hold enormous power over the livelihoods and security of their workers. When anti-worker consultants run campaigns to dissuade employees from trying to unionize, they utilize tactics that are designed to create fear, division, anxiety, confusion and intense stress in the workforce. These campaigns almost always consist of the following tactics:
- Vilifying, discrediting and, in the worst cases, firing or disciplining workplace leaders who support unionization.
- Dividing the workforce along racial, gender or other lines.
- Holding mandatory one-on-one and group meetings where misinformation about unions is presented.
- Calling employees and sending inaccurate and intimidating mailings to their homes.
These anti-worker consultants create such a stressful atmosphere, employees often become demoralized and disheartened and their efforts to unionize are broken. Health care worker Anestine Bentick described a similar situation at her former workplace:
When workers at St. Joseph nursing home in Brockton wanted to form a union in order to improve resident care and the quality of jobs for their community, St. Joseph management responded with an intense intimidation campaign. Unfortunately, this experience is all too common amongst Massachusetts health care workers. Watch St. Joseph employees as they describe the negative impact that management's campaign had on workers and nursing home residents.
