A St. Louise Organizer Speaks Out

From the Gilroy Dispatch...

Dear Editor,

I've been a respiratory therapist at Saint Louise Regional Hospital for 18 years. I want to tell our community the truth about what's been going on in our hospital over the last year, and why things are about to get better.

For the last eight years, my co-workers and I have been part of a labor union. You may have seen us on the sidewalk once or twice with picket signs, and wondered what was going on.

I helped organize the union because caregivers at Saint Louise were concerned about our patients as we worked harder and harder caring for more patients with not enough staff. We were tired of spending long hours caring for people in our community, only to come home unable to afford quality healthcare for our own families. We were tired of having no way to make things better.

Organizing the union was hard. We weren't prepared for how hard hospital administrators would fight to keep us from having a voice in decisions. They threatened us with discipline and told us we'd lose everything - but that wasn't true.

With our union, we finally had a way to solve the problems we all faced at work. We won contracts in 2002 and 2004 that improved patient care and helped attract and retain good, experienced caregivers.

But while we were moving forward here in Gilroy, trouble was brewing on the other side of the country. Officials of our union's parent organization had hatched a plan to centralize power in Washington, D.C., and take control of negotiations away from healthcare workers like us.

The Service Employees International Union wanted more members and more dues money, they didn't care who they hurt in the process. In time, we saw them make secret deals with nursing home companies to take away residents' rights, and undermine many of the gains hospital workers had made in California. Then they tried to take our rights away.

Together in our local union, we stood up to SEIU and told them "No." In retaliation, they took over our union last year, removed the co-workers we'd elected to represent us, and replaced our elected leaders with unaccountable staff from Washington, D.C.

SEIU took over negotiations at Saint Louise, and settled a contract that is nothing but takeaways - on scheduling, healthcare, job security, and more. They lied to workers about the deal, and made us vote on a contract we'd never seen. Employees at Saint Louise are sad and upset. Many of us have been targeted and threatened by SEIU.

It's been painful to see this happen. I spent 10 months of my life under fire from management, organizing this union so that my co-workers and I would have a voice of our own. Now the bullying and intimidation are coming from our own union. We have no voice, and little protection if we speak out for our patients.

Saint Louise workers are taking our union back, by building a new union that belongs to us and no one else. A majority of us petitioned last year to join the National Union of Healthcare Workers, and an election is coming soon so we can make the change official. NUHW was founded by healthcare workers like us, and the experienced negotiators who helped us win our first two contracts are now supporting us in NUHW. Thousands of workers at Kaiser and at hospitals and nursing homes have already joined NUHW.

We're voting NUHW to restore democracy and integrity to our union at SaintLouise, so we can keep standing up for quality patient care and better jobs in our community.

Kathleen Volle, registered respiratory therapist,

Saint Louise Regional Hospital

Looks like the vaunted DOCHS unity rally didn't generate as much unity as they wanted.

Zombie UHW's New Lapdogs

Meet the administration at Gilroy's Saint Louise Regional Hospital...



They are an unusually obedient bunch when presented with what they perceive to be a stronger master, and as such are now trying to remind their workers just who is boss...
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September 17, 2009

Saint Louise Regional Hospital SEIU-UHW Associate:

Recently, several associates have reported being harassed, both in the cafeteria and in their working areas, by individuals who may be associated with NUHW or some other organization that does not legally represent any of our associates. To be clear, SEIU-UHW is the only union that represents our SEIU associates. Under our contract with SEIU-UHW, duly authorized representatives of SEIU-UHW have the right to be in the hospital and conduct union business within the guidelines provided by the contract. Neither NUHW nor any other organization has such rights with respect to our SEIU- represented associates.

In order to avoid any confusion about what persons are authorized to be present within the hospital to conduct union business, we have been authorized by SEIU-UHW to provide you with the names of the duly authorized SEIU-UHW representatives:

• Val Tagawa
• Rudy Vallin
• Larry Hill
• Gregg Woods
• Matthew Nicholson
• Osvaldo Romero
• Grant Schott
• Barry Roberts
  

No persons other than the SEIU UHW representatives shown above have the right to be in non-public areas of the hospital. If you believe that you have been threatened, coerced or intimidated, or your work has been interfered with by any individual, whether NUHW or otherwise, please feel free to let your manager or Human Resources know. We will not tolerate any such conduct against you, nor any interference with your work or with our patient care mission.

Please feel free to contact me if you have any questions. I can be reached at (408) 848-8678.

Sincerely,

Lin Velasquez

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Ms. Velasquez should probably check below on the story of what happened to Olympia Medical Center before making such broad announcements on restrictions of legitimate union activity.