NEWS STORY: California Religious Leaders Urge Fairness in Labor Dispute

c. 2000 Religion News Service LOS ANGELES _ In a plea for healing after a long winter of divisive labor strife, Cardinal Roger Mahony of Los Angeles has urged Catholic Healthcare West and the Service Employees International Union to respect Roman Catholic teaching calling for fair union elections. “Workers must be in an environment that […]

c. 2000 Religion News Service

LOS ANGELES _ In a plea for healing after a long winter of divisive labor strife, Cardinal Roger Mahony of Los Angeles has urged Catholic Healthcare West and the Service Employees International Union to respect Roman Catholic teaching calling for fair union elections.

“Workers must be in an environment that is free from questionable tactics cloaked as education, coercive pressure shrouded in religious symbolism, or communications that misrepresent church teaching,” Mahony said in a letter addressed to CHW chief executive officer Sister Phyllis Hughes and SEIU executive vice president Eliseo Medina.


“Ultimately, workers must choose how they wish to be represented in the workplace,” Mahony continued. “They must decide what means will affirm their dignity and preserve the mission of Catholic health care.”

Mahony’s early March letter came less than two weeks before service and maintenance employees at CHW’s St. Francis Medical Center and Robert F. Kennedy Medical Center in the Los Angeles area cast union votes Wednesday (March 22) and Thursday (March 23). The workers rejected the union 363 to 199, with about 90 disputed votes, according to SEIU spokeswoman Lisa Hubbard.

The Los Angeles vote was the latest in a series of SEIU and CHW standoffs, including a stormy January election in Sacramento currently under review by the National Labor Relations Board. According to SEIU figures, 1,500 CHW employees have joined union ranks since the union campaign went into high gear last fall.

California’s largest hospital chain, CHW owns 48 acute care hospitals in California, Arizona and Nevada. SEIU describes itself as the country’s largest health care union, representing more than 700,000 health care workers nationally.

Besides Mahony, other religious leaders have made their voices heard in the Los Angeles conflict.

Going beyond the cardinal’s appeal to both sides, two Roman Catholic sisters, a Roman Catholic hospital chaplain and a representative of the Episcopal Social Justice Ministry charged hospital spiritual leaders with stepping over the line in their fight against SEIU’s campaign to organize St. Francis and RFK employees.

In a letter addressed to Brother Richard Hirbe and Sister Martha Ann Kramarz of St. Francis, the four signers said, “Religious leaders at St. Francis Medical Center are intentionally interfering in employees’ freedom to choose a voice at work.” Hirbe is director of spiritual health care services and Kramarz is assistant director of chaplain services.


The signers expressed concern over Hirbe’s and Kramarz’s “involvement in the creation of a `vote no committee”’ to oppose the union at St. Francis and RFK.

“Creating the `vote no’ committee goes far beyond providing information to employees,” the letter said. “By directly favoring one group over another, you imply that employees who do not support forming a union are `good’ in the eyes of the hospital and even the church.”

In a written response dated March 15, Hirbe and Kramarz labeled the “allegations … all false.”

“We have consistently upheld and supported teachings of the church on organized labor” and “have consistently adhered to the principles and regulations of the National Labor Relations Board.”

In an interview Friday (March 24), Hirbe said the group formed in opposition to the union campaign was “a grass-roots movement” among hospital employees.

“Our employees had an opportunity to choose,” Hirbe added. He said SEIU had tried to convince employees the hospital wasn’t living up to its Catholic values.


On March 17, the northern California branch of the Fair Election Oversight Commission, formed by California State Assembly Speaker Antonio Villaraigosa, released a report charging unfair practices by management at five CHW hospitals in Sacramento prior to the January union vote currently under scrutiny by the NLRB.

The commission found that CHW management had “misused power and authority” in its conversations and meetings with employees, according to the speaker’s office of communications.

CHW also “restricted employees’ freedom of speech” and “provided false and distorted information,” the commission charged.

Mahony’s letter urged both sides in the conflict to heed principles from “A Fair and Just Workplace,” a document issued late last summer after meetings between Roman Catholic bishops, Catholic health care officials and labor leaders.

Acknowledging a “tension between the mission and the market frames many important issues in Catholic health care today,” Mahony said Catholic health care institutions must let “Catholic social teaching on work and workers’ rights guide worker-management relationships.”

He said “unions … have a shared responsibility with management to promote the mission of the institution and of health care as a fundamental social good,” noting that “historically the church has stood with workers as they struggled to form and join unions.”


DEA END PARKS

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