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Cover
story
Shared
values clash in hospital-labor war By PAMELA SCHAEFFER NCR Staff
National labor leaders waging an uphill battle to organize workers
in a major Catholic health care system are calling on health care
administrators and religious orders to live up to the churchs social
teachings (see table below) -- teachings that, for more than a century, have
come down strongly on the side of unions.
Union supporters say the hospital system, as part of a vigorous
antiunion campaign in California, has likened a labor organization to greedy
big business, hired notorious union-busters and endorsed or
tolerated tactics that overstep the legal line. Despite the churchs
social teaching, they say, surveillance, intimidation, interrogation, antiunion
letters signed by nuns and chaplains -- even morning prayer in the chapel --
have served as strategies in an increasingly bitter fight.
Leaders of Catholic Healthcare West (see below for description),
one of the largest health care systems in the country, deny any violation of
law, ethics or church teaching in the campaign. Meanwhile, Catholic activists
supporting workers, including some Los Angeles area priests, say the clash is
all too familiar. For decades, Catholic hospitals around the country have
consistently met organizing efforts with strong antiunion campaigns, activists
say.
Catholic leaders are all for unions when theyre for
farm workers or poultry pickers but are vociferously opposed when unions come
to their own institutions, said Notre Dame Sr. Barbara
[Pfarr], a Chicago-based nun seeking a more even playing field
for workers. [Pfarr] is coordinator of the Religious
Employers Project of the National Interfaith Committee for Worker Justice
(see below for description).
Four system officials interviewed by NCR, including a nun
whose order sponsors Catholic Healthcare West, said they endorse workers
freedom to join a union. They insisted that allegations of employer-endorsed
intimidation and other illegal activities are untrue.
Bernita McTernan, senior vice president for mission services and
human resources, said, I dont think wed say we prefer not to
have a union, but that we have a just workplace and we would like to have our
employees make a choice. She added, We believe in Catholic social
teaching. We uphold it.
Opposing Catholic Healthcare West, a system sponsored by nine
religious orders, is Service Employees International Union (see below for
description), a division of AFL-CIO. The service union is one of the most
aggressive and successful unions in the country in terms of organizing efforts.
Since the early 1980s, in a period when many unions have stagnanted or
declined, the service union has doubled its membership, from 600,000 to 1.2
million workers.
Catholic Healthcare West, formed just 12 years ago, operates 37
hospitals, 35 of them in California, along with ancillary facilities, home care
and physicians organizations. The system ranks seventh in size in the nation.
Gross revenues totaled $3.1 billion last year.
[Pfarr] said the Interfaith Committee created her
position because of the notorious antiunion reputation of religious
orders that oversee health care. Its not unusual, she said, for nuns to
fight on the front lines of union battles involving farm workers or other
oppressed groups even as their orders are fighting unions in their own
institutions.
This has been a black eye in the Catholic church for
decades, [Pfarr] said. We have a long history of
terrible tension between religious employers and organized labor. For all of
our social teachings, we are terrible employers.
Union leaders said they had filed a dozen charges against Catholic
Healthcare West in the present campaign. In one case, the National Labor
Relations Board has upheld the complaint, union leaders said, two have been
dismissed on appeal, and the rest are pending.
There have been some questions about why we should be so
opposed to union organizing, said Michael Erne, president and CEO of the
systems Sacramento region, when in fact the church, many sisters
and priests have been so supportive of unions elsewhere. Many, he noted,
have supported organizing campaigns for farm workers in California. The
difference here, he said, is that here our sponsors are the Sisters
of Mercy. They own us. We work for them. They have a just workplace as one of
their core values.
In the present campaign, the union is targeting Catholic
Healthcare West facilities in Sacramento and in Southern California.
Erne personally opposes a unionized work force because, he said,
it sets up an adversarial relationship in the workplace and the
union takes credit when the environment improves. When you get into a
union situation and you do the right thing, typically you never get credit for
it, he said. The union always takes credit. So if you have
management with the right intentions ... its disheartening to never get
credit for it, especially where justice in the workplace is a core
value.
Erne said he sees confusion about Catholic teachings
on workers rights. Its clear to me that the Catholic church
supports the right to organize, he said. But clearly, from our
view, that also respects their right to choose ... to make an informed decision
after carefully weighing both sides. He decried reports of intimidation.
If it is going on, it is unauthorized and its wrong, he
said.
Some workers and union leaders disagree that the workplace in the
systems facilities is just. In a union-sponsored survey of
Catholic Healthcare West employees in Los Angeles and Sacramento, workers
reported widespread dissatisfaction with working conditions and expressed
concerns about quality of patient care in light of staffing cuts. A shift from
fee-for-service to managed care in recent years has put hospitals in a cost
squeeze and dramatically altered the work environment, nurses and other
employees said.
Others say working conditions are only part of the picture, noting
that Catholic social teaching supports workers right to form unions,
period, even if conditions are good. For example, Msgr. George Higgins, who
served for more than 45 years as consultant to U.S. bishops on labor and
economic issues, pointed out as recently as June that Pope John Paul II has
described unions in two encyclicals as indispensable.
The pope has described labor unions as places where workers
can express themselves, organizations that serve the development of
an authentic culture of work and help workers to share, in a fully human way,
in the life of their place of employment, Higgins said in a speech at the
University of Notre Dame.
Caring environment
[Pfarr] went to California in mid-July to meet on
behalf of workers with nuns whose orders sponsor Catholic Healthcare West. The
result, she said, was deeply disappointing. Three nuns refused to see her, two
appointments were canceled and a number of phone calls were not returned, she
said. According to [Pfarr], the nuns she met with, five in all,
and only three of them decision- makers, repeatedly said to me that they
have nothing in common with the union, dont share any values, dont
have a common mission and that the union is only about gaining membership and
making money. That kind of closed-mindedness is a real concern for
me.
McTernan, the system vice-president, said she thought
[Pfarr] had been treated fairly. The meetings, she said, though
not as many as she wanted ... included some top-level people,
including McTernan herself, as well as some sisters in the
field.
[Pfarr] said some of the nuns had the impression
that she is in the unions pocket -- a false impression, she
said. The Interfaith Committee derives only about 13 percent of its support
from unions, the rest from religious groups, foundations and individuals, she
said.
Our organization is pro-worker. Were the first to say
unions arent perfect, [Pfarr] said. But we need
room for dialogue, for reconciling differences.
Ironically, [Pfarr] said, some nuns who sponsor
hospitals say they cant intervene in the union battle because they are
not involved in day-to-day operations. I think its a false
separation, she said. If one of the hospitals was performing
abortions they wouldnt say that.
Dominican Sr. Julie Hyer, speaking for the religious orders that
sponsor the hospitals -- said the sponsors do take ultimate responsibility --
and do not oppose unions. One of the very fundamental things we believe
is that an employee has the right to choose whether to be represented by a
union. We support that 100 percent, she said. Hyer is CEO of Dominican
Hospital in Santa Cruz.
Further, she said, the campaigns in Sacramento and Southern
California are regional matters. Thats the strength of the system,
to realize there are times and places for corporate policy and centralized
activities and times and places for decentralization, Hyer said.
Its very appropriate that those local facilities would declare
their way of dealing with the union.
Whos in charge?
Mary Kay Henry, a union leader who is working on several fronts to
forge links with nuns who sponsor Catholic Healthcare West, said the question
of who holds authority has become a major issue for organizers.
I think theres a war within the corporation over who
has authority over what, she said. Half of it is genuine confusion
and half of it is a way to keep us running around without getting
answers.
Union organizers, several of whom describe their work as an
extension of long-standing social justice concerns, say they had hoped for
better reception at Catholic Healthcare West, given its mission and core
values. Union organizers say they share those values: respect for human
dignity, stewardship, collaboration, excellence in health care delivery and
justice for all -- for employees as well as people who lack access to health
care and other basic needs. In fact, the union organizers say, they would urge
the system to ensure that access for its own employees children by
providing paid health insurance for dependents at all facilities.
Hyer said employee benefits are not uniform throughout the
systems facilities.
Erne, of the systems Sacramento region, said the
unions expectation of openness and dialogue was unrealistic. You
have to put things in context here, he said. Employees have been
bombarded with a lot of extremely negative information about Mercy Healthcare
Sacramento. We took a stand. We decided we needed to respond to that.
Union leaders, for their part, say the systems campaign has
portrayed the union in the worst possible light. They say they tried
unsuccessfully for more than a year to run a positive campaign, hoping to
elicit cooperation with the systems officials and sponsors and to foster
discussion of shared concerns.
Of five hospitals in Southern California, organizing is most
intense at Robert F. Kennedy Medical Center in Hawthorne and St. Francis
Medical Center in Lynwood.
Three unions, including the California Nurses Association, an
organization of registered nurses, have conducted successful campaigns in at
least 11 Catholic Healthcare West facilities in recent years. Nancy Cartwright,
the systems director of public affairs, said 28 percent of the
systems employees belong to unions. Workers at some facilities were
organized before the system was created in 1986.
Roseann DeMoro, executive director of the registered nurses
association, said Catholic hospitals run the standard campaign. They hire
the secular union busters, the notorious ones. Employees are not free to
choose.
Disturbing change
DeMoros union represents 30,000 nurses, more than a fourth
in Catholic hospitals and about 15 percent in facilities operated by Catholic
Healthcare West. The fact the union has organized eight Catholic Healthcare
West facilities in the past few years speaks volumes she said.
Five to 10 years ago, people identified with the mission of Catholic
hospitals. Now they feel its more a business run for the bottom
line.
Guadalupe Moore, a licensed vocational nurse, said she feels
disoriented by recent changes. Moore said of her job at St. Francis Medical
Center, Its not the personal thing it used to be. Health care is
changing so much. Big business has taken over. Theyre not going to listen
to us unless we have a bargaining unit behind us. Moore has worked at St.
Francis for 28 years.
Matthew Euen, senior biomedical technician at St. Francis, said he
had contacted the union because of what he described as a disturbing change in
managers attitudes toward employees after the hospital linked up with
Catholic Healthcare West about two years ago. Employees took a real back
seat, he said. A number of us had some complaints. They told us if
we didnt like it, we could go elsewhere.
To Euen, the hospitals antiunion campaign is nothing short
of brutal harassment. He alleged that he and others had been told
in one-to-one meetings with supervisors that they should not support the union.
Euen said he feels that supervisors are constantly watching him, and managers
have taken steps to limit his work-related activities in parts of the hospital
where he used to go freely.
At the same time, some employees told NCR that working conditions
and managerial demeanor had actually improved since the organizing efforts
began -- a change several workers described as part of the antiunion
strategy.
Previously, said Moore, when nurses would complain about staffing
and other concerns, the response seemed to be, If you dont like it,
theres the door. Employees felt they werent respected, she
said.
The last five years have been extremely difficult for
employees, said Erne, who assumed his Sacramento post less than a year ago.
My job is to put that behind us, to be as responsive as possible. When I
came I expected my priorities would be more on being competitive, but the fact
is the human issues, even before the union campaign, have become the highest
priority. He added, This is a tremendous organization that has a
reputation for having a caring environment, not just for patients but for
employees as well.
Nasty stuff
Despite those assurances, Jono Shaffer, organizing coordinator for
the service unions western region, complained of very low road,
nasty stuff during the campaign, an accusation that hospital leaders
sharply denied.
Low road? Its just amazing to me they would say
that given some of the unions own published materials, said Susan
Whitten, vice president for strategy and marketing in Southern California. She
cited, for example, a full-page ad that ran July 23 in the West Coast edition
of The New York Times facing off prounion statements by Catholic leaders,
including Pope John Paul II, against allegations of intimidating tactics by
hospital authorities. Whitten said quotes and names were taken out of context.
Sources said nuns around the country were infuriated.
I think weve been incredibly accommodating to
union leaders, Whitten said. Union organizers are on our campuses and
cafeterias. They have access to our employees as much as they want, except on
patient floors. She added that administrators had fielded complaints from
employees about organizers calling on people at home. Many employees are
tired of the whole thing. They would just like it to go away, she
said.
Both McTernan and Erne said that the systems officials
consider it imperative that administrators respond to employees
concerns.
McTernan defended consultants hired by the hospital --
organizations such as Management Science Associates of Independence, Mo., one
of the firms described by union leaders as a union buster. Erne said that was a
mischaracterization. The Missouri firm, he said, deals broadly with human
resources. McTernan said such consultants were needed to help hospitals deal
with legal issues related to union organizing.
Officials at Management Science Associates did not respond to a
telephone inquiry about the firm.
[Pfarr] feels that much of the controversy
surrounding the campaign derives from employers failure to recognize
power imbalances in dealing with employees. I think the employer has a
moral responsibility to be very careful what supervisors say and how they act,
because they carry so much weight, she said. A letter or even an offhand
comment from a boss has tremendous power to intimidate. A
unions power is only persuasive. An employer has the power to determine
whether employees get a good shift or a bad one, what their benefits, even
their livelihood, will be.
Letters and memos have served as important tools in the
hospitals campaign. At Robert F. Kennedy Medical Center, three members of
Daughters of Charity, Sr. Elizabeth Parham, Sr. Therese Marie Pham and Sr.
Michele Randall, urged employees in a letter dated April 17 to please say
no to the unions meaningless rhetoric. ... To introduce a
third-party into our family at RFK would be disruptive and may negatively
impact our good working relationship, the nuns wrote.
On March 31, 10 nuns signed a letter addressed to employees of St.
Vincent Medical Center in Los Angeles warning that a union would be very
detrimental to the hospital, our patients and to each of you. Union
leaders said the campaign at St. Vincent had become so hostile they put it
temporarily on hold.
The nuns letter echoed points made in a March 31 memo to
employees from Peter P. Aprato, the hospitals administrator. Aprato
described labor unions as dying relics from the 1930s. The
unions sole purpose today, he said, is to recruit new union members
to help bail out organized labors dismal and failing financial and
membership positions.
Br. Edward Spink, manager of spiritual care at Robert F. Kennedy,
turned the unions claim for promoting justice on its head in his letter
to employees. It disgusts me that when we are vulnerable because of
transitions in health care, the union marches in as the
champion of employee rights, he wrote. They seek the vulnerable,
disenfranchised and the poor. They seek moneys you do not have to spare. ...
Its a justice issue. Employees complain that a chaplain has also
expressed antiunion sentiments during prayer, asking God to help employees to
do the right thing -- vote against the union.
[Pfarr] said some employees who earlier expressed
interest in a union have fallen away, fearing reprisals from supervisors. The
systems language about freedom of choice is deceptive, she
said, when employers spend megabucks on consultants who teach them
how to keep the union out. Union organizers assert the systems campaign
has cost millions, siphoning dollars from patient care. Erne declined to
estimate its cost in his region but said cost issues had been blown all
out of proportion.
In late August, some 44 employees pressed for information about
the cost -- one of five demands they set before Richard J. Kramer, chief
executive officer of the system. Kramer was vacationing, so McTernan met with
the group. The group also demanded that officials stop interfering in
organizing efforts, respect the churchs historic support for unions and
stop efforts to break the union in places where it already exists. Henry said a
contract remains elusive at St. Joseph Hospital in Stockton, Calif., even
though a majority of employees asked for union representation two years
ago.
Fr. David OConnell, pastor of St. Francis Cabrini Parish in
South Los Angeles, cites considerable support for workers among Los Angeles
priests. It seems strange that Catholic Healthcare West and the union say
they want the same thing, that workers be free to choose, yet workers say the
atmosphere is not free, he said. Theres something fishy
someplace. If they both want the same thing, why cant they get together
on it?
Fr. Stan Bosch, pastor of Our Lady of Victory and Sacred Heart
parishes, said some members of clergy plan to go into the hospitals and talk to
workers during lunch and breaks. Priests plan to collect information and
present it to archdiocesan bishops for review, he said.
Bosch was among about 10 priests and ministers who led a prayer
vigil June 24 on the steps of St. Francis Medical Center. According to news
reports, only 11 employees out of a work force of 1,400 were there. Workers who
were present attributed the small turnout to fear.
Jobs on the line
The unions goal is to get Catholic Healthcare West to agree
to recognize bargaining units after a majority of workers sign cards inviting
union representation. The method, which bypasses an often contentious election,
relies on employer approval, since it is allowed, but not required, under U.S.
law.
David Miller, senior research analyst for the union, said,
Some workers are saying they cant sign cards because they would
lose their jobs. Its illegal to threaten workers with their jobs, yet
workers say thats whats going on.
Erne, previously an administrator in Denver with a division of
Catholic Health Initiatives, another Catholic hospital network, disputes such
accusations but acknowledged that administrators have their work cut out for
them in dealing with dissatisfaction. I take great pride in trying to
create the right environment for employees, he said. Erne said his region
had been hurting a little when he arrived. Changes in health
care have been very hard on employees, he said.
Labor leader Henry also has perceptions to fight -- most notably
the notion that unions are little more than big businesses that aim to
victimize workers. She finds that characterization appalling. Thats
like saying Catholic Charities is a big business, just sucking off the welfare
system, she said.
Even amid the fray, Henry, a product of 12 years of Catholic
education and previous work in anti-hunger campaigns, holds out hope that
common ground is possible.
Its really the social justice tradition of the church
that made me gravitate to this kind of work in the first place, she said.
Given the radical changes in the Catholic health care, I feel really
urgent in reaching agreements with Catholic health care that make sense for
workers.
Miller, the unions research analyst, who holds a divinity
degree from the Pacific School of Religion in Berkeley and previously worked
for the Interfaith Council on Corporate Responsibility, envisions a day when
Catholic employers and unions will be able to put some of their differences to
rest. If we could get past some of those, there are a lot of things we
could do together, both legislatively and in the work site, because of our
common justice focus, he said.
[Pfarr], too, longs for reconciliation. During
campaigns like the one in California, mud is slung on both sides, and
that isnt good for anybody, she said. Ive seen it all.
Sometimes unions act unethically; sometimes hospitals act unethically. No
matter who wins, the atmosphere is poisoned.
Catholic Healthcare
West |
History:
Founded in 1986 in a merger of 12 facilities operated by the Sisters of Mercy
of Auburn and of Burlingame, Calif. Since then, facilities operated by seven
other religious orders have been added, as have several non- Catholic
hospitals. Size: The system presently
consists of 37 acute care facilities with nearly 8,000 beds and more than 1,400
skilled nursing beds in California, Arizona and Nevada. The system employs some
30,000 workers. Gross revenues for 1997 were $3.1 billion. Participating religious orders: Sisters of Mercy,
Auburn and Burlingame, Calif.; Dominican Sisters of Adrian, Mich.; Daughters of
Charity, Province of the West; Sisters of Charity of the Incarnate Word,
Houston; Dominican Sisters of San Rafael, Calif.; Dominican Sisters of St.
Catherine of Siena of Kenosha, Wis.; Franciscan Sisters of the Sacred Heart of
Frankfort, Ill.; Sisters of St. Francis of Penance and Christian Charity of
Redwood City, Calif. |
National Interfaith
Committee for Worker Justice |
History:
Pro-worker organization founded in 1996 by Kim Bobo, formerly organizing
director of Bread for the World, an anti-hunger group. Purpose: To mobilize and educate the U.S. religious
community on workplace issues. Develops educational resources, organizes local
interfaith committees in major cities. Size: 10 full-time staff; annual budget, $425,000.
Funded by private foundations and individuals, and by religious and labor
organizations in equal amounts, according to policy. Board consists of 45
religious leaders. Activities: Ongoing
projects include the Religious Employers Project, which aims to reduce
tension between unions and religiously-owned health care organizations, and the
Poultry Workers Justice Project, which aims to focus national attention
on often-deplorable working conditions for some 200,000 poultry workers, many
of them new immigrants. The Religious Employers Project is headed by
Notre Dame Sr. Barbara [Pfarr]. |
Service Employees
International Union |
History:
Founded in 1921 as Building Service Employees International Union, organizing
janitors. Affiliate of AFL-CIO. Membership and
size: 1.2 million workers in service occupations and health care, up
from 600,000 in 1986. More than 600,000 members presently work in health care.
Third-largest and fastest-growing if U.S. unions. |
Catholic social teaching:
a sampler |
Pope John Paul II Centessimus Annus, 1992 ...
The freedom to join trade unions and the effective action of unions ... are
meant to deliver work from the mere condition of a commodity and to guarantee
its dignity. ... The right of association is a natural right of the human
being. ... Trade unions ... serve the development of an authentic culture of
work and help workers to share in a fully human way in the life of their place
of employment.
On Human Work, 1981 ... Catholic social
teaching holds that unions are ... indeed a mouthpiece for the struggle for
social justice, for the just rights of working people in accordance with their
individual professions.
U.S. bishops Pastoral letter: Economic Justice
for All, 1986 The purpose of unions is not simply to defend the
existing wages and prerogatives of the fraction of workers who belong to them,
but also to enable workers to make positive and creative contributions to the
firm, the community and the larger society in an organized and cooperative
way. Footnote to document: Even if most injustice and exploitation were
removed, unions would still have a legitimate place. They are the normal voice
of labor, necessary to organize social life for the common good.
Vatican II The Church in the Modern World,
1965 Among the basic rights of the human person must be counted the right of
freely founding labor unions. These unions should be truly able to represent
the workers and to contribute to the proper arrangement of economic life.
Another such right is that of taking part freely in the activity of these
unions without fear of reprisal.
Pope Pius XI Quadragesimo Anno, 1931 For as
nature induces those who dwell in close proximity to unite into municipalities,
so those who practice the same trade or profession, economic or otherwise
constitute as it were fellowships or bodies. These groupings, autonomous in
character, are considered if not essential to civil society at least a natural
accompaniment thereof.
Pope Leo XIII Rerum Novarum, 1891 [T]he
beneficent achievements of the guilds of artisans among our ancestors have long
been well known. ... It is gratifying that societies of this kind composed
either of workers alone or of workers and employers together are being formed
everywhere, and it is truly to be desired that they grow in number and in
active vigor. ... they are highly opportune and are formed by their own right.
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National Catholic Reporter, September 4, 1998
[corrected 09/11/1998]
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