Staffing, safety concerns prompt HealthEast officers’ union drive

August 13, 2015 by
Kyle McGinn speaks at a press conference outside Bethesda Hospital in St. Paul, where he works as a security officer.

Kyle McGinn speaks at a press conference outside Bethesda Hospital in St. Paul, where he works as a security officer. McGinn is a leader in HealthEast officers’ efforts to organize a union.

 

There is safety in numbers and strength in a union. Security officers at HealthEast hospitals are organizing to achieve both.

Officers say they’ve been warning management for years about dangerously low staffing levels among their ranks. HealthEast usually keeps just two security officers on duty at each of its four East Metro hospitals – unless someone calls in sick.

Those concerns fell mostly on deaf ears, officers say, even after nurses at St. John’s Hospital, a HealthEast campus in Maplewood, were brutally assaulted last year. Frustrated, an overwhelming majority of HealthEast’s 45 officers realized organizing a union “is the most effective way to make our voice heard in the workplace,” Bethesda security officer Kyle McGinn said.

“We’ve had violent patients lash out at staff,” McGinn said. “I’ve had gunshots go off and shootings take place within a block of the hospital.

“Security officers want to be able to provide the safest environment possible for patients, families, visitors and other staff members. We feel with the current staffing levels – and the training and equipment we’re given at this moment – we’re not able to do that.”

Bethesda Hospital President Cathy Barr rejects a request from Kyle McGinn (L) that HealthEast recognize a majority of officers' request to form a union.

Bethesda Hospital President Cathy Barr rejects a request from Kyle McGinn (L) that HealthEast accept officers’ petition to form a union.

A public campaign

McGinn and his fellow officers began organizing a union with AFSCME Council 5 earlier this year. Yesterday, backed by elected officials and supporters in the labor community, they visited Bethesda President Catherine Barr’s office to request management recognize their union and engage in a dialogue about their staffing concerns.

After waiting 20 minutes for HealthEast’s director of labor relations to arrive, Barr declined to recognize the union and refused to discuss staffing.

Officers pledged to keep fighting for recognition. But winning a union, Council 5 organizers warned, will require more public pressure on HealthEast than is typically the case during an organizing drive.

That’s because the National Labor Relations Act prohibits security officers and other “guards” from voting to join a union that already represents — or could potentially represent — other workers at the same employer. Because AFSCME Council 5’s 43,000 members statewide include health care workers (although none at Bethesda), the security guards cannot petition for a union election.

HealthEast can recognize the officers’ union voluntarily, however. That’s the approach St. Paul City Council members, Ramsey County commissioners and other elected officials urged the hospital system to take in letters delivered in advance of the officers’ request for recognition.

“These are the people responsible for caring for us,” St. Paul City Council Member Dave Thune said at a press conference outside Bethesda. “We would encourage Bethesda to recognize the union and work with the employees. The City of St. Paul works with unions all the time, and it’s considered a positive. I think it will be a positive for Bethesda as well.”

AFSCME Council 5 Executive Director Eliot Seide (R) talks with HealthEast security officers Joe Misencik (L) and Jeff Perry.

AFSCME Council 5 Executive Director Eliot Seide (R) talks with HealthEast security officers Joe Misencik (L) and Jeff Perry.

‘Stick together’

Other HealthEast employees, who rely on security officers to keep them safe at work, agreed with Thune. Members of the Service Employees International Union, the Minnesota Nurses Association and Operating Engineers Local 70 supported the officers’ request.

Nursing assistants Brandon Nagel and Haley Gould stuck around the hospital after finishing the night shift to stand behind officers McGinn, Joe Misencik and Jeff Perry as they delivered the petition to management.

“We constantly have traffic coming in and out,” said Nagel, a steward with SEIU Healthcare Minnesota. “With only one security officer at night, if they’re in the middle of dealing with something, we’re on our own. There are times when I would love to have backup or security (during a behavior emergency), but I’m waiting 10, 15 minutes.”

Council 5 Executive Director Eliot Seide urged officers, “Stick together, hang together and we’ll win together.”

Filed Under: Organizing Tagged With: , , , , , , , ,

High court will hear case targeting public-sector unions

June 30, 2015 by

1024px-Supreme_Court_Front_DuskThe Supreme Court today announced it would hear arguments in a case challenging unions’ ability to collect fees from public-sector workers who choose not to join a union but, as members of the bargaining unit, enjoy equal access to benefits provided by the union contract.

Eliminating so-called “fair share fees,” ruled constitutional by the Supreme Court 37 years ago, is a top priority of the National Right to Work Committee and other right-wing legal groups that are bankrolling an assault on workers’ collective bargaining rights in the court system.

Unions pledged a vigorous defense of the fair-share structure, which empowers teachers and other public-sector employees to form strong unions for a collective voice on the job – while also ensuring no worker contributes to the union’s political activities without giving consent.

“It’s extremely frustrating that at a time when corporations and the super-rich have unprecedented power, the court would agree to take up a case that could further undercut working Americans,” Minnesota AFL-CIO President Shar Knutson said.

The case stems from California, where Orange County teacher Rebecca Friedrichs sued the California Teachers Association for collecting fair share fees. The conservative, Washington-based Center for Individual Rights picked up Friedrichs’ legal fees and put the case on a fast track for the Supreme Court, arguing that forcing her to pay for union representation she doesn’t want amounts to “forced speech.”

The Supreme Court’s most conservative justices, led by Samuel Alito, have signaled more than once that they are sympathetic to 1st Amendment arguments to overturn the 1977 decision, Abood v. Detroit Board of Education, which deemed fair share fees constitutional.

But union members like Kimberly Colbert, a teacher from St. Paul, warned overturning Abood would stifle workers’ speech – not support it – because public sector unions are required to represent all employees in a bargaining unit, regardless of whether or not they pay dues.

“When educators come together, we can speak with the district about class size, about adequate staffing, about the need for counselors, nurses, media specialists and librarians in schools. And we can advocate for better practices that serve our kids,” Colbert said. “With that collective voice, we can have conversations with the district that we probably wouldn’t be able to have otherwise – and do it while engaging our communities, our parents and our students.”

The court will hear arguments in Friedrich v. CTA during its upcoming term, which begins in October.

“While we hope that the court will not over turn their previous decision in Abood, an unfavorable ruling will not stop Minnesota’s labor movement from growing,” Knutson said. “Workers across our state and nation continue to stand up for their rights; we will continue to stand with them and their organizing efforts.”

Denise Specht, president of Education Minnesota, agreed.

“This will be a fiercely argued case and no one knows how it will be decided, or when, but I can promise one thing,” Specht said. “No matter what happens, the educators of Education Minnesota will continue to speak out for our schools, our students, our educators and the future of our state.”

Filed Under: Organizing Tagged With: , , , , , , , , ,
«Previous Page