Following a heated four-year campaign
United Nurses of Legacy expect to file for union election
organized by the non-profit Oregon Health Forum. Vukovich
was one of the five hospital CEO panelists. Leafletters said
Vukovich reacted with distaste, on the way in, when she was
handed a flier. This one publicized fire safety problems at
Legacy Emanuel.
Inside, an audience member asked what the CEOs thought
about unions getting active at the State Capitol trying to pass
“top-down dictates on hospital staffing levels.” AFT has lobbied
in Salem, thus far unsuccessfully, for laws setting minimum
nurse-to-patient ratios.
“You were probably greeted by United Nurses of Legacy on
the way in,” Vukovich replied. “They’re from the East Coast.”
“That’s ridiculous,” Painter-Johnson told the Labor Press af-
ter the event. “What’s she’s attempting to do is frame us as the
evil other.”
For the most part, nurses themselves aren’t taking part in the
leafletting; Helen Lee, United Nurses of Legacy organizing di-
rector said nurses are fearful of publicly supporting the union,
because some have been disciplined for doing so.
Linda Boly, an RN at Legacy Emanuel, said she’s received a
verbal warning and two written warnings for infractions such as
talking about the union and handing pro-union fliers to co-
workers who were on the clock. She also had her schedule
changed, and was disciplined for refusing to work past the
Christobal Mozingo, a registered nurse at Legacy, holds a
scheduled end of her shift.
union placard outside an April 22 hospital CEO forum at the
Boly described a management crackdown under way at
Multnomah Athletic Club, at which Legacy CEO Pam
Emanuel. New rules restrict employee use of break room bul-
Vukovich was speaking.
letin boards and company e-mail, and ban talking about the
union except when both parties are off the clock and out of pa-
tient care areas.
at the wheel. “Rich directors like Jeffrey Gordon shell out mil-
Several groups of Legacy workers are unionized, said Mc-
lions to executives,” the flier said, “but can’t find money to as-
Daniel, the Legacy spokesperson. But with the nurses, Legacy
sure patient safety.”
believes direct communication is the best model, she said.
Several union fliers have made an issue of CEO salaries:
While McDaniel said Legacy supports employees’ legal
Legacy’s interim CEO, Pamela Vukovich, made over $1.18
right to choose whether or not they want a union, she also said
million in 2007. The union has argued that compensation like
some union tactics are inappropriate and have caused concern
that — and the $45 million profit Legacy made last year —
among nurses, such as trying to distribute fliers to employees
would be better spent hiring more nurses, which would im-
while they’re at work, and trying to call employees on the
prove patient safety.
phone while they’re at home.
Whitworth disputed those details also in an e-mail to em-
Unintentionally, her point drives home how tilted the play-
ployees, saying Vukovich’s compensation topped seven figures
ing field is during union campaigns: Managers have access to
only because she got a five-year retention bonus last year and
workers all day long, while union organizers have almost no ac-
cashed out some deferred compensation benefits. Her regular
cess and get criticized for trying to communicate with workers.
salary is $434,000, Whitworth wrote.
Last fall, the union-backed workers’ rights group Portland
On April 22, union leafletters greeted Vukovich and several
Jobs With Justice recruited several prominent pro-union com-
hundred health care industry professionals outside the Mult-
munity members to serve on a panel of its Workers Rights
nomah Athletic Club — site of a “Hospital CEO Roundtable”
Board. Those included Democratic Oregon State Representa-
tive Tina Kotek, black business leader
Joyce Taylor, Portland State Univer-
sity professor Barbara Dudley, and
Alcena Boozer, rector of St. Philip the
Deacon Episcopal Church. Members
of the group met with Sonja Steves,
Legacy’s senior vice president of hu-
man resources, marketing and com-
munications and asked her to agree to
campaign ground rules, including that
neither side would badmouth the
other. No deal.
If Legacy doesn’t commit to neu-
}
tral ground rules, union supporters say
management will have substantial ad-
Endorsed by:
vantages in opposing unionization.
N Oregon AFSCME
But it looks like AFT is getting ready
Cam
Johnson
Greg
Sherwood
Cam Johnson
Greg Sherwood
N NW Oregon Labor Council
to take its chances. Painter-Johnson
Adrian Hamilton
Monte Johnson
Adrian
Hamilton
Monte
Johnson
N SEIU Local 503
said United Nurses of Legacy expects
N Firefighters Assoc. of Clackamas County Local 1159
Doug Goebel
Goebel
Bill Zenk
Zenk
to file for a government-run union
Doug
Bill
N Tualatin Valley firefighters Union Local 1660
election very soon.
Garth Nisbet
Pat Worley
N Governor John Kitzhaber
N Labor Commissioner Brad Avakian
One SW
SW Columbia St., Suite 1100,
Portland, OR 97258
One
1100 Portland,
N The Oregonian Editorial Board (April 25, 2008)
American Federation of Teachers (AFT) has been trying to
unionize 3,000 nurses at Legacy Health System for four years.
Over the last month, the campaign has been turning up the heat.
Portland-based Legacy is a non-profit chain consisting of
five hospitals in the Portland metro area. It was formed by the
1989 merger of hospitals founded by the Lutheran Church and
the Episcopal Diocese of Oregon.
AFT is a nationwide union with a sizable health care divi-
sion. In the Portland area, AFT represents nurses at Kaiser Per-
manente and Providence Milwaukie Hospital.
AFT has tried to persuade Legacy management to adopt a
neutral stance toward the union drive. Partly because of the
Legacy’s historic ties to the religious organizations, AFT organ-
ized a group of local religious leaders to call on Legacy to agree
to a union-written code of conduct for the campaign. Legacy
declined.
In March, union organizers started publicly distributing
leaflets aimed at embarrassing Legacy.
“We’ve been nice for four years,” said Robert Painter-John-
son, the union staffperson responsible for building community
support for the campaign. “The time for nice is gone because
they’re not responsive to nice.”
Union leafletters are appearing regularly outside Legacy
Emanuel with fliers saying the hospital is dirty and unsafe due
to cuts in housekeeping hours. The fliers cite a Medicare report
that faulted the hospital’s standards of cleanliness.
They’ve also been showing up outside branches of West
Coast Bank with leaflets making a similar point. Legacy board
member Duane McDougall, former CEO of Willamette Indus-
tries, is also on the board of West Coast Bancorp. “Tell Duane
McDougall,” the flier said, “if he wants your deposits of money
at West Coast Bank, clean up the deposits of dirt at Legacy
Emanuel.”
Legacy Emanuel chief administrative officer April Whit-
worth reacted to that with an e-mail to employees: “I am not
going to sit back quietly while a group of outside union organ-
izers criticize our hospital and staff,” Whitworth wrote. “AFT is
a national union that is desperate to organize Legacy’s
nurses.… But their organizing efforts … haven’t worked. So
now they are trying a new strategy: a public campaign against
Emanuel.”
“A lot of the statements the union is making, they take things
and blow them out of proportion,” Legacy spokesperson Silvia
McDaniel told the Northwest Labor Press.
On April 21, union leafletters set up outside the Battle-
ground, Washington, home of Legacy board member Jeffrey
Gordon, a real estate developer. The message: Gordon is asleep
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