JULY 3, 2009:NWLP
6/30/09
10:25 AM
Page 6
Unions, Catholic bishops, health care
providers reach accord on organizing
WASHINGTON, D.C. (PAI) — The
nation’s Catholic bishops and leaders of
unions that represent health care work-
ers have agreed on a set of principles to
cover labor-management relations in
U.S. Catholic hospitals, nursing homes,
and other health care facilities.
But the principles, unveiled June 22
by Cardinal Theodore McCarrick of
Washington, D.C., AFL-CIO President
John Sweeney, and Service Employees
Local 1199 President Dennis Rivera,
have no enforcement power behind
them. Instead, they are based on more
than a century of Catholic Social Teach-
ing, which the church wants its hospital
and nursing home boards and adminis-
trators to follow.
Taken together, the guidelines com-
prise a “peace agreement,” whereby
Catholic hospitals drop their aggressive
tactics in fighting unions, such as de-
lays, one-on-one meetings, captive au-
dience sessions, and threats and intimi-
dation, in exchange for a unions pledge
not to run public leverage campaigns
against the hospitals.
Parties to the agreement include the
U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops,
the Catholic Health Association of the
United States, the AFL-CIO and its af-
filiates American Federation of Teach-
ers and the American Federation of
State, County and Municipal Employ-
ees, and the Service Employees Inter-
national Union.
The guiding principles suggest seven
key elements for appropriate conduct.
Siemens closes, 43 IBEW jobs lost
A Northeast Portland electric panel factory owned by the German multinational
Siemens terminated its workforce and closed permanently June 30. The layoffs of
the 43 assembly workers, members of International Brotherhood of Electrical
Workers (IBEW) Local 48, took place in stages in June.
The shop — at 6427 NE 59th Place just off Columbia Boulevard — has been
union-represented since at least the 1980s. Half the members have 20 to 25 years
with the company, said Local 48 Union Representative Nancy Cary.
Thanks to a provision negotiated in the most recent contract, Cary said workers
will get one week’s severance pay for every year of service, up to 16. After the clo-
sure announcement, the company also agreed to pay for three months of health
care benefits.
Cary said Siemens has been regarded as a good union employer; the closure is
a response to the construction downturn. Production of electric panels will be
shifted to Siemens plants in California and Texas.
Siemens’ Energy and Automation division has 10,000 employees at 28 loca-
tions in the United States.
They include:
• Respect. No negative campaigning
by either side.
• Equal access to information by the
employer and the union representatives.
• No biased statements that would
give misleading impressions about the
advantages and disadvantages of join-
ing a union.
• No aggressive or coercive behavior.
• A fair and timely process.
• Meaningful enforcement of a “lo-
cal agreement” that would be set at the
beginning of the organizing campaign
to outline specific rules and measures.
• Honoring employee decisions,
with no attempt to reverse the outcome
of the workers’ decision on whether or
not to unionize.
Labor officials said they were opti-
mistic that the agreed-upon principles
would help ease current labor-manage-
ment tensions at Catholic health care fa-
cilities.
“This reaffirms the church’s support
of workers’ right to form and join
unions,” Sweeney said.
“We’re trying to honor the rights of
workers, and I believe we have achieved
that,” Rivera added.
McCarrick said the guidelines are
the result of “respectful, candid, con-
structive dialogue” over several years
and represent “a practical consensus”
for Catholic health care ministries.
The Catholic health care network in-
cludes 600 hospitals and 1,200 other
health care agencies employing nearly
600,000 workers across the country.
E
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NORTHWEST LABOR PRESS
JULY 3, 2009