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About Northwest labor press. (Portland , Ore.) 1987-current | View Entire Issue (May 2, 2014)
NLRB rules McKenzie-Willamette Hospital broke labor law The Springfield facility is part of America’s second- biggest for-profit hospital chain By DON McINTOSH Associate Editor EUGENE — Alongside timeless workplace mysteries like “what do managers do?” there’s a new mystery at McKenzie-Willamette hospital in Springfield, Oregon: What on earth do its human resource managers do? For-profit McKenzie-Willamette is part of Tennessee-headquartered Community Health Systems (CHS), the nation’s largest publicly-traded hospital company. And federal labor law — something you’d expect HR professionals to know — requires the hospital to bargain in good faith with Service Employees International Union (SEIU) Local 49, which repre- sents 300 support workers there. When contract negotiations began Oct. 17, 2013, the union asked for some basic and mostly pretty mun- dane information. It should have been routine. Instead it took HR 40 days to hand over a retirement plan summary, 55 days to provide an employee list PAGE 16 with pay rates, 90 days to disclose to- tal annual payroll for unit employees, and 117 days to provide current job descriptions. HR never did provide eight other pieces of information — including hire dates, health insurance enrollment dates, and the most recent retirement plan annual report. Local 49 cried foul, and the labor law referees at the National Labor Re- lations Board (NLRB) agreed. In an “unfair labor practice” complaint is- sued March 31, the federal agency says McKenzie-Willamette Hospital “has been failing and refusing to bar- gain collectively with the exclusive collective bargaining representative of its employees,” in violation of federal labor law. The agency set a July 8 date for the hospital to explain itself before a federal administrative law judge. That’s a familiar ritual for CHS — a repeat offender with one of the most egregious records of labor law viola- tions of any employer in the country. Within the last year, federal courts have issued at least three cease-and- desist orders at CHS hospitals in Cali- fornia and Ohio for threatening, ha- rassing and terminating union supporters, and for refusal to bargain in good faith. Members of SEIU Local 49 picket outside McKenzie-Willamette Hospital April 17 to protest extreme stalling in contract negotiations. The National Labor Relations Board has ruled that the for-profit hospital chain's "bad- faith bargaining" violates federal labor law. On April 14, the NLRB in Wash- ington, D.C., ruled that CHS miscon- duct at a San Diego area hospital “in- fected the core of the bargaining process to such an extent” that a court order to bargain wouldn’t be enough: The hospital must reimburse the union for six months of bargaining expenses — a sanction the NLRB has used only eight times. The agency also extended NORTHWEST LABOR PRESS union certification for a year, and or- dered CHS to provide the information the California Nurses Association re- quested — way back in August 2012. CHS has 87,000 employees at 208 hospitals in 29 states. Only about 8,000 of them are union members. “We currently believe that our la- bor relations are good,” the company declared in its most recent annual re- port to shareholders. Many union employees would likely disagree with that assessment. Members of SEIU 1199NW at Val- ley Hospital in Spokane, Washington, waged a one-day strike Dec. 4, after which CHS locked them out of their jobs for two days. That came a day af- ter members of California Nurses As- sociation waged one-day strikes at CHS hospitals in Wilkes-Barre, Penn- sylvania, and Watsonville and Barstow, California. CNA members also picketed hospitals in Massillon, Ohio and Ronceverte, West Virginia. In Springfield, SEIU Local 49 re- ported close to a hundred workers and supporters took part in a noisy infor- mational picket April 17 outside McKenzie-Willamette. Local 49 spokesperson Felisa Hagins says bar- gaining has been unbelievably slow, with hospital negotiators unwilling or unable to meet more than once or twice a month. Local 49’s contract at McKenzie-Willamette — which cov- ers medical assistants, certified nurs- ing assistants, medical technicians, phlebotomists, and housekeepers — expired Dec. 31, 2013. MAY 2, 2014
