nOrtHWESt laBOr PrESS | December 15 , 2017 | PaGE 7
uniOn OrGanizinG
at Springfield’s PeaceHealth Sacred Heart hospital, medical techs unionize
At PeaceHealth Sacred Heart
hospital facilities in Springfield
and Eugene, medical techni-
cians unionized in a landslide
221-to-64 vote Nov. 28 and 29.
The new 350-member bar-
gaining unit will be part of Ore-
gon Federation of Nurses and
Health Professionals (OFNHP),
which is also known as Local
5017 of the American Federa-
tion of Teachers (AFT).
OFNHP president Adrienne
Enghouse says the union cam-
paign began with a supportive
nudge from one hospital
worker’s husband. Coming
home upset, she would com-
plain about conditions at Sacred
Heart to her husband, a Eugene
firefighter. As a member of the
International Association of Fire
Fighters (IAFF), he told her she
needed a union. She took the ad-
vice and found her way AFT,
and the national union assigned
Photo by AFT via Twitter
The new 350-member bargain-
ing unit will be part of OFNHP.
At AFT offices, pro-union workers celebrate a major union election win at PeaceHealth Sacred Heart hospital.
organizers to help.
By Nov. 6, the union had
enough support to ask the Na-
tional Labor Relations Board to
oversee a union election for 51
occupational classifications, in-
cluding pharmacy and surgical
techs; CT, EEG, MRI and ultra-
sound technicians; licensed
practical nurses; and respiratory
therapists.
Enghouse says PeaceHealth
didn’t hire “union avoidance”
consultants like many employ-
ers do, but did hold one-sided
“informational meetings” about
Buy uniOn
what it’s like to be in a union.
The meetings failed to persuade.
The addition of the new union
of medical technicians means
PeaceHealth Sacred Heart may
now be one of Oregon’s most
heavily unionized hospitals.
Nurses at Sacred Heart are rep-
resented by Oregon Nurses As-
sociation, which is also an AFT
affiliate. Hospital support work-
ers belong to Service Employees
International Union (SEIU) Lo-
cal 49. Stationary engineers and
skilled maintenance employees
who maintain building systems
and equipment are members of
Operating Engineers Local 701.
Even the doctors are union-rep-
resented, part of AFT Local
6552.
“We’re happy that these work-
ers are going to have a voice in
their workplace,” Enghouse said.
“It makes me feel proud to work
with people who are brave
enough to stand up for their
themselves and their patients.”
AFT now represents more
than 5,000 healthcare profes-
sionals throughout the Peace-
Health system in Washington,
Oregon and Alaska. Nationally,
the AFT represents 130,000
healthcare professionals, mak-
ing it the third-largest healthcare
union in the country.
BuilDinG cOMMunity
interfaith Worker Justice releases report Senate Democrat wins
on Mondelēz to shift production to Mexico Scrooge of the year award
Faith group says owners of the
iconic Oreo brand treat working
people like a commodity.
Nonprofit faith-labor group In-
terfaith Worker Justice (IWJ)
released a scathing report Dec.
12 about Mondelēz-Nabisco’s
decision to shift production to
Mexico and lay off hundreds of
workers in Chicago and other
U.S. cities. The report is entitled
“Breaking Faith: Outsourcing
and the Damage Done to our
Communities.” To produce it,
IWJ staff met and documented
the stories of Nabisco bakery
workers in Chicago; Fair Lawn,
New Jersey; Portland, Oregon;
Richmond, Virginia; and At-
lanta, Georgia. They also trav-
eled to a Nabisco plant in Mex-
ico.
In 2015, Mondelēz told the
BCTGM union it would spend
$130 million to install new pro-
duction lines at its new bakery
Mexico, and close nine of its 16
production lines in Chicago.
Nabisco has been making some
products at a plant in Monter-
rey, Mexico, since 2003. In
2014, it opened a $350 million
plant outside of Monterrey,
while closing plants in Philadel-
phia and Toronto.
The immense new facility
sits in an industrial park in the
desert, an hour from Monterrey
city limits and 120 miles from
the U.S. Mexican border. IWJ
said workers are bused to and
from the bakery, which is sur-
rounded by fencing, and earn
just a little over a dollar an hour.
“Mondelēz-Nabisco has
come to treat its workers just
the same way they would the
other commodities that go into
Oreos, such as cocoa, sugar,
flour, and so on,” IWJ says in
the report. “We found this to be
one of the clearest demonstra-
tions of how the company has
broken faith with its workers,
and by extension … with con-
sumers.”
Mondelēz-Nabisco also
broke faith with the communi-
ties that supported it, IWJ said:
downsizing after taking in over
$91 million in public subsidies
going back as far as 1993.
Why devastate workers and
communities? To pay obscene
compensation to those making
the decisions, IWJ concluded.
Former Mondelēz-Nabisco
CEO Irene Rosenfeld made
more than $185 million in the
last nine years and is leaving
the company with a $35 million
personal pension, $50 million
severance and over $70 million
in additional stock options. In-
coming CEO Dirk Van de Put
stands to make $55 million in
his first year.
OnlinE EXtra
Read the full report at
http://www.iwj.org/resources/break
ing-faith-outsourcing-and-the-
damage-done-to-our-communities
State Sen. Rod Monroe — a
Portland Democrat — has
earned the dubious distinction of
being named “2017 Scrooge of
the Year” by Portland Jobs with
Justice. Each year the non-profit
workers rights group confers the
Scrooge award on a boss, politi-
cian, or corporation that stood
out for their hard-hearted atti-
tude toward working people.
The winner is the nominee who
gets the most votes, one dollar
per vote, at the group’s annual
holiday party and fundraiser.
This year’s party raised over
$5,000 for Portland Jobs with
Justice. Attendees at the Dec. 9
event chose Monroe because
he’s a landlord who with the
help of the landlord lobby
helped kill renters’ rights legis-
lation in the 2017 session of the
Oregon Legislature, including a
bill to allow cities to use rent
control. Amid a crisis of housing
affordability, Democratic House
Speaker Tina Kotek declared
that bill a priority, and it passed
the Oregon House, only to fail
in the Senate thanks to Monroe.
The year’s other nominees:
■ AT&T Mobility, for stalling on contract
bargaining, and negotiating with workers
in bad faith for over a year.
■ Freedom Foundation, for pushing
anti-worker legislation, and for attacking
and harassing local union members.
■ Kay Toran, CEO of Volunteers of America,
for paying workers minimum wage while
earning over $200k per year, and refusing
to negotiate with a newly formed union.
■ Mondeléz-Nabisco, for outsourcing
factory jobs to countries with more lenient
labor laws to avoid union labor and exploit
workers for greater profits.
■ Tom Mears, chairman of Burgerville
parent company The Holland Inc., for
Burgerville's year-and-half-long anti-
union campaign.