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DeStefano: We Can Break the Cancer Center Impasse

by Paul Bass | November 8, 2005 11:24 PM | Permalink | Comments (9)

Mayor John DeStefano used his reelection victory speech Tuesday night to float a new proposal to fix the city's most divisive controversy, not to mention the biggest current threat to his gubernatorial campaign: the impasse over a proposed $430 million, 14-story cancer center and a seven-year-old union organizing drive at Yale-New Haven Hospital.

In celebrating his resounding victory in his campaign for a seventh mayoral term (he won 75 percent of the vote), DeStefano proposed during the speech at Cafe Bottega a two-month fix to the impasse as part of creating a new relationship between the city and Yale-New Haven. That relationship has been strained at best. DeStefano's plan gives both sides some of what they sought.

The proposed cancer center has received state approval. Its needed city approvals have been delayed amid protests by labor and a union-affiliated grassroots activist group, Community Organized for Responsible Development.

The controversy has caught DeStefano in the middle as he pursues a 2006 campaign for governor. Yale-New Haven waged a statewide media campaign in support of its plans to pressure DeStefano to back quicker approval. That campaign led to a blistering attack on DeStefano in an Sunday editorial in Sunday's Hartford Courant. The editorial basically accused him of sacrificing the public good (new jobs, $5.5 million in new annual taxes) in order to kowtow to unions -- thereby making him unfit to become governor.

Meanwhile, political organizers from local unions affiliated with Yale, a potent political force which backed his slate of local candidates two years ago, broke with him this year over a dispute between DeStefano and Board of Aldermen President Jorge Perez, a strong supporter of the hospital drive. Those union activists worked against DeStefano's candidates and on behalf of pro-union incumbents in both the September aldermanic primaries and in Tuesday's aldermanic elections.

So DeStefano had to act. He did Tuesday night.

"There is a place to go with this," he said.

He specifically proposed that over the next two months, the hospital and the unions agree to a three-part compromise over an election for a new blue-collar union.

Part one: There would be a secret-ballot election supervised by the National Labor Relations Board (NLRB), as the hospital has insisted.

Part two: An arbitrator selected by both sides would respond quickly to complaints of illegal tactics by either side to pressure workers to vote one way or another. That's a response to union complaints that the hospital has illegally intimidated workers, through threats of firing and discpline, into not openly supporting a union. The union says the hospital could get away with it because it takes up to a year to have a complaint resolved by the National Labor Relations Board, which under President Bush has turned hostile to labor.

Part three: Both sides would agree to a "code of conduct" for the union election.

"A seminal change that occurred in the city over the past 12 years has been the relationship between Yale University and the city," DeStefano said. The two sides learned how to work together rather than fight. "That has been good for" both sides, he said.

He noted that that change occurred partly because Yale University got a new president committed to change, Rick Levin.

Now it's time to do the same with Yale-New Haven Hospital, the city's second-biggest employer (after Yale University), DeStefano said.

He noted that Yale-New Haven has a new president, Marna Borgstrom. "Over the next two months," he said, "we need to take advantage of that relationship."

He did take a swipe at the hospital's taste in architectural design. He called on the hospital, as it expands its campus, to stop looking "like a Stalinist fortress. It needs to open up to the neighborhood."

Mixed Reviews

DeStefano touched base with both sides before floating the plan. Weeks of behind-the-scenes meetings took place betwen hospital and city officials. But the participants didn't know DeStefano was going to announce his proposal Tuesday night. After he did, the plan received a more enthusiastic review from the unions than from the hospital.

"We would say that is a very good basis for discussion," said Bill Meyerson, spokesman for SEIU/District 1199 of the New England Health Care Employees, which is running the organizing drive at the hospital

"We're encouraged by the mayor's support of the cancer center," said hospital spokesman Vin Petrini.

But, Petrini said, "approval of a cancer center project that is so important to the patients we serve should not be tied so directly to a union drive."

As for DeStefano's three-point proposal, Petrini said the hospital supports part 1, the NLRB-supervised election, as it always has. Parts 2 and 3? "It's hard to comment without knowing the details," he said.

Comments

Posted by: dumpjoelieberman | November 9, 2005 6:35 AM

I am quite disappointed by the much hyped election returns on website by our three major in-state television news channels. WTNH last night seemed to have a standard code of "100%" for returns for all towns but Waterbury --- even when the only votes they were posting for New Haven were for the incumbent. This morning WTNH website says 33 of 34 precincts (97% votes) are reporting, there were a total of 8,553 votes, and Blatteau and Uhllien each had zero... while WFSB reports 110 for Blatteau and 9,199 votes for DeStefano alone...100% reporting. WVIT has zero numbers across the board for such towns as West Haven, Westport and New Haven...almost 12 hours after the polls closed. Please Paul, call them on this nonsense. Commercial TV stations need to be able to present professional, complete and accurate information on their websites, or they should give up the turf to the cyberjournalists who know how to do it!

Posted by: dumpjoelieberman | November 9, 2005 6:38 AM

Saw Paul Bass on TV last night talking to DeStefano at the machine gala. Were you explaining to him what a vote for each mayoral candidate meant?

Posted by: JFinNewHaven | November 9, 2005 10:25 AM

As the son of a woman who died from cancer (when I was 7, 28 years ago) and of man who fought a losing battle with cancer for 18 years (a man who had to go from place to place around the city for treatment and whose doctors often left the Elm City to take positions at other cancer hospitals in NYC and Boston) I am appalled that this center, designed to help people, has become a "union issue" to the Mayor.

The Mayor - who usually has my support - should be bending over backwards to fast track this center that will save lives. Forget about the taxes and millions the City will make - IT'S ABOUT SAVING LIVES AND HELPING FOLKS WITH CANCER. Let's all wake up here. Figure out all the other stuff - and it is just "stuff" compared to life and death - after the center is up and running. Let's help those 7 year olds (and younger) who have moms that are fighting for their lives - not to mention those 7 year olds (and younger) who have cancer themselves!

Shame on you, Mayor.

Posted by: Charlie | November 9, 2005 12:37 PM

DeStefano's incompetence in getting the YNHH Cancer Center approved and under construction should be viewed as a serious offense making him unfit not just for governor, but for mayor as well. Building the Center is a no-brainer. In fact, the City should be paying Yale to build it. As a result of DeStefano and the Union's actions, thousands of residents have been suffering due to lack of jobs and health care.

The Union's motivations: having cozy jobs so they can move out to the suburbs, and not actually have to put in a full work day. They don't have the City's interest in mind in the least bit.

This is the worst situation in the history of New Haven - yes, even worse than the demolition of the Oak Street neighborhood.

Posted by: Aldon Hynes | November 9, 2005 1:55 PM

DeStefano's Blogmaster here with a few comments on this.

One of the reasons I joined Mayor DeStefano's gubernatorial campaign is that he does a great job of trying to get all sides of a discussion included.

I applaud his efforts to get all sides included in an open and honest dialog about the cancer center.

We try to do the same with our blog, encouraging people with different viewpoints to present their opinions.

We had a discussion about the cancer center in the comments to one blog post. Some people echoed Yale New Haven's talking points that it's about saving lives and helping folks with cancer, while ignoring the very important role that workers take in how we help folks with cancer.

My wife's mother died of cancer a few years ago, and I would encourage here comments on the blog at http://www.destefanoforct.com/node/631#comment-1054

Posted by: JFINNEWHAVEN | November 9, 2005 4:44 PM

In response to Mr. Hynes -

I'm furious - and you'll be getting this on the Mayor's blog, as well.

It's not hard to echo points that make SENSE. And I doubt I was concerned with the workers' situation when I was 7 and cancer was taking my mother from me or when my father was bouncing from place to battling his cancer a few years later. I'll be sure to think about the union issues when I visit my parents' grave or look into the eyes of the grand daughter they never met. Give me a break, Mr. Hynes. Deal with the workers' situation seperate from this cancer center. Don't CONTINUE to hold this life-saving center up as part of a negotiation.

I'm not some right-winger who's out to "get" the Mayor - nothing could be further from the truth. I am a supporter and am proud - MOST OF THE TIME - to say I worked for him. But he's wrong here and his lack of caring about those with cancer should be embarrassing to those who do support him.)

Okay. I just put my YNHH-issued 'talking points' away, which they started writing for me in 1977 when my mother died of lung cancer.

Jim Foye

Posted by: S B | November 9, 2005 5:39 PM

It is really too bad that DeStefano didn't take this step earlier, but I think it is a pretty good one. The union's call for a "card count" (i.e. non-secret ballot) election gets little support outside of union circles and is a huge state-wide loser for DeStefano. On the other hand, the NLRB really doesn't enforce its own election rules anymore and so employers just do all kinds of unfair things and get away with it. This proposal, to have an NLRB-rule election, but with the rules actually enforced, looks pretty fair to me.

Posted by: Yair | November 9, 2005 6:35 PM

I disagree with Charlie that the other stuff is just "stuff" and not life-and-death. The cancer center is a huge opportunity to redevelop a part of New Haven that suffered a lot in recent decades, and to improve the Hospital's relationship with the community. The difference between doing this right and doing it wrong is, in fact, a life and death difference. Poverty in New Haven kills a lot of people, whether from neglect, disease, or crime. A chance to improve the situation for New Haven's neighborhoods and jobs is a chance to save, as well as improve, many lives each year, far into the future.

Posted by: S. Cantafio | December 15, 2005 3:15 PM

I can't believe this is all about a union situation. What about the people dying from this awful disease. Can't everyone come to a fair conclusion and stop being so selfish? People are dying all over the world. Most cancers are lifethreatening. What is wrong with everyone? And as for the reverend who is on the commercial asking people to oppose, shame on him!! This is suppose to be about the sick people with this horrific disease not money. What is wrong with you people. I can't count on my fingers because it's to high how many loved ones in past I've lost as well as friends to cancer. Think about the cancer victims and their families, please I urge everyone!!!!!!

DeStefano: We Can Break the Cancer Center Impasse

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