New Haven Independent

A temporary labor peace once and for all unraveled Wednesday night in the largest, most bitter, and hardest-fought unionizing battle in New Haven since the 1983 formation of Yale University’s pink-collar union.

It was shattered by a ruling issued by Margaret M. Kern, a neutral arbitrator chosen jointly by Yale-New Haven Hospital and District 1199 of the Service Employees International Union to adjudicate disputes leading up to the election scheduled for Dec. 20 and 21.

The two sides chose the arbitrator as part of a landmark peace treaty they struck earlier this year. For almost nine years organizers have tried to form a union among the workers who clean bed pans and rooms and otherwise do the dirty work at the hospital, in some cases having to hold two jobs to afford to feed their families. Most of those nine years have seen bitter warfare between the two sides. That warfare was holding up approval of Yale-New Haven’s plans to build a $430 million cancer center in town; so on March 22 the hospital reached an agreement with the union, brokered by Mayor DeStefano, on ground rules for a fair election. That agreement led to government approval of the cancer center. It also led to a remarkable period of peace between the two sides as the campaign neared.

That abruptly changed a few weeks ago, after the Dec. 20 and 21 election dates were set. Suddenly, organizers complained, hospital management was holding continual captive meetings with workers complete with threats of lost pay and even lost jobs if the union wins. Organizers said the continual meetings violated their peace agreement. The hospital denied it. So they brought the complaint to the arbitrator.

Kern held a hearing on the complaints on Dec. 8. She issued her seven-page ruling Wednesday.

“[T]he employer has engaged in serious violations of federal law, the election principles agreement and prior arbitration awards…” Kern wrote. “[It] appears the employer has given permission to over 200 managers and supervisors to conduct mandatory meetings on work time to discuss the union with employees.”

Her ruling recounted how one hospital supervisor, Judy Grant, who oversees 165 employees, summoned a group of them to a mandatory meeting, on work time, about matters unrelated to the union. After 15 minutes, she told workers they were “free to stay or leave.” She then spent 45 minutes trashing the union, saying, among other things, that workers stood to lose a $1.75 per hour pay differential if the union wins, that their union dues would go up, and that unionized workers at a nursing home in town lost their jobs after they voted in a union.

Such meetings took place throughout the hospital the past few weeks. Organizers argued they were mandatory, not voluntary, because workers would be targeted as pro-union if they stood up to leave. Arbitrator Kern agreed. She also agreed that Grant’s claims about the union, echoed by other managers in what appeared to be a coordinated hospital-wide campaign, were false and constituted threats. She called the practice a violation of not just the hospital’s agreement with the union, but federal law as well.

“The employer thus put employees in the position of having either to accept or reject the employer’s proffer of listening to an anti-union presentation, thereby pressuring them to make an observable choice regarding their sentiments about the union. The Board and courts have found this type of subtle pressure to constitute unlawful polling.”

Double Disappointment

Hospital spokesman Vin Petrini, reached late Wednesday night, defended the hospital’s meetings. “Voluntary meetings are something this hospital has conducted for years, well before the hospital organizing drive,” he said.

In the past few days, after District 1199 filed 200 complaints with the arbitrator and after pro-union clergy met with hospital President Marna Borgstrom, the hospital directed managers to stop holding the meetings. But the damage was done.

“We’re disappointed,” Petrini said. “Our employees have waited for nine years to vote on this issue. I hope they can vote on it in a timely matter.”

DeStefano, too, said he was “disappointed” Wednesday night. He also sounded angered. He had taken considerable heat in his gubernatorial campaign for pressing for a fair union election as part of the deal for Yale-New Haven to build its cancer center. He spent long hours negotiating the peace agreement, which all sides celebrated as a good-faith beginning of a new relationship. The hospital got its permits; the cancer center is being built. But now the election’s off, the union piece of the agreement in tatters.

“I am incredibly disappointed in the management of the hospital, and I’m saddened by the potential consequences this is going to have,” DeStefano said. “They have poisoned the water as to whether there can ever be a free and fair election because of their intimidation and coercion.”

The city can’t stop the cancer center at this point. But, at least Wednesday night, it sounded like the hospital may face renewed political trouble.

“It’s time for the elected officials of New Haven and the state of Connecticut to look at the governance structure of this hospital,” DeStefano declared. “It enjoys substantial tax benefits that other hospitals in other states do not enjoy.” He cited property tax and income-tax exemptions.

The hospital had struck the March peace agreement not just with the union, but with City Hall, Yale University, and an activist group seeking local jobs and other community benefits from the cancer center. The clergy who met with Borgstrom Monday — and who were active members of the activist group, called CORD — released a letter to her Wednesday prior to the announcement of the arbitrator’s ruling. It accused the hospital of “betrayal of the principles” of the March agreement. Click here to read the letter.

Hospital spokesman Petrini said it was too early Wednesday night to comment on the specifics of the arbitrator’s ruling. “We haven’t had a chance to review it in depth yet. We want to take a close look,” he said. Debate over the ruling — and the fallout — should continue in force in coming days.