New Haven Independent

Posted by: Jess | March 8, 2007 10:16 AM

I think the Yale students should mind their business and continue their education. If my fellow Yale employees were smart they wouldn't want that poor excuse for a union representing them anyways. They couldn't PAY ME to be represented by them. Yale NH Hospital is a wonderful place to work and is being made to appear as if they don't care about their employees...it is simply not true. Ask Marna (our CEO) how much sleep she has had lately, she is fighting so hard for this organization and for each and everyone of us!

Posted by: Frank | March 8, 2007 10:20 AM

Realizing that most employees don't want a union, the unions have had to come up with new ways to impose unionism on workers.

One of these schemes is called a "Neutrality Agreement." A neutrality agreement is a deal between the union and the employer where the employer agrees to say and do nothing to oppose the union.

You might wonder why an employer would ever sign such an agreement. Unfortunately, there are several reasons.

Unions use what are called "corporate campaigns" to extort employers into signing neutrality agreements and agreeing to recognize them on the basis of a "card check."

These corporate campaigns have nothing to do with organizing workers. They are massive public relations and dirty tricks campaigns aimed at hurting the business' bottom line. The unions viciously destroy reputations and the jobs of the workers they claim to want to help in their lust for members, money and power.

A corporate campaign can include any number of union tactics like filing frivolous complaint with government regulators, trying to get banks where they have pension funds on deposit to refuse financing to firms that won't go along, or fomenting boycotts of the company's products by "community" organizations.

In other cases unions have used their clout with already organized companies, as the United Auto Workers (UAW) has done with the Big Three, to get them to pressure suppliers to sign neutrality agreements.

And, of course, unions use their political clout to get public officials to pressure employers to sign neutrality agreements.

No matter what the excuse, neutrality agreements and "card check" elections are a terrible injustice for employees.

There are very few decisions that a worker makes about his or her job that are more important than whether to be represented by a union. It's very likely that the employer will have information about this that the employee needs in order to make a well informed decision. Under a neutrality agreement the employer can't give the employees this information.

To make matters worse, neutrality agreements usually include their ugly step-sister the "card check" election. In a card check election the employer agrees to recognize a union as a representative on the basis of signed authorization cards rather than a secret ballot election.

The injustice of this is clear when you consider that unions lose most secret ballot elections when they petition with a narrow majority of employee signatures.

Why would this be the case? For one thing, some employees sign authorization cards very early in a union organizing campaign when all they know is the pie in the sky promises of a union organizer. Once they get more information they realize that a union isn't in their best interest.

In other instances union organizers misrepresent what the authorization card is all about. This is particularly easy for them to do when the card is printed in English and the employee isn't fluent in English.

Sometimes unions use peer pressure and outright intimidation to get employees to sign authorization cards.

The long and short of it is that union authorization cards signed by a majority of employees are not a reliable indication of whether they really want union representation.

The unions know this. That's why they want card check elections instead of secret ballot elections.

Posted by: NHRR | March 8, 2007 3:57 PM

How nice....
If these students cared to actually LISTEN to the majority of YNHH workers, they'd discover that an overwhelming number DO NOT SUPPORT A UNION...PERIOD! The workers want the right to vote AGAINST it and get 1199 out of their hair and off their doorsteps.

Posted by: ann | March 8, 2007 4:50 PM

This isn't American Idol no need to rap. I'm right it isn't American Idol because they get to vote!!! There are even some third world countries who get to vote!!! Iraq voted!!! You know what 1199 is? The master and YNHH workers will become their slaves!!! Freedom= the quality or state of being free: as the absence of necessity, coercion, or constraint in choice or action. Sounds like modern day strong hold to me. Members of 1199 have to live by a certain code of ethics. You work you pay 1199, you strike you still pay 1199. Slave=one that is completely subservient to a dominating influence. You can check those defs they come from Mr. Webster himself. Do YNHH workers pay Yale to go to work everyday? Do they pay Yale when they are out of work? As far as those college students go, they are probably going to Yale University on mommy and daddy's tax return info on their FAFSA form, because they don't really look older than 25. They probably won't have to even work at YNHH. 1199 probably promised them pizza. Gee I wonder if the Yale students signed a union card for future use?

Posted by: Noah | March 8, 2007 5:32 PM

As one of those students who should "mind their own business," I'll say that this is my business. Richard Levin is the president of my university and he sits on the hospital's board, plus appoints another 1/3 of the board. My family is treated at Y-NHH and I will be if I ever get sick. And more importantly, I am a citizen of New Haven.

What I have to say about 1199, though, doesn't really matter. What matters is that the 1800 workers in the bargaining unit have an ability to freely and fairly decide if they want to form a union. The arbitrator found repeated and deliberate violations of the conduct agreement and federal labor law. The hospital has since admitted to systematically intimidating its workers. There is no better argument than what has happened at Y-NHH to show why the NLRB election process is completely flawed and prone to intimidation on the part of management.

For an interesting bit of data on management vs. union intimidation in NLRB and card check elections, take a look at this academic study. The punchline is that there is no problem in this country of union intimidation and that even under a card check system, employers are far more coercive than unions.

Posted by: pinkbicycle | March 8, 2007 6:04 PM

Hmm if workers don't want a Union then a vote would surely prove that..right? I mean if the plantation is so sure that the slaves would go against the revolution why not let the vote go. To spend so much time and energy and money on thrawting the Union says to me that the Hospital as a plantation wasn't sure of its indentured servants. Why wouldn't the hospital be intune to a Union. Why wouldn't the hospital do whatever it could to ensure that workers had a voice and representation that was independent of the Great Hospital Universe. The issue for me is really about race and class and economic disenfranchisement--you know, keeping people who we don't value at the low end of the economic totem pole--pretty much the way we do teachers and veterans and soldiers who finish their tours. The hopital ought to be ashamed and those that support their cause ought to be ashamed too.

Posted by: BedPanJoe | March 8, 2007 7:50 PM

Don't do it, The Student's have no idea what the heck they're doing,they don't know about the MONSTERS they are helping , is Chen the Unions example? they might end up dogged,lied to entangled,slandered and dumped in some far away corner of the internet begging The City Hall Union Capos for a hand out, stumbling around wondering what happened to the promises we had together, the deal man,the deal, damned yeshivas
please don't blame christians even though the group at St. Andrews is abominable and the cops are playing commandos at St. Joe's

Posted by: JEH | March 8, 2007 7:53 PM

The "original" intent of the Wagner act was to allow union representatives to barge into the homes (uninvited) of eligible voters to "encourage" through "persuasion" employees to sign a card that is supposed to be only to support "an election?"

What a farce. SEIU lied to YNHH employees, told them that their signatures were to have an election and then when the employees began to ask questions, decided they would just use that card to represent them.

HOW FAIR IS THAT? FREE AND FAIR?

Let me understand this. YNHH has so "poisoned" the environment that a democratic SECRET BALLOT VOTE cannot be held? Are managers allowed in the voting booth to intimidate and coerce? Why are the same employees (internal union organizers) the focus of these rallies. Why aren't there more YNHH employees there?

They don't support SEIU and they never will. Grow up Yalies, this isn't your fight. Go hug a tree or something. This belongs in the hands of the employees who would be represented by this so called "union."

I hope that people see through this rag mag and see it for what it is. Everyone knows it...SEIU doesn't like elections; they are far too complicated and its far easier to just visit people at their home and tell them the "Union's" side of the story and let them sign on the spot.

I hope that this is somehow resolved where the employees are able to vote at Yale-New Haven Hospital. They deserve it and have been going through this for far too long. PUT IT TO A VOTE. ..and for the STUDENTS....I think there is a War Rally in NYC this weekend...go to it...find another cause that impacts you. There are many, many more places where you can use your "brilliant" minds.

Posted by: Sharmont(influence) | March 8, 2007 9:00 PM

Listen, all of the slick comments you so called non-union people have, has been underminded by yale Hospitals' CEO. In the New Haven register, She has openly admitted that the hospital has broken all the laws we said they did. Before this, she professed that none of the allegations the workers and the union accused the hospital of were true. Now she has to tuck her lying tail between her legs, because she knows everyone knows the truth, from the streets of New Haven to the floors of congress. The board and Marna are now sweating corporate bullets. She has dropped the ball on this whole matter. When the arbitrator makes her ruling in the next week or so, the cards will be counted and that is where the true voice of the people will be heard. Before the meetings, before the harrassment, before the lies. As far as me being a American Idol rapper(POET)and a fake representative of the workers, as we say in da hood, "as long as u haten, I know you hear me"!!!!!!!!!!!

Posted by: Hugh | March 8, 2007 11:30 PM

Perhaps Ms. Borgstrom wouldn't be losing so much sleep if she hadn't orchestrated a campaign of intimidation and coercion on a massive scale throughout the hospital that has provoked outrage across the city. And maybe if she and the hospital had lived up to the agreement she made with this community she could sleep a little easier, knowing that she wasn't violating her employees' human right to a free and fair environment in which to choose whether or not to form a union.

She also wouldn't be losing so much sleep if the hospital she runs were not rapidly becoming the national poster child of the crisis of workers' rights in this country, as Mary Beth Maxwell, executive director of American rights at Work, told the Yale Political Union last month.

We all know that the reason this anti-union campaign happened is simply because when the union called for the election, a clear majority of workers had signed cards pledging to join the union. It is for this reason and this reason alone that the hospital went into overdrive in late November to destroy any chance of holding a free and fair election.

For those who ask whether those cards accurately reflect employee sentiments, and say that workers may have been coerced into signing them, I ask the following:

Why would 1199 ever want to go into an election where they didn't have genuine support? What incentive was there for them, as a union trying to win an election, to force workers to sign cards, if those cards were not going to be an actual barometer of support for the union?

The argument of an incentive for the union organizers to force workers to sign cards becomes even more irrational when you consider the fact that many workers who do have their union recognized do not ever settle a first contract. Indeed, a full 32% of workers have not settled a contract a full year after getting their union recognized.* If you want to get to the first contract and win big for workers, you have to have a strong union - and to have a strong union, you have to have a deeply committed membership. If you don't have that, you don't win a contract. It's that simple. So why force a worker to sign a card?

What's been especially lost in this debate is this fact that well over 50% of workers had signed cards before the union filed for an election. This is an especially remarkable fact considering that this organizing drive has been ongoing for the past 9 years - and in most of that time, there was no free and fair environment whatsoever for union activity, before the Community Benefits Agreement was signed last March and the Election Principles Agreement went into effect in June. Before that time, union organizers weren't even allowed into the hospital buildings and union activists were arrested by the hospital's police force for leafleting on the sidewalk. That a majority of workers still want a union, after all of what they've been through, is really the strongest indicator of what these workers really want.

*To read this and other statistics on workers' rights, visit http://americanrightsatwork.org/resources/statistics.cfm

Posted by: ann | March 9, 2007 5:37 AM

Noah: You are exercising your FREEDOM of speach. That's what America is all about. That's a good thing. Taking away our right to vote... is not so good. When people come to our instituion to be treated for illness, we take care of them to the best of our ability. So don't worry, you and your family will be in good hands if you need to come see us at YNHH. One of the best I would say. We were VOTED in the top. There is the VOTE word again. Since you are studying "Unions", I am sure you are well aware of their history, and the tactics they use when they won't get voted into an institution. You also should have studyied where their $$ goes. Politicians get funds to side with them. We can sit here all day and "blog" about a cause we are passionate about. That makes us Americans. I respect your view and wish you luck with your future.

Posted by: ann | March 9, 2007 6:11 AM

Noah: Just one for the record (I forgot to mention in my previous blog), read the Yale Daily News artical headed "Levin stays out of hospital dispute". This is a lesson in life that you are not going to learn in school.

Posted by: ann | March 9, 2007 9:29 AM

Sharmont and All Others who Read this Blog: For the record, in "da hood or out of da hood", I DON'T HATE ANYONE. Just because you hear someone doesn't mean you hate them. A peaceful sollution is at hand for those of us who strive for peace.

In the words of Dr. Martin Luther King, " "The end is reconciliation, the end is redemption," King said. "The end is the creation of the beloved community."

Can we all try to get along here?????

Posted by: SHARMONT(INFLUENCE) | March 11, 2007 4:20 AM

Ann, this is not about hate. This is about the people in my community
having
to work two times harder then university workers at the same skill
levels
just to make ends meet. Please understand I'm not asking the hospital
or any
one to take care of me, I can do this myself, I just want them to be
fair.
Give us fair wages and benefit's as the other hospitals do. Why is it
that
for us to buy a home in our own community.

We need to have a program set up by yale to do so. Again pay me fairly
and I
can do this myself, There's no reason my grandmother who has given 30
years
to this hospital still has to work at the age she is, just to keep her
medical coverage. SO SHE WORKING OFF AND ON WITH CANCER! Just to keep
her
medical coverage, because if she retires the benifit's she will get
from
yale will not be good enough. This is the main reason I fight so hard.
and I
will continue, until we win or I'm dead and gone!!!!! MALCOM X (HOW CAN
YOU
GET ALONG WITH SOMEONE WHEN THE TREAT YOU LIKE THEY DON'T LOVE YOU)