Focus of unions’ split shifts to NLRB

Teachers’ union hoping to recoup some 3,600 health care workers who split ranks starting last summer is hanging on to its former members by a thread. That thread is a series of unfair labor practice complaints against the hospitals employing the rebel workers.The Rhode Island Federation of Teachers and Health Professionals contends that five hospitals – Rhode Island, Landmark Medical Center, Westerly, Our Lady of Fatima and Memorial – should not be doing business with the recently formed United Nurses & Allied Professionals. Last month, it asked the National Labor Relations Board to order those facilities to “cease and desist from recognizing and bargaining” with the UNAP and honor federation contracts only.

Meanwhile, the federation is letting ride a more recent defection – that of about 100 nurses and home health aides employed by the Woonsocket Visiting Nurse Service. In that case, the UNAP “finally did it right,” said Jamie Horwitz, a spokesperson for the parent American Federation of Teachers. Unlike previous votes handled by union members, the Dec. 22 vote was conducted by the NLRB, he said.
UNAP President Lynn Blais agreed that the Woonsocket VNS vote required the NLRB’s participation. However, she insisted it was not a corrective measure. The Woonsocket workers are part of an “amalgamated local,” or several chapters rolled into one, Blais said. That means they had to go through a “decertification when their contract expired” on Dec. 31. Independent chapters have no such requirement under their constitutions, she said. Still Horwitz said the UNAP has no legal standing to protect its members. For the UNAP to become certified to represent workers at the five hospitals, it would have to wait until the current contracts expire, he said. After that, it could file a petition with the NLRB asking for an election to allow members to vote for a new bargaining agent. “Our contention is that they have a right to disaffiliate, but the contracts don’t go along with the disaffiliation,” Horwitz said. “It’s our contract.” “Hospitals are being squeezed by the insurance companies and the hospitals are very hesitant to squeeze the doctors.” – Jamie Horwitz American Federation of Teachers Rosemary Pye, the NLRB’s regional director, declined to comment on the specific
complaints. However, she said union contracts do “just transfer” at the point of disaffiliation. The only requirement is a “disaffiliation vote with due process trappings,” she said, adding the vote “doesn’t have to be conducted by us.” The federation in a Dec. 31 press release announcing four of its five complaints quoted
Pye in a letter to union attorneys as saying, “due to the nature of the allegations I have identified this as one case where injunctive relief may be appropriate.”
Pye said the written statement should not be interpreted as her “personal review of the case.” “That’s a boiler plate letter that we send out when we have that category of case,” she said. “We’re just saying we’re going to investigate it on a fast track.” An investigation into the complaints is under way and witnesses will be called beginning Feb. 2 , Pye said. Depending on the evidence, they will be settled, result in a hearing or be dismissed, she said.
Blais said she is “very confident” that the NLRB will decide in UNAP’s favor. She described the federation’s complaints as retribution for her group’s new-found independence.”This is the RIFTHP just tying our hands and having us expend money for legal fees,” she said.
The RIFTHP is one of Rhode Island’s biggest labor unions, representing both the state’s teachers and – until this summer – most of its health-care workers.
Since the split, the federation’s numbers have diminished to less than 9,000. That includes about 400 people employed by visiting nurse services throughout the state, as well as St. Joseph Hospital in Providence, Horwitz said.
The UNAP was formed in June as a statewide federation of seven locals, including the Rehabilitation Hospital of Rhode Island in Woonsocket and several state facilities. Horwitz blamed the rupture on “some personal differences” between the federation’s former staff representative Jack Callaci and its president, Marcia Reback. If you don’t like what your boss is doing, sometimes you set up your own business. And that’s exactly what he (Callaci) did,” Horwitz said. sides the hospital complaints, the federation also last month filed suit against Callaci in Superior Court, alleging fraud, conspiracy and acts of sabotage, according to a federation press release.
Callaci violated “a sort of implied covenant,” Horwitz said. “He was employed by the state federation, not the locals, and he organized a civil war.” Blais contended that the decision to disaffiliate stemmed from “long-standing issues” about representation. “It was not made by one person,” she said.
The UNAP felt the teacher-heavy federation wasn’t paying enough attention to
its health-care members, Blais said. “We wanted to set up a program that worked independently” of the teachers.
Whatever the cause for the rift, Horwitz said he couldn’t understand why health-care workers in today’s business environment would turn to a small, independent union for representation.
“Hospitals are being squeezed by the insurance companies and the hospitals are very hesitant to squeeze the doctors,” Horwitz said, citing the current work stoppage at Providence’s Women & Infants Hospital where more than 1,000 employees are represented by a different union. The UNAP members would be “better served by a million-member organization with deep pockets and lots of resources,” Horwitz said.<