More members questioning union duesEmployees for Self-Representation say they need less than 50 registered nurses at Fremont-Rideout Health Group to sign a petition to decertify the California Nurses Association without an election. That goal, Self Representation representatives said, is within their grasp.
"We're getting really close," said Jan Brundage, spokeswoman for the employee group and registered nurse at the Feather River Surgery Center. "We're less than 50 signatures away." Brundage said they need a total of 235 signatures to decertify the union without an election. Roughly 450 nurses are employed by Fremont-Rideout.
Pro-union nurses said that number is surprising to them. Efforts to decertify CNA, the union that was voted in to represent nurses in contract negotiations in August 2006, began in October 2007.
Brundage said the employee group has stepped up efforts to decertify the union recently after nurses at Fremont and Rideout hospitals began asking about the status of the election to decertify.
"Many are willing to sign because they know they can remain anonymous," she said. Some nurses "don't want pro-union people to know they are signing because pro-union nurses are very vocal and intimidating."
There are two ways to decertify a union, according to the National Labor Relations Board. The first is to obtain signatures of 30 percent or more of employees in order to hold an election to decertify. That number was achieved in October.
Brundage said the union has filed several unfair labor practice charges to halt the process.
"As long as ULPs are filed, the labor board can't conduct an election," she said. "CNA is still holding nurses hostage by filing these ULPs."
The NLRB is considering eight unfair labor complaints filed by CNA. A decision on those is expected in November.
Heather Avalos, a registered nurse in the Rideout Memorial Hospital Intensive Care Unit and union bargaining team member, said she hopes these charges will side with pro-union nurses and put pressure on the administration to continue contract negotiations.
Negotiations have been at a standstill since the final offer was made by the hospital administration in January and nurses voted to reject that offer.
The second way for nurses to decertify CNA is to obtain signatures from 50 percent or more of the members, which would automatically decertify the union without an election.
An advertisement that appeared in the Sept. 13 edition of the Appeal-Democrat — paid for by the Self Representation group, solicits signatures to obtain that necessary 50 percent — asks how long nurses will let this process go on.
The ad claims CNA filed 48 unfair labor practices against the hospital to postpone a decertification election and that the $500,000 the union will make in dues will not stay in the community.
"If the union is giving you their best, take a look at how they did it and at the expense of nurses," the ad stated. "CNA has done nor lost anything. To CNA it's just a waiting game."
Petitions to decertify are being sent to a welding business in Yuba City.
Nurses at the Feather River Surgery Center successfully decertified the union last October. Brundage said nurses at the surgery center have received pay raises and speak directly with administration since decertifying CNA. Nurses still represented by CNA have not experienced either.
Union supporters, though, said they were not aware the Employees for Self-Representation had that many signatures.
"That's surprising to me," Avalos said. "There's no change in union support. Nurses who were pro-union continue to be pro-union."
Avalos said she thought many of the signatures the Employees for Self Representation collected contained names of licensed vocational nurses and management, neither of which are protected by the union and therefore could not participate in trying to decertify it.
"If that's the case, they will all need to be verified and weeded out," she said.
Avalos said she does not receive incentives to participate in the union's bargaining team, despite what that advertisement in the Appeal-Democrat stated.
"I don't know what perks they're talking about," Avalos said. "Bargaining members have put so many hours that are unpaid into bargaining."
(appeal-democrat.com)
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