September 6, 2006

Sticking Together
Nurses don’t want Virginia Mason to strip them of union representation

By J. JACOB EDEL
Contributing Writer

Participating in a nationwide protest, numerous nurses and organized laborers gathered outside Virginia Mason Hospital on Monday to demonstrate their revulsion toward the hospital’s attempt to re-classify the employment status of its registered nurses.

The afternoon rally also took place to raise awareness about a decision expected to be made by the National Labor Relations Board later this summer. The NLRB, created in 1935 to ensure the right of workers to unionize, has been asked by the U.S. Supreme Court to elaborate its definitions that distinguish a supervisor from a worker, invoking widespread implications for the nation’s union members.

If the five members of the NLRB approve a broad interpretation of what comprises a supervisor, “millions of Americans will be stripped of their right to form unions,” says Stewart Acuff, the national organizing director of the AFL-CIO. That is because any employee with greater knowledge and expertise that gives instruction to lesser-skilled employees may be labeled a supervisor.

This means most of the 13,000 registered nurses that belong to the Washington State Nurses Association, the state’s largest nurses union, could be re-classified as supervisors by their hospital employers and lose their ability to unionize.

Virginia Mason has recently argued at a NLRB hearing that its nurses fulfill a supervisory role, demonstrating a desire to exclude its 600 registered nurses from the union.

Nurses who attended the rally, however, spoke of Virginia Mason’s poor treatment of its workers.

Perry Whitner, a certified nursing assistant of 15 years who works at Swedish Medical Center, attended the rally because he opposes reclassification.

As a former employee of Virginia Mason, he said the hospital paid wages below competitive levels and staffed more managers than nurses.

“They don’t have respect for their employees,” Whitner says. “In the two years I worked there, I never received a raise because they have a wage freeze. And their staff ratio is really bad.”

“Shame on Virginia Mason,” Rick Bender, president of the Washington State Labor Council, said at the rally. “Their action is an attack on workers, working families, and the right to unionize.”

According to the National Labor Relations Act, supervisors are not allowed to form or join unions and are defined as an employee with the authority to hire, fire, discipline, or command other employees using their own independent judgment in the interest of the employer.

While past NLRB members have agreed with nurses like Carolyn McAllister, a registered nurse at Morton General Hospital in Lewis County, who adamantly stated she works in the interest of the patient, a loose interpretation by the NLRB on what constitutes “independent judgment” may warrant the re-classification.

In favor of Virginia Mason, the Sixth Circuit of the U.S. Court of Appeals has ruled that “nurses are supervisors when they direct assistants with respect to patient care, rectify staffing shortages, fill out evaluation forms, and serve as the highest-ranking employee in the building during off-peak shifts.”

If the board agrees that such tasks are instances of “independent judgment,” then all employees that direct lesser-skilled employees may ultimately be regrouped and lose their union benefits.

Union leaders impugn the board for denying them the right to present oral arguments. Acuff is leading a group of protesters to the NLRB’s D.C. headquarters Thursday.

“Virginia Mason, if you take on these nurses, then you take on all of us,” Acuff asserted at the rally. “We will defend our unions.”