Federal Labor Board to Prosecute Tenet Healthcare for Scheme to Sweep Nurses into Unionization

Employees seek to throw out union after union bosses’ ugly campaign of harassment and coercion

Houston, Texas (April 3, 2009) — National Labor Relations Board (NLRB) prosecutors have filed a complaint this week against Tenet Healthcare Corporation after it entered into a backroom deal with union officials designed to force nurses into union ranks at multiple Houston-area hospitals.

With free legal assistance from the National Right to Work Foundation, two Houston-area nurses, Esther Marissa Cuellar, a nurse at Tenet’s Cypress Fairbanks Medical Center, and Linda D. Bertrand, a nurse at Tenet’s Park Plaza Hospital and Medical Center, filed unfair labor practice charges alleging that an “Election Procedures Arrangement” (EPA) Tenet and California Nurses Association (CNA) union officials secretly established violates employees’ rights.

The unfair labor practice charges also allege that Tenet officials provided CNA union operatives with unlawful organizing assistance in violation of federal statutes: In Tenet healthcare facilities, outside union organizers are given free reign to aggressively push for a union presence; but Tenet nurses who oppose unionization, on the other hand, are forbidden from using Tenet facilities to express their views.

(Continue reading this news release...)

The Foundation's latest Right to Work video report features two outstanding and principled nurses from Houston, Texas. When California Nurses Association union bosses and the Tenet Medical Corporation cut a backroom deal to unionize several Houston-area health care facilities, they set up sham election procedures and imposed a gag rule to block any discussion by nurses of the downsides of unionization. Several nurses turned to the National Right to Work Foundation for help:

The Foundation's previous coverage of the case is available here and here.

In another egregious example of Top Down union organizing, California Nurse Association (CNA) union officials and Tenet Medical Corporation attempted to corral unwilling nurses into union ranks by agreeing to forgo federal supervision during unionization elections.

With free legal assistance from the National Right to Work Foundation, several nurses filed unfair labor practice charges with the National Labor Relations Board (NLRB). Now we learn that the NLRB has decided to put the sham "elections" on hold pending an official investigation into the charges. Here's an excerpt from the Foundation's press release:

Federal labor prosecutors have blocked a so-called “consent election” sought by the Tenet Healthcare Corporation and the California Nurses Association (CNA) while the National Labor Relations Board (NLRB) conducts an inquiry into the legality of a secret backroom deal entered into by Tenet and CNA officials.

The National Labor Relations Board’s Regional Director heeded the wishes of Houston-area nurses who filed unfair labor practice charges against Tenet and the CNA with assistance from the National Right to Work Foundation. The scheduled “consent election” would have determined whether the CNA became the monopoly bargaining agent of nurses at the Houston Northwest Medical Center.

Read the whole thing here.

For more on top-down organizing, check out the Foundation's webpage on the subject.