Prescription: Union (or: Screw you - I've got my employment contract!)
Chris
http://www.indyweek.com/durham/current/cover.html
It's about nurses and other health-care professionals who want more of
a say in health-care. They are the people who - while not your doctors
- provide you with the majority of your health care. They are not
making out like bandits. Instead they are being forced to do more with
less. This means less time with patients, and if you don't like it you
can leave. Which is what a lot of nurses are doing. I have a friend
for whom nursing was a second career. But the pressures of doing more
with less means that she can't give her patients the care she feels
they deserve. Does she feel that health-care suffers and patients are
being placed at risk? Yes she does feel this way. She does think that
the health-care givers and not the bean-counters need to have the most
say in determining what kind of health-care you get.
So at Duke they are trying to organize so that they won't be told to
leave if they don't like having to do the work of 11 nurses with only
7.
But Duke is not taking these upidty workers lightly - they have hired a
top union-busting law firm to advise them on how to fight the unions.
The article claims that Duke engaged in some unfair labor practices,
but doesn't say if this was done though the union-busting law firm
named in the article, or done by another firm. These practices usually
entail spreading flyers and other devisive tactics designed to speard
doubt among the potential union members. Duke has access to these
workers that the union does not have.
Either way - after the charge of unfair practices was made, Duke
settled with the union so the union could hold an election. But the
damges were done, and we will have to see what happens.
Does anyone know the name of the law firm representing the union, Local
465 of the International Union of Operating Engineers (IUOE)? I would
like to find out the name of the firm, because the firm Duke hired to
bust the union is the same firm who is representing the corporate
defendant I am suing for Wrongful Termination, and I would like to know
if the union alleges that the union-busting law firm was engaging in
those illegal practices? I have called Local 465 of the International
Union of Operating Engineers (IUOE) and have left messages, but have
not received a response.