Episcopal Church Home's Anti-Worker Activity

Transfered from old site

Reposted from the "Rochester List"
 
March 29, 2003
 

 
To-Concerned Citizens
 

 
From-Bruce Popper
 

 
Yesterday, a group of approximately 40 employees of Episcopal Church Home of Rochester met with administrator Loren Ranaletta to request that he recognize their union and stop paying an expensive, out-of-town, union-busting law firm to oppose them. The employees were accompanied by Father Laurence Tracy who attended to bear witness.
 

 
The worker organizing committee has signed up a substantial majority of employees in support of forming a union. These employees include licensed practical nurses, certified nursing assistants, housekeeping, dietary, and maintenance employees. These workers are mostly women, mostly city residents, and mostly people of color.
 

 
Issues center around the employees' desire to have more input on policies, to establish written pay policies that are then followed to insure fairness, and a host of issues of perceived favoritism and discrimination.
 

 
The workers have filed a petition for election with the National Labor Relations Board (NLRB). The NLRB has scheduled a hearing on the petition for Thursday, April 3, beginning at 10 am, in the Federal Building of Rochester, room 350. The NLRB is expected to schedule an election within the next two months.
 

 
In the meantime, the Episcopal Church Home continues its vehement campaign of opposition to unionization. The management has required employees to attend mandatory meetings on work time in which they are haranged about how bad their union is. Nursing personnel are required to be off their units for lengthy periods of time to attend these sessions.
 

 
The Church Home accuses the union of harassing employees and but is really engaging in a campaign of slander and disinformation.
 

 
Episcopal Church Home employess and union staff have acted with the utmost professionalism during the organizing. They have repeatedly asked management to view the organizing as an effort for increased but equal collaboration. These requests have been rebuffed.
 

 
In addition to Father Tracy, Episcopal Church Home employees have met in person with Minister Franklin Florence, County Legislator Jose Cruz, religious leaders, and represenatives of Assemblymember David Gantt and Metro-Justice to explain their cause.
 

 
The Church Home's tactics came into clearer focus when we learned earlier this week that it had retained the services of the infamous Jackson, Lewis firm to fight its employees. I have included a selection of quotes from the press about Jackson, Lewis, at the end of this message.
 
The Church Home's literature has been very similar, in some cases almost identical, to literature used in the VNS drive of 1995-96 led by our former organizer Denise Young, and to literature used against UNITE in Albany just last year.
 

 
The lit. claims that the union is an aggressor, invading employee privacy, that the union only wants money, and that workers are likely to lose their jobs by going on strike. It's pretty outrageous. Some of it would be funny if it wasn't for the fact that it's being force fed to the employees at their jobs.
 

 
Management has barred union staff from its property. Management has the coercive power of "being the boss" and unrestricted access to workers during work shifts. There is no free speech at work. Just ask these workers. There is no code of conduct or reasonable restraint on a management instructed by Jackson, Lewis.
 

 
I am appealing to people of conscience to help us end this unfair treatment. Let the employees decide in an atmosphere free from conflict and coercion.
 

 
Please contact me for further information.
 

 
-Bruce
 

 

 

 
Jackson, Lewis in the press.
 

 
I asked Professor Jim Rundle of Cornell University's School of Industrial and Labor Relations to send me articles on the Jackson Lewis law firm. Professor Rundle did a Nexus-Lexus search and sent me these articles.
 

 
I have the full text of these articles and another, very revealing piece, written by a York University professor who attended a Jackson, Lewis seminar in Toronto on opposing employee organizing. I would be happy to forward any of these items.
 

 

 
The Boston Herald
 
July 28, 2000
 

 
"A National Labor Relations Board hearing officer has recommended that a union election held recently at a Brighton nursing home be voided because the home used a forged letter to dissuade employees from organizing....[hearing officer] Murray said that even though the union told Jackson Lewis the letter was a forgery, the firm did nothing to stop its distribution."
 

 
The Daily News
 
March 13, 1996
 

 
"...the Port Authority has hired an aggressive Manhattan law firm to square off with its toughest unions. But the firm has been branded the 'No. 1 union-buster in America' by the AFL-CIO for its brass knuckles style of confronting labor unions....But Jackson, Lewis is proud of its aggressive reputation in representing management exclusively, says partner Andrew Peterson."
 

 
The Observer (London)
 
January 24, 1999
 

 
"America's most notorious firm of union-busters - renowned for using dirty tricks to help corporations keep out trade unions - are heading for Britain."
 

 
The Village Voice
 
December 21, 1999
 

 
"Jackson Lewis Schnitzler & Krupman, the notorious union-busting law firm that operates with Pinkerton-like-zeal in the discharge of its duties..."
 

 
The Nation
 
February 3, 1997
 

 
"In the long run, threats and misinformation may have hurt Borders more than the union. In Chicago, says clerk and organizer Greg Popek, the campaign 'left a bad taste in everyone's mouth,' making even anti-union booksellers cynical about the company. So did Borders' employment of Jackson, Lewis, famous for strong-arming janitors and nursing-home staff."
 

 

 

 
For further information, please contact:
 
Bruce Popper
 
1199 SEIU Upstate Division
 
Tel: 585-244-0830 x316
 
Fax: 585-244-0956
 
Email: bpopper@seiu1199upstate.org