Seizing on procedural grounds to stop local leaders moving rapidly to disaffiliate, the American Federation of Teachers took over an Oregon health care local in July.
The Oregon Federation of Nurses and Healthcare Professionals, a 3,000-member local mostly clustered in Kaiser Permanente hospitals, sought to leave the AFT.
Ousted leaders had floated the possibility of forming an independent union, or joining with another AFL-CIO nurse union, as an AFT local outside of Kansas City did in June. When the disaffiliation in Kansas City looked inevitable, AFT President Randi Weingarten negotiated that local’s transfer to the National Nurses Organizing Committee, a part of the California Nurses Association.
Oregon local leaders had discussed joining CNA, too, but AFT leaders weren’t about to cede another local and risk a domino effect among the other 50,000 nurses it represents. The Oregon union, Local 5017, had the AFT’s only West Coast health care membership.
When the Oregon officers broke procedural rules by trying to begin the disaffiliation at a special July member meeting, the AFT seized on the slip-up to boot elected leaders. Bing Wong, a former executive board member, said the national was looking for an excuse to bring down the hammer.
Samantha Owens, Local 5017’s former executive secretary, supported the trusteeship. She said the local rushed to disaffiliate without a full debate, and should have honored Weingarten’s request to come mediate.
It was only the fourth contested trusteeship in the AFT’s history. Trustees said no financial misappropriation is alleged.
CALIFORNIA BATTLES TRAVEL NORTH
Kathy Geroux, the ousted executive president, said there was no time to waste. (She and other ousted officers also believe the July meeting was permissible—and question why any local should be trusteed for holding a meeting for members, no matter the topic at hand.)
Geroux said the Coalition of Kaiser Unions (which coordinates negotiations among the Kaiser chain’s many unions) was pushing Local 5017 into early bargaining because of the needs of much larger unions in the coalition.
The Service Employees (SEIU), which represents 50,000 California hospital workers, want the ink dry on a new Kaiser agreement by spring 2010 in order to stave off a challenge from the insurgent National Union of Healthcare Workers, which presented petitions at dozens of Kaiser hospitals last spring.
“To go into Kaiser bargaining early would be a disaster in this economy,” Geroux said.
The local’s executive board had endorsed the move to disaffiliate, then split as plans sped from PowerPoint presentations toward a formal membership vote to proceed. The vote never took place. Disaffiliation would have required a two-thirds vote in a mail ballot.
Owens said the local risked being kicked out of the Coalition of Kaiser Unions if it left AFT—and questioned how, standing as an independent union alone against the Kaiser juggernaut, it could expect to do better.
RUMOR MILL
Meg McGowan-Tuttle, ex-treasurer, said she and Owens asked the national to intervene because they felt used by fellow officers. “It was a con job,” she said. “We were getting railroaded.”
Officers looking to disaffiliate also feared the AFT could pull out of health care altogether—which trustees denied—and would trade away hospital locals like theirs in some national-level deal. Geroux said she was told by AFT insiders and others that SEIU could take them over. AFT’s trustee Mark Richards told members that was false, and that Oregon officers had used the rumor to whip up support for leaving.
What’s undisputed is that the national closed an expensive organizing campaign based in Local 5017 last summer and shifted resources east. Richards told members the national had poured $4 million into a drive to organize at Portland-based Legacy hospitals.
Ex-officers complain that despite the investment the campaign was ineffective at first and grew slowly. Organizers reached about 40 percent authorization cards before the national pulled the plug, embittering local leaders.
“You don’t sit in a room and say, ‘we’ll never leave’ if you’re going to,” Geroux said. “We’re the ones left with the image problem. Who’s going to believe us now?”
Calls to AFT’s national health care organizing leaders were not returned.
Toxic relationships inside the state AFT and among health care unions also poisoned the Oregon atmosphere. Ousted officers say the state AFT undermined crucial nurse issues, like legislation that would cap the number of patients each nurse is assigned.
And they were furious that they weren’t allowed into the state fed, but a rival nurse union was.
That union, the Oregon Nurses Association, isn’t affiliated to the AFL-CIO and has stood in the way of the nurse-patient ratios.
Whatever the grievances, said ex-board member Carol Posluszny, AFT should have allowed members to openly debate disaffiliation and choose their fate.
“I’m an idealist,” Posluszny said, “and to see this happen in the labor movement, which I thought was the most inspiring and democratic thing going, is disheartening. My bubble’s burst.”
![Inset photo of Sal Rosselli, a white man in red NUHW scrubs, speaking on a mic at a rally. Behind this, a black-and-white photo of a racially diverse, mostly female group of NUHW workers pose on strike. Most carry printed picket signs with messages like "Patients before profits" and "Kaiser, don't deny my patients [the rest is obscured]." One woman carries a large handpainted sign with a fist logo and the words "Huelga de NUHW," Spanish for NUHW strike.](https://labornotes.org/sites/default/files/styles/related_crop/public/main/blogposts/Untitled%20design%20%2845%29_0.png?itok=ez2Ny5Mx)
