Houston, Texas (November 11, 2008) \u2013 Federal labor prosecutors have blocked a so-called \u201cconsent election\u201d 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.<\/p>\n
The National Labor Relations Board\u2019s 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 \u201cconsent election\u201d would have determined whether the CNA became the monopoly bargaining agent of nurses at the Houston Northwest Medical Center.<\/p>\n
Esther Marissa Cuellar, a nurse at Tenet\u2019s Cypress Fairbanks location, and Linda D. Bertrand, a nurse at Tenet\u2019s Park Plaza Medical Center, filed the charges on August 12 with the National Labor Relations Board in Fort Worth. The charges allege that an \u201cElection Procedures Arrangement\u201d Tenet and the CNA secretly agreed to violates employees\u2019 rights.<\/p>\n
The nurses\u2019 charges detail how the agreement, signed by Tenet and CNA officials, subverts the NLRB\u2019s role in supervising union certification elections and bypasses critical employee protections. The agreement calls for the NLRB merely to count ballots and \u201ccertify\u201d the union without providing oversight for the actual process. <\/p>\n
Tenet is also charged with providing unlawful assistance to CNA union organizers and discriminating against nurses opposed to unionization. Tenet managers were forbidden from answering workers\u2019 questions about unionization, and employees who opposed a union presence in the workplace were prevented from using company facilities to express their views. CNA organizers, on the other hand, were given wide-ranging access to company grounds to facilitate unionization.<\/p>\n
\u201cCalifornia union militants, with the assistance of complicit Tenet officials, are attempting to corral unwilling nurses across the state of Texas into union ranks.\u201d said Stefan Gleason, vice president of the National Right to Work Foundation. \u201cIf similar agreements elsewhere are any indication, CNA may have sold out employees\u2019 interests to become Tenet\u2019s favored union. We\u2019re pleased that the NLRB stepped up to investigate the matter before proceeding with more of these sham consent elections.\u201d<\/p>\n
The NLRB\u2019s decision places the \u201cconsent election\u201d on indefinite hold pending the outcome of the unfair labor practice charges.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Houston, Texas (November 11, 2008) \u2013 Federal labor prosecutors have blocked a so-called \u201cconsent election\u201d 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.<\/p>\n
The National Labor Relations Board\u2019s 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 \u201cconsent election\u201d would have determined whether the CNA became the monopoly bargaining agent of nurses at the Houston Northwest Medical Center.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":8,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_lmt_disableupdate":"","_lmt_disable":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[888],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-2774","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-news"],"yoast_head":"\n