Most Catholic Health Partners workers reject SEIU

Given the chance to cast votes in a union election without electioneering from either side, most of the 6,600 workers at fifteen facilities owned by Catholic Health Partners decided this week not to join organized labor.

Of the 44 potential bargaining units at seven hospitals and eight nursing homes owned by Cincinnati-based CHP, four of them voted to join the Service Employees International Union: service workers at 284-bed Springfield (Ohio) Regional Medical Center and 25-bed Mercy Memorial Hospital, Urbana, Ohio; technical employees at Mercy Memorial; and long-term-care workers at Mercy McCauley Center, Urbana.

SEIU spokesman Carter Wright said in an e-mail that it wasn’t clear whether controversy from an attempt to hold the same election three years ago contributed to the union’s low win rate Thursday. The vote was held under the terms of a three-year-old neutrality agreement that stipulated both sides would refrain from campaigning beyond sending out jointly created handouts to workers and setting up toll-free numbers for further questions.

In 2008, the SEIU called off voting the day before the election after the California Nurses Association campaigned against the SEIU because it opposed the agreement between management and labor on campaign tactics.

“We remain convinced that our agreement produced a fair and balanced process for employees to choose whether or not to form a union,” Wright said Friday. “We believe our agreement … sets an example for how to avoid the tension and conflict that often accompanies organizing campaigns.”