Health professionals file for union election at Pacific Gateway Hospital

Had there been a union at Pacific Gateway Hospital, workers there speculate, Jose Santos Victor Mejia Poot might not have been killed at the southeast Portland facility April 1.

Nurses and health professionals knew there was a problem at Pacific Gateway Hospital long before Mejia, a Mexican immigrant who suffered from epilepsy, was shot by police responding to an emergency call.

Workers had complained without response about poor security and severe understaffing, so in late February, they contacted Oregon Federation of Nurses and Health Professionals Local 5017 and launched an organizing campaign. On April 20, the union, an affiliate of the American Federation of Teachers, filed for an election with the National Labor Relations Board (NLRB) for two groups of employees: 23 registered nurses and 60 medical professionals.

No other employees are unionized at the site.

Pacific Gateway is owned by Behavioral Healthcare Corporation, a private for-profit mental health corporation based in Nashville, Tennessee. With 3,200 employees and an estimated $118 million in annual revenue, BHC is reportedly the second-largest chain of psychiatric hospitals in the United States.

Its chief executive officer, David Vandewater, was ousted from his previous position as president of Columbia Hospital Corp. in 1997 after subordinates came under investigation for Medicare fraud.

Workers at Pacific Gateway describe a company willing to profit by cutting corners; the first place it scrimps, they say, is labor costs. Until the Mejia incident gave the hospital a public relations black eye, the facility had no security guards at all, even though it was sometimes used to house psychotic patients who were a danger to themselves and others. Since the incident, the county has suspended contracts with the hospital to hold such risky patients.

Adding to the security risk, union supporters say, is chronic understaffing.

"When Jose was shot, we did not have adequate staffing," said registered nurse Joan Dernbrach. "There were seven people to cover 32 patients in three units. He died because of corporate greed."

To win a voice on the job, better staff-to-patient ratios, and standardized pay rates closer to the industry norm, Dernbrach and her colleagues decided to organize. Welcomed by OFNHP, they began holding union meetings at a nearby coffee shop, and later at the SMILE Community Center in Sellwood. By the time Mejia was shot, the union had the support of the majority of workers.

The company responded with mandatory-attendance, anti-union meetings and the resignation of the facility's unpopular CEO, Carl Brady.

"They replaced existing management with new and friendly faces," said OFNHP organizer David Glenn.

Workers are holding firm; a delegation went to management April 19 asking for voluntary recognition of the union. A day after they were rejected, they went to the NLRB. No election date had been set as of press time.