After Oregon Secretary of State Bill Bradbury agreed to look at the union election rights of workers at Providence Health Systems, he got a pair of threat letters from Providence and its industry association.

Service Employees International Union Local 49 has been engaged in a massive organizing campaign at several Providence hospitals in the Portland area for over a year, but the union has been hesitant to file for a union election unless Providence commits to a set of ground rules. In campaigns in other states, Providence — a Catholic-owned nonprofit health system — has used legal avenues under the National Labor Relations Act to mount vigorous anti-union campaigns that sometimes slow or defeat union drives.

Bradbury had agreed to chair a May 25 hearing of a “Fair Election Oversight Commission,” made up of members of the activist group Jobs with Justice’s Workers Rights Board. The Board is comprised of religious, political and community leaders who agree to use their moral authority to advocate for workers’ rights, usually with letters to employers and sometimes in unofficial but quasi-judicial “hearings” that result in recommendations for neutrality.

As secretary of state, it’s Bradbury’s duty to ensure free and fair elections for public office.

But intervening in a union election was going too far, said Providence CEO Russ Danielson.

“Your decision to insert the office of secretary of state into a private organization’s labor issues is both perplexing and disturbing,” Danielson wrote in a May 17 letter to Bradbury. “There simply is no merit, precedent, or legal foundation for your attempts to use your office as a vehicle for attempting to legislate the union and labor issues of a private company.”

“It would be ineffective and legally questionable to attend the meeting of a commission that — by law — should not exist. We officially request that you disband this commission.… My belief is that responsible Oregonians would strongly encourage you to refocus your energies (and the taxpayer’s dollars) on the official duties prescribed to you as Oregon’s secretary of state.”

CEO Andrew Davidson, president of the Oregon Association of Hospitals and Health Systems, sent a similar letter the same day, inquiring about what statutory authority Bradbury had to convene such a meeting.

“They vaguely threatened, without directly saying it, that I’ve broken the law,” Bradbury said. “If that’s their response to me, a statewide elected leader, it makes me wonder what it’s going to be like for the workers who want to form a union.”

Undeterred, Bradbury went a-head with the hearing, and in a phone call to Danielson and a letter to the hospital association, explained why: Democratic principles are not limited to elections for public office. Just as he advocates for democratic principles when he meets with foreign dignitaries, Bradbury said, he encourages public support for the right of Providence workers for a free and fair election.

The hearing at the Portland Building was packed wall-to-wall with Providence workers, union leaders and pro-labor activists. SEIU brought Providence workers from New York, California, and Yakima, Wash., to testify along with workers from the Portland area. There was a note-taker, and simultaneous translation into Russian and Spanish.

“NLRB [National Labor Relations Board union certification] elections look more like the discredited practices of rogue regimes abroad than like anything we would call American,” testified University of Oregon professor Gordon Lafer, who co-chairs the Labor Caucus of the American Political Science Association. That’s because, under the law, the party in power — management — has every electoral advantage over the opposition party — the union. Management has complete access to the voters, and can compel them to attend anti-union informational meetings. Unions don’t have that access, and don’t even get a list of employees until 20 days before an election, on average.

Portland Providence workers complained of shortstaffing and unanswered petitions to management. One brandished a stack of paper she said was anti-union literature she’d received.

Workers from other Providence locations told of free lunches and personal loans to workers during union campaigns; pro-union workers, including a priest, being fired; anti-union films shown at mandatory-attendance staff meetings; union literature torn down from bulletin boards; and restrictions on workers’ rights to talk about the union on break or off the clock.

Besides Bradbury, the Commission included Reverend Alcena Boozer of St. Philip the Deacon Episcopal Church, family physician Jill Ginsberg, Portland State University economics professor Mary King, Reverend Jack Mosbrucker of St. Therese Catholic Church, former Oregon House majority leader Dick Springer, and Rabbi Joseph Wolf of Havurah Shalom.

After hearing testimony, the group issued a resolution calling on Providence management to agree to fair election ground rules: Allowing open discussion in the workplace, promoting truthful and positive communications, and refraining from the use of anti-union consultants, forced-attendance anti-union meetings, or legal delays.

Providence was invited to attend the hearing and offer their own testimony, but Danielson declined.

Home | About