Crackdown at St. Charles Medical Center

St. Charles Medical Center in Bend sounds like a dictatorship in a case filed last month by Service Employees International Union Local 49.

Workers at St. Charles — Central Oregon’s largest hospital — voted in January 2011 to join Local 49. Since then, management has tried to impose new rules without the consent of the workers or their union, including no-solicitation rules, no-talk rules, no-access rules, and rules against the wearing or distribution of union insignia.

Union activists have resisted, says spokesperson Felisa Hagins, but have also been targeted for warnings of potential discipline for carrying out union activities. Management has also interfered with workers’ right to have a union rep present at disciplinary meetings. And employees attending union activities have been surveilled by management.

Hagins says workers are uncowed, however. In November, they voted down a contract offer from management that the union was not endorsing.

Bargaining continues, with dates set for late January.