January 7, 2012
The nation’s largest nurses union has gained a bigger footprint in the Chicago area with a vote by nurses at Jackson Park Hospital and Medical Center to join National Nurses United. Friday’s vote, conducted by the National Labor Relations Board, was 94-16, and termed a “landslide” by union leaders.
National Nurses United will represent about 150 registered nurses at the South Side Chicago hospital. The group now represents nearly 4,200 registered nurses in the Chicago area.
Jackson Park Hospital nurses are the first group of previously non-union acute care nurses since 1991 to vote in favor of unionization in the Chicago-area.
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December 21, 2011
The National Labor Relations Board announced on Wednesday that it had adopted new rules that would speed up unionization elections, its last major policy decision before it drops to two members and can no longer make new decisions. It approved the rules in a 2-to-1 vote.
The labor board said the new rules, which have been in the works for months, would reduce unnecessary delays and litigation, especially in the 10 percent of cases when employers file formal challenges to unionization votes, a move that often delays such votes by a month or more. The new rules are scheduled to take effect on April 30.
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November 30, 2011
The National Labor Relations Board is rushing to approve new rules before the end of the year that would make it easier for unions to organize new members.
The board announced Friday that it plans to hold a public vote on Nov. 30. Its Democratic majority is expected to approve a plan that could dramatically shorten the time frame for union elections.
The rules would be more limited than the sweeping plan proposed earlier this summer, a move designed to let the board approve them more quickly.
Business groups have denounced the plan, saying the new rules would allow so-called “ambush elections” that don’t give company managers enough time to counter organizing drives.
The latest move prompted the board’s lone Republican member to rebuke his colleagues in a letter to House lawmakers, saying the board’s Democratic members are ignoring established procedures in their haste to approve the rules.
Unions are hoping the new rules will help them make inroads at businesses like Target and Wal-Mart, which have successfully resisted union organizing for years.
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October 3, 2011
A female patient at an Oakland, CA hospital died early Saturday due to what the hospital described as a “medical error” made while she was under the care of a replacement nurse hired during a labor dispute.
The nurse allegedly gave the woman a fatal dose of medication, said Cynthia Perkins, a spokeswoman for the Oakland Police Department. The nurse, who was not identified, was taken in for questioning by officers.
Police and state medical officials are investigating the death at Alta Bates Summit Medical Center in Oakland, which occurred while most of the hospital’s regular nursing staff was locked out after a one-day strike Thursday.
The investigations, as well as an internal inquiry, are standard procedure in an incident of this kind, said Carolyn Kemp, a spokeswoman for the hospital.
In a memo to the hospital staff Saturday, hospital CEO David Bradley admitted that a medical error was responsible for the death at the Summit campus in Oakland.
“This is a tragic event, and we have expressed our sorrow and sympathy to the patient’s family,” he said.
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August 31, 2011
The National Labor Relations Board on Tuesday released a decision that would make it easier to unionize nursing home workers.
It is the latest in a flurry of moves favorable to unions that the board completed before the term of its chairwoman, Wilma B. Liebman, expired on Sunday. The board released two other pro-union decisions on Tuesday, both reversing decisions issued under President George W. Bush.
In the nursing home decision, the board ruled that the union, the United Steelworkers, could organize just the 53 certified nursing assistants at a nursing home in Mobile, Ala., as part of one bargaining unit, without including the home’s 33 other nonprofessional workers, including janitors, cooks and file clerks.
Groups representing businesses and nursing home operators attacked the decision, fearing it would make the homes more vulnerable to unionization drives.
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