The National Labor Relations Board has filed for an injunction in federal court to force Trinity Health Michigan to recognize an employee union in Grand Haven and resume bargaining.
It’s the second such injunction filed against Trinity, one of Michigan’s largest health care providers.
“This is an uplifting victory for Grand Haven Hospital workers and an unequivocal declaration that the law is firmly on our side when it comes to our union rights,” said Ricky Kauffman, president of the local union representing the Grand Haven workers, in a release issued by SEIU Healthcare Michigan.
“We believe everything we’ve done is appropriate."Doug Seaton, lead labor relations consultant, Trinity Health
The NLRB filed for a similar injunction last November after investigating a labor dispute at Trinity Health Ann Arbor. Workers there are also represented by SEIU Healthcare Michigan. SEIU and Trinity settled that dispute in March.
But a lawyer for Trinity said the two cases are very different, and a settlement in the Grand Haven case is unlikely.
“We believe everything we’ve done is appropriate,” said Doug Seaton, lead labor relations consultant with Trinity Health Michigan.
The latest filing for an injunction involving Trinity’s Grand Haven hospital comes after Trinity stopped recognizing SEIU Healthcare Michigan as the bargaining agent for workers there. The hospital company said in September it found “clear and objective evidence” that a majority of workers no longer wanted to be in the union.
“Our basic position is that we are doing what our colleagues, our employees, want us to do,” Seaton said. “They have submitted a letter to us saying in a majority that they don’t wish to be represented by the SEIU.”
But around the same time as the letter was submitted in September, the union itself held a certification vote on the question, and the result of that vote showed a majority of workers did support the union.
SEIU Healthcare Michigan filed a complaint with the National Labor Relations Board to force Trinity to recognize the union. The NLRB initially sided with the union, issuing a number of charges against the company for engaging in unfair labor practices.
Among the charges, the NLRB said Trinity managers “provided more than minimal support to the effort to obtain signatures for a decertification petition by instructing employees to gather in a private area to learn about and sign a decertification petition.”
The NLRB also said managers “threatened” employees if they sided with the union, and implied to workers that raises would be coming if they dropped the union.
But Trinity has argued its actions were all above-board.
“We think we stayed very much on the right side of the law in all those connections,” Seaton said.
The two sides have been in hearings before an administrative law judge since April. The hearings are scheduled to continue tomorrow.
In the meantime, Kauffman said workers in Grand Haven are living through the uncertainty.
“Trinity has already made up their mind that we're an at-will hospital, and that's the way it is,” local president Kauffman said earlier this year in an interview. ‘And I mean, there's managers that have new hires coming in and they tell them, ‘No, we don't have a union. We're not ever going to have a union here again.’”
"We provide a very high level of quality care. And this community needs that; needs that in this hospital. And that’s why we’re so worried about what are they going to do with us?”Ricky Kauffman, lead radiographer and local union president at Trinity Grand Haven Hospital
Kauffman said Trinity’s actions have made it difficult for the union to communicate with members, and to build solidarity. And he said the uncertainty caused some employees to leave for new jobs elsewhere.
“We've essentially been told by Trinity Health that they don't care about this community,” Kauffman said. “They don't care about the quality of service that we provide. They'll pay second rate wages, which makes me feel like I'm a second rate technologist. And I know that's not true. We provide a very high level of quality care. And this community needs that; needs that in this hospital. And that’s why we’re so worried about what are they going to do with us?”
The complaint filed earlier this week by the NLRB falls under a provision of federal labor law that allows the board to ask a court to step in even as the board itself continues to hear arguments in an ongoing case.
In the so-called 10(j) filing, the board asked a judge to intervene and force Trinity to immediately recognize the union and begin bargaining with SEIU Healthcare Michigan as the exclusive collective bargaining representative. The complaint also asks that the court stop Trinity from helping circulate any petitions or statements against the union, and asks that the court force the hospital company to read the text of any injunction out loud to workers, in the presence of a union representative.
The U.S. Supreme Court is currently deliberating on a case that involves the use of 10(j) injunctions by the NLRB. That case was filed by Starbucks. Oral arguments took place last week.
