Two unions are joining forces to try to organize 1,500 employees at Ingalls Hospital in south suburban Harvey, an effort they say is meant to be the first of many in the Chicago area.
Local 73 of the Service Employees International Union and the Illinois Nurses Association told the Tribune that workers have scheduled their first meeting with Ingalls management for Wednesday. State Sen. William Shaw (D-Dolton) will be present, the hospital confirmed.
The unions will be trying to organize about 83 percent of Ingalls’ hospital workforce. An effort by the Teamsters two years ago to organize some of Ingalls’ employees failed.
The service employees union is the largest union of health-care workers in the country, representing more than 600,000, including 15,000 physicians. The joint effort here is designed to give a boost to the nurses union, which hasn’t had a successful campaign at a hospital in five years.
The Illinois Nurses Association helped 600 registered nurses to organize in 1993 at Provena St. Joseph Medical Center in Joliet, but a push last year at Children’s Memorial Hospital was a disaster.
Fewer than 25 percent of the registered nurses at Children’s voted to form a union.
“We think the best way to break into the workforce in health care in Chicago is to do it jointly, so all employees are organizing simultaneously,” said Gay Hayward, the nurses union’s program director for collective bargaining. “This is a good way to do things so the workers feel added power, safety and protection.”
The service employees union’s membership nationally has grown to 1.3 million, largely from organizing health-care workers, which make up nearly half the union’s membership, up from one-third just five years ago.
The health-care sector is an industry facing downsizing as the federal government and managed-care health insurance plans squeeze payments to providers of medical care. The service employees union had several successful campaigns across the country in the last year, organizing more than 80,000 workers nationally, including 200 registered nurses at Doctors Hospital of Hyde Park.
“This is really an effort to join forces to organize a hospital wall-to-wall,” said Tom Balanoff, president of Local 73. “Having all workers together gives strength in terms of having an impact on the direction of patient care and staffing at the hospital.”
Workers say they are excited about the service employees partnership because of its track record at other hospitals in the area. The union’s representation in Chicago includes workers at Northwestern Memorial Hospital, Cook County Hospital and Michael Reese Hospital and Medical Center.
“It’s helped us to know the SEIU has represented workers at other hospitals like Northwestern,” said Sandra Garmon, a lab technician at Ingalls.
Workers said they are being treated unfairly because of pressures from management to control costs. “A lot of us want the union in because we would have a better opportunity to work without pressure from the patient load,” said Onnie Beard, a nurse assistant.
Ingalls said it was aware of the attempt to unionize. In a statement Tuesday to the Tribune, the hospital said the nurses association and the service employees have “launched an all-out effort to organize the employees of Ingalls Hospital.”
The hospital said it has been free of unions for 25 years. “We believe that working directly with our employees without the presence of an outside third party is the best way to interact with our employees and to carry out the mission of our hospital,” the statement said.
Ingalls has hired Chicago-based law firm Seyfarth, Shaw, Fairweather & Geraldson, known nationally for its successes in representing management in union organizing situations.
