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Hospital Bars Religious Leaders Supporting Workers |
Security guards barred a religious delegation Wednesday from delivering a letter to Resurrection Health Care CEO Joseph Toomey, urging the Catholic-run hospital system to rein in the strident anti-union campaign it is waging against hospital workers.
After the religious leaders were turned away, the Rev. Lawrence Dowling, pastor of St. Denis Parish, said:
We come together this morning to support core values that all our faiths embrace—the right of workers to dignity and a voice at work. As the largest Catholic health care chain in Illinois, Resurrection Health Care needs to affirm the fundamental right of its workers to organize a union.
Some 8,000 Resurrection workers are fighting to win a voice at work with AFSCME Council 31. But the hospital system has met them with a vicious campaign the union says has included firing several workers for backing the union.
The letter, signed by 126 religious leaders of several different faiths, urges Resurrection to reinstate all fired workers, to cease its anti-union activities and to open a real dialogue with the workers and their union.
Rabbi Philip Lefkowitz of the Agudas Achim North Shore Congregation in Chicago says Jewish tradition emphasizes respect for workers’ rights:
Our shared belief, as expressed in the Hebrew Scriptures, is that it is our responsibility to work for social and economic justice. The protection of workers’ rights and the alleviation of suffering of the oppressed are crucial components of that prophetic tradition.
Resurrection’s refusal to listen to its workers and their community supporters is nothing new. In May, security guards turned away Rep. Jan Schakowsky (D-Ill.) when she and a group of workers and their supporters tried to deliver a letter to Toomey urging the hospital system to adopt safe nurse staffing ratios for better patient care.
Schakowsky is sponsoring a bill that would establish enforceable safe staffing levels nationwide.
Last year, an AFSCME report concluded that Resurrection places more emphasis on corporate growth and profits than quality patient care. The report, based on interviews with nurses throughout the Resurrection system and data from public records and quality-oversight agencies, detailed serious lapses in patient care, higher prices for services and inadequate staffing.
Workers, such as those at Resurrection, who are trying to form unions often are met with powerful anti-union campaigns by employers. To level the playing field, AFL-CIO unions, including AFSCME, are supporting the Employee Free Choice Act.
The legislation, which has 259 co-sponsors in the U.S. House and Senate, would strengthen workers’ freedom to choose union representation through a majority sign-up process. It also would provide for binding arbitration of first-contract disputes and authorize stronger penalties for violations of labor law when workers seek to form a union.
Are your members of Congress supporting the Employee Free Choice Act? Find out here.
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