Nurses Declare Their Independence, Choose Union

by James Parks, Nov 14, 2007

The town’s name has become synonymous with the American way of life. Harry Truman lived there and presidential candidates make sure they stop there at least once for a photo op. 

But now Independence, Mo., has a new claim to fame. It’s where registered nurses at Centerpoint Medical Center showed that determined working people can give life to Truman’s quote:  

being an American is more than a matter of where your parents came from. It is a belief that all [people] are created free and equal and that everyone deserves an even break.  

Late last week, the 370 nurses at Centerpoint voted for an even break on the job by choosing to join AFT Healthcare. The recently built hospital is owned by the strongly anti-union health care giant Hospital Corporation of America (HCA). The Nashville, Tenn.-based company is one of the nation’s largest providers of health care services, with 170 hospitals and 113 outpatient centers in 20 states and Europe that brought in revenues of more than $25 billion last year. 

But this giant was no match for the determined group of nurses. With the support of the local union movement, AFT, the AFL-CIO, community organizations, religious leaders and politicians, the nurses withstood a massive anti-union campaign by HCA.  

Centerpoint replaced two hospitals that HCA closed—one union and one nonunion. Nurses said the layout of the sprawling new one-story facility required them to walk long distances to get to specialty areas, preventing them from being able to spend time with their patients and causing added stress and fatigue.

HCA pulled out all the stops to thwart a union. As often happens when workers try to form unions, management held mandatory attendance meetings and one-on-one sessions in which supervisors pushed the anti-union message on nurses. The company also sent out daily e-mail messages attacking the union. All this came from a company that claims on its website that:

We act with absolute honesty, integrity and fairness in the way we conduct our business and the way we live our lives.

We trust our colleagues as valuable members of our team and pledge to treat one another with loyalty, respect and dignity. 

But in the end, the nurses stood triumphant. When ballots were counted last Friday, they had a union.   

As AFT Healthcare Organizing Director Gary Stevenson puts it: 

These nurses took on Goliath and they won. 

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