The SEIU’s latest tactic in organizing health care workers hits Beth Israel

The SEIU’s latest tactic in organizing health care workers hits Beth Israel

During a recent fundraising event for Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center, a flatbed truck pulled up out front carrying a mobile billboard inscribed with three-foot red letters – “Keep Your Eye on B.I.”

The billboard advertised a website of the same name, www.eyeonbi.org, that alleges serious problems with patient care and accounting practices at the hospital.

It was paid for by the Service Employees International Union (SEIU), which is hoping to organize service workers at Boston area hospitals.

According to Beth Israel CEO Paul Levy, the billboard and website are part of a “corporate campaign,” a new union strategy that shifts the initial portion of a union drive from the traditional task of organizing workers to undermining the target organization’s credibility with key constituents who are critical to its survival.

“The object at this point is to degrade [the hospital’s] reputation in the community, in the hope of getting concessions in the certification process [for union elections],” Levy said in his blog, runningahospital.blogspot.com.

“There may also be an interest in showing other hospitals in Boston what the union can do if it wants to spend money trying to hurt your reputation,” he went on to write. “Beyond the mobile billboard, SEIU has spent tens of thousands of dollars in just one month on misleading advertising at bus stops, on radio, and on television about topics that have little or nothing to do with workers’ concerns.”

The union, meanwhile, insists that the purpose of its Eye on B.I. campaign is to promote quality patient

“Our number one goal is to get the hospital reoriented back to its basic mission of serving the needs of the patients and the community,” said Mike Fatal, Executive Vice President of SEIU local 1199. “There are lots of troubling practices at Beth Israel that call out for attention, and the purpose of the Eye on B.I. campaign is to shine a light and inspire action and accountability across the city.”

When asked directly whether the union hoped to unionize workers at Beth Israel or other area hospitals, Fatal sidestepped the question, saying that the union’s primary purpose is to promote quality care and “a health care system that works for everyone.”

The ‘corporate campaign’

It is no mystery that the SEIU sees Boston hospitals as a fertile ground for union organizing.

But so far, the union has made no direct attempts to win workers’ support at Beth Israel or other area hospitals.

Instead, it has spent millions of dollars attacking the hospital administration for, in Fatal’s words, “practicing a corporate style of medicine rather than focusing on the patients and the community.”

From Levy’s perspective, the campaign is a highly sophisticated way to gain a negotiating edge before the union drive begins.

He contends that the goal is to cast doubt on the hospital’s credibility among donors, legislators, regulators, patients and – almost incidentally at this point – among the workers themselves.

The union’s hope, Levy has said, is to weaken the hospital to the point where it will make major concessions in return for the union’s agreement to call off its plans to organize the hospital’s workers.

Fatal does not like to characterize the union’s actions as being part of a “corporate campaign.”

The union prefers to characterize it as a “social accountability campaign” or a “quality care campaign.” Regardless, the objective is to portray the hospital as an institution that puts profits ahead of patient care.

The Massachusetts Hospital Association, while emphasizing that it takes no position on unionization and supports the right of workers to self-determination, expressed concern about the current trend in union tactics.

“The MHA is concerned about the negative impact of union-sponsored corporate campaigns which serve only to damage hospital reputations and jeopardize the core mission of hospitals to care for patients and their community,” said hospital association CEO Lynn Nicholas.

Questions or comments should be directed to the editor at: reni.gertner@mamedicallaw.com