The National Labor Relations Board (NLRB) has rejected SSM Health’s push to throw out election results from St. Mary’s unionization vote for its inclusion of charge nurses.
On July 22, the NLRB overruled SSM Health’s objections and certified the union election. Nurses at St. Mary have been organizing since last year and voted overwhelmingly in favor, with 89% for unionizing under the Service Employees International Union (SEIU) Wisconsin on June 11. After the election, SSM Health sought to throw out the election results after it claimed that charge nurses, who voted in the election, should not have been eligible to vote.
“The Labor Board has spoken, our community has spoken, elected leaders have spoken, St. Mary’s nurses have spoken, and we have resoundingly declared that it’s time for SSM to respect our union vote so we can start working on solutions for our patients,” said Zach Zahalka, who has been a nurse for 17 years and works in the cardiac catheterization lab at St. Mary’s, in a statement.
The totals from the election were 511 in favor and 63 against. Of the total, 89 charge nurses voted.
SSM Health argued that since charge nurses are supervisors, they should not be allowed to vote in the union election. There was some level of merit to its argument; however, the NLRB stated in 2006 that ineligible supervisors have to hold the ability to hire, fire, transfer, suspend, lay off, recall, promote, discharge, assign, reward or discipline other employees.
Charge nurses at St. Mary’s do not hold that ability. Rather, they work more as team captains on the floor handling patient care and administrative duties.
In addition, leading up to the union vote, SSM Health failed to file its Statement of Position by the deadline. That mistake caused SSM Health to forfeit its ability to challenge who is considered an eligible voter and bargaining team member outside of the NLRB’s standard provisions.
The certification of the election results will allow St. Mary’s to move forward with bargaining and hope to combat dire issues in the hospital.
Unionization efforts have largely been to address disparities that have affected staffing, pay and quality care for patients. The hospital has faced a continuous “hemorrhaging of talent,” nurses told Madison365 in May, that has caused staffing levels to be around 40% below others in the Madison area.
Problems that have caused the low staffing levels lead to negative outcomes for patients, according to a systematic study on the relationship between nurse staffing levels and patient care.
“As nurses, this work is a calling, and our primary role is to be our patients’ advocates. Forming our union is an extension of that patient advocacy, and we urgently have to solve the crisis of understaffing and loss of experienced nurses at St. Mary’s,” Zahalka said in a statement. “We’re already moving forward with filling out surveys to determine our negotiation proposals. SSM needs to stop trying to undermine our union, and instead focus all their resources on engaging with us productively so that together we can create real solutions for better staffing and retention to provide the best care.”
