Arbitrator upholds vote to establish nurses' union at Tenet hospital in Houston

By Jason Roberson
Dallas Morning News
May 7, 2008

A nurses' union declared victory again late Tuesday after an arbitrator upheld the state's first successful election to establish a nursing union.

Texas affiliate of the National Nurses Organizing Committee/California Nurses Association voted March 27 to organize nurses at Tenet Healthcare Corp.'s Cypress Fairbanks Medical Center in Houston.

The Houston vote is important to Dallas-area nurses and patients because it could foretell how similar union votes might end here. Under Tenet's agreement with the unions, nurses at the company's Dallas-based hospitals cannot vote to form a union until 2010.

Tenet said it had received reports that union supporters threatened and coerced nurses opposed to unionization. The Dallas-based hospital system filed objections to the vote with both the National Labor Relations Board and the arbitrator of an agreement Tenet signed with unions last year. That agreement, which guaranteed the unions the right to organize in various states, called for fair elections, free of negative attacks.

Tenet said the Cypress Fairbanks vote — which came in at 119-111 in favor of organizing — should be held again because union representatives created an "atmosphere of intimidation." Tactics included taking pictures of nurses who opposed the union against their wishes, removing a large poster created by the opposing nurses and providing misinformation on the voting process that prevented eligible nurses from voting, according to Tenet.

Tenet appeared before the Houston-based arbitrator in the case last month.

But Arbitrator Diane Dunham Massey sided with the union, and her decision is final and binding. The National Nurses Organizing Committee will represent nearly 300 registered nurses at the Houston hospital and already have started working to negotiate the state's first collective bargaining contract with nurses.

"We want to make it clear that we still feel that our non-union Tenet hospitals and their employees can work best together without the involvement of a union," said Tenet spokesman David Matthews in a statement. "We still believe that our employees are better off without third party representation, but that choice is – and has always been – theirs to make."

Keith Merritt, an emergency room RN at the Houston hospital said he's looking forward to negotiating a contract, "where we achieve a stronger voice for patient care."

"We are extremely gratified that the democratic vote of the Cypress Fairbanks nurses has been protected, and their voices upheld," said Rose Ann DeMoro, executive director of the NNOC. "This is another banner day for Texas RNs and patients."

The NLRB, the regulator of labor law, is expected to review the case next week.