Union claims Shasta Regional Medical Center violated labor law
Ryan Sabalow | The Record Searchlight
January 6, 2011
Shasta Regional Medical Center employees may not have voted out the last union remaining at the hospital after all.
On Wednesday night, Shasta Regional spokeswoman Karen Hoyt sent out a press announcement saying 171 maintenance workers and business office employees recently voted to end their affiliation with the Services Employees International Union.
On Thursday, a union spokeswoman said that’s not true, and SEIU filed a complaint against the hospital with the National Labor Relations Board alleging federal labor-law violations.
“… No election has taken place and employees are still represented by a union,” said Lisa Hubbard, deputy director of communications with SEIU and United Healthcare Workers.
On Thursday, Hoyt clarified her remarks.
She said the hospital’s SEIU employees hadn’t held a formal vote. Instead, more than half of the union employees had signed a petition to decertify the union, she said.
The petition nullified the union’s presence at the hospital, Hoyt said.
In a letter to the union, the hospital’s attorney wrote that administrators had received “objective evidence that a majority of the employees” no longer wished to be represented by SEIU.
“Accordingly, the employer hereby withdraws recognition of SEIU …,” Mary Schottmiller, attorney for the medical center, wrote in the letter.
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