Ad campaign seeks support for a vote to organize about 2,000 Community Medical Centers workers.
A union that hopes to organize about 2,000 workers at Community Medical Centers -- one-third of the nonprofit hospital chain's work force -- is stepping up the battle by appealing to the public.
Service Employees International Union's United Healthcare Workers-West began an effort in August to represent medical technicians, nursing assistants, clerks and housekeepers. The union is now gathering worker signatures to force an election, and wants Community to accept a union-drafted set of rules for conducting it.
Hoping to create public pressure, the union last week purchased two billboard ads near Community's downtown hospital. It also has taken out print ads in several publications, including The Bee, trumpeting endorsement of its efforts by 57 community members, including public officials and church leaders.
The union's campaign represents a shift in tactics, lobbying the public as well as workers.
Charlie Eaton, the union's Central Valley regional political organizer, said he can't recall the union ever purchasing billboards in Fresno.
"It's a way to involve the entire community," he said.
"Those billboards are in a place where people who work and utilize the hospital and the larger community all can see them."
Union officials say federal labor laws are not enough to protect workers trying to organize and are pressuring Community to agree to a stricter set of ground rules, including a ban on anti-union meetings.
They say the union is in the process of building support for an eventual election.
A hospital spokesman said the union's methods didn't come as a shock to Community, the Valley's largest health-care system, a nonprofit corporation with three hospitals in Fresno and Clovis.
"This particular union does very public campaigns," said Community spokesman John Zelezny. "They are very predictable. They are doing virtually the very same things up and down the coast. It's part of a campaign game plan."
Ken Jacobs, chairman of the center for labor research and education at the University of California at Berkeley, said union campaigns are becoming more public, and SEIU happens to be one of the best at staging them.
He said successful organizing drives have several elements: "Strong organization of the workers. Strong community involvement. And public campaigns that address the employer in a wide variety of ways."
Soon after launching its Community unionization effort last year, the union announced the formation of what it called the Fresno Fair Election Commission.
The 13-member group includes longtime Clovis City Council member and former mayor Harry Armstrong, Fresno mayoral candidate Henry T. Perea and Fresno Unified School District trustee Tony Vang. It also includes lawyers, religious leaders, educators and a retired doctor.
The union says the group was formed to get the union and the hospital to discuss ground rules for the worker election process.
Hospital officials have said they will not sign such an agreement because it is unnecessary.
"Fair unionization elections are guaranteed by the National Labor Relations Act," Tim Joslin, Community' chief executive, wrote in a memo to employees last month.
Eaton said federal labor laws don't adequately protect workers in the process leading up to an election.
"There is a multibillion union-avoidance industry that assists employers to come within an inch of violating the law, but still scares and intimidates workers so they don't exercise their right to choose a union," he said.
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