Late last week, the International Union of Operating Engineers, which has been attempting for more than a month to organize over 2,000 nurses at the Health System's main campus, filed two charges that Duke Hospital's management has engaged in unfair labor practices.
The first of the charges filed with the National Labor Relations Board alleges that administrators solicited grievances only weeks before the union vote in order to discourage union activity and undermine union support.
The second alleges that hospital management increased benefits intending similar results. Union organizers said hospital officials discontinued mandatory overtime and on-call duty in many departments and also implemented a 2 percent salary raise on top of the annual increases.
Such activities are illegal because they undermine the union's support by placating the employees into believing these promises will be kept. The labor charges could bring serious consequences for the hospital; if the NLRB finds the allegations were serious enough, the board could immediately approve the nurses' union without a vote. On the other hand, if the NLRB finds the charges to be false and harmful to the Hospital's position, it could force a second unionization vote to be held.
"Based on the information that comes to me and my knowledge of what I feel is a violation under the act, there have been violations," said IUOE spokesperson David Miller. He said a third charge was filed Monday and added that more charges will be filed later, but refused to comment further.
But Chief Nursing Officer Mary Ann Crouch noted that there is a difference between the management doing its job and committing unfair labor practices.
"As chief nurse, since last summer my priorities have been to address the staff's issues," she said. "These changes are the product of that commitment."
Crouch said she feels hospital management is stuck in a catch-22. If it continues working with the staff to address their concerns, there will be accusations of unfair labor practices. If it does nothing, the union points to officials' inability to address the issues at hand.
The union still plans to hold the nurses' unionization vote June 2 and 3.
"We want to make sure we have a fair election and that's why we're doing this," Miller said. "But at this point in time we also don't want to block the process."
Some nurses said that many of their complaints have received more attention in recent months.
Oncology clinical nurse Bronwyn Watson said her department was recently informed by Duke Hospital's Chief Executive Officer Mike Israel that the Staffing Resource Unit would be reinstated. Watson said many nurses had long wanted the system back, because it made their jobs easier by reducing the stress associated with having to work in areas in which they were not specifically trained.
Both Miller and Watson agreed that the timing of these actions seemed questionable because it coincides with the nurses' petition to join a union.
But Crouch responded that many staff decisions, such as salary increases, were very complicated and could not be put into effect in the short time since nurses filed their petition to unionize. She said the hospital hopes to alleviate the current staffing problems by attracting more nurses through increased salaries.
"Major decisions take time to implement and more than just a few weeks," she said. "Gathering data for decisions can't be done overnight."
Still, clinical nurse Marge Dooley said she is suspicious of the timing of the discontinuation of mandatory overtime.
"It seems suspicious because none of the problems have changed-we still don't have the necessary staff," she said.
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