Hospitals expect hardball push to unionize

Executives preparing to fight a powerful union that wants to organize workers at Boston teaching hospitals are studying how the union used an aggressive public relations campaign against Yale-New Haven Hospital in Connecticut.

In recent years, Local 1199 of the Service Employees International Union has drawn media and government attention to what critics called Yale-New Haven's heavy-handed debt collection practices. It bought space on billboards to excoriate hospital management, and recently used its influence with New Haven politicians to delay for months construction of a $430 million cancer center.

Local 1199 and hospital officials outlined a deal Wednesday that will allow the cancer center to move forward and the union to hold an organization vote by secret ballot for about 1,800 hospital workers. But the drawn-out dispute had a paralyzing effect on Yale-New Haven Hospital.

Before this week's agreement, Dr. Peter N. Herbert, chief of staff and vice president for medical affairs at Yale-New Haven, sounded frustrated by the impasse.

''We couldn't build an outhouse at Yale-New Haven Hospital now and get it through the city planning process," he said.

Herbert cautioned Boston's medical establishment against underestimating the aggressive ''corporate campaign" tactics employed by 1199 SEIU, which six months ago set its sights on Massachusetts.

''They're smart. They're extraordinarily well funded. You have to admire the political agility of your opponent," he said.

The union sees Boston as ripe for organizing because there are few union workers at major teaching hospitals, particularly at Massachusetts General Hospital and Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center, which have none.

While a full-blown organizing fight has yet to materialize between a Boston hospital and 1199 SEIU, that has not stopped some hospital executives from fretting about the possibility. And they are using the New Haven experience as Exhibit A.

Beth Israel Deaconess chief executive Paul Levy, whose hospital is affiliated with Harvard Medical School, is the only Boston hospital executive who has publicly criticized 1199 SEIU. Levy this week rebuffed a written request by 1199 SEIU president Dennis Rivera to meet to discuss a partnership between the union and Beth Israel.

''What kind of healthcare service union would stand in the way of a cancer center in New England? That strikes me as the kind of union we don't want," Levy said.

He accused the union of attempting to organize ''undemocratic" union elections that stifle internal debate and intimidate prospective members.

The union's chief organizer in Massachusetts, Mary Grillo, said the union has not made organizing attempts at Beth Israel or any other Boston hospital, and that it is still in the early stages of a three-year effort.

She said it is committed to fair union elections with secret ballots. She also defended the union's tactics at Yale-New Haven, which she said have been orchestrated by a ''sister union" of the 1199 SEIU unit that covers New York and Boston.

Grillo said the 1199 SEIU union in New Haven tried unsuccessfully for years to negotiate a ''neutrality agreement" at the hospital that would allow the union to mount its election campaign without interference from management.

''Why would we want an employer that does not provide livable jobs? The union hasn't had an election there, and Yale has the entire community against them," she said.

''We're concerned that a hostile environment where management engages in intimidation tactics does not provide a fair election, and workers do not have a right to make fair decisions," Grillo said.

New Haven Mayor John DeStefano, who helped broker the agreement between the hospital and union and is running for governor, acknowledged that a resolution did not come swiftly -- the dispute began about seven years ago.

''Some may think this process has taken too long," he said. ''We aspired to develop an agreement that would add value to the families of New Haven, and indeed, the state of Connecticut."

Hospitals in Boston are taking 1199 SEIU seriously because of its significant financial resources and successful track record. The local, based in New York and formally known as 1199 SEIU United Health Care Workers East, is part of the national SEIU, which broke with the AFL-CIO last year.

The New York unit represents 250,000 workers in 76 hospitals in that state. It has a $20 million annual organizing budget, and wields influence in Albany, the state capital.

It also has members in Washington, D.C., and Maryland.

An SEIU local in Massachusetts with about 12,000 members voted to merge with the New York organization last year, setting the stage for a major drive in Boston, where the healthcare industry is the biggest employer.

A Boston law firm, Mintz Levin Cohen Ferris Glovsky and Popeo, recently hosted a closed-door meeting to warn several dozen hospital officials about the union's tactics.

''This is not the traditional labor-management battle. It is a totally different landscape," said Donald W. Schroeder, a member of the labor and benefits group at Mintz Levin's Boston office.

Next month, the Massachusetts Hospital Association is planning to discuss ways to counter the union's efforts. And an April 4 conference in Cambridge planned by Dietz Associates, a Kennebunk, Maine, human resources firm specializing in employee communications, is expected to attract about 40 officials from New England hospitals.

Levy said other hospital executives in Boston have been reluctant to speak out because they don't want to become targets. ''My view is you're a target anyway," he said.

Grillo said Levy sent an e-mail to the hospital last year ''expressing his opposition to unionization."

A copy of the e-mail provided by Levy said he opposes the union effort, but that he would abide by workers' wishes through a ''fair and free vote."

Partners HealthCare, which operates the two largest Harvard teaching hospitals, Mass. General and Brigham and Women's Hospital, declined to discuss its approach to the 1199 SEIU organizing drive.

''Within the Partners system, we have some hospitals with unions and some hospitals without unions. This is not a new issue for us, said Thomas P. Glynn III, chief operating officer for Partners. ''However, based on our experience, we prefer to handle labor-relations issues privately."

Executives at Caritas Christi Health Care System, a network of six Massachusetts hospitals operated by the Catholic Archdiocese of Boston, said they had not seen evidence of 1199 SEIU organizing in its institutions. It already has a large 1199 SEIU presence at one of its hospitals, Good Samaritan in Brockton.

Christopher Rowland can be reached at crowland@globe.com.