Mass. NOW, health care union campaign for Levy's ouster

By Liz Kowalczyk, Globe Staff

The Massachusetts chapter of the National Organization for Women and the state’s largest healthcare workers union have bought print, television, radio, and billboard advertisements urging trustees of Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center to fire chief executive Paul Levy. Mass. Now and 1199SEIU also plan to demonstrate outside the board's annual meeting scheduled for 6 p.m. Thursday at the Four Seasons Hotel in Boston.

The groups are calling for the board ''to stand against patterns of inequity within the medical center.'' The media campaign incorporates 19th century photographs of the women who helped found the hospital, and read in part ''In 1896, the Deaconess hospital was founded by women. In 2010, Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center needs a new CEO to ensure equality for women at work.''

Earlier this month, Massachusetts Attorney General Martha Coakley urged the board to do "some soul-searching" about Levy's ability to continue leading the hospital, after her office concluded that his longtime personal relationship with a female employee "clearly endangered the reputation of the institution and its management." Her remarks, made in an interview with the Globe, came as she released results of her office's four-month investigation into the board's handling of Levy's relationship with the woman, who left the organization last fall.

Levy has issued several public apologies for his ''errors in judgment'' and board chairman, Stephen Kay has staunchly rejected any suggestion that Levy's actions make him unfit for the job.

Kay sent a memo to hospital officials and executives late today saying that the SEIU has mounted a corporate campaign against the hospital and the Board, in the hope that ''we will adopt procedures that would make it easier for them to unionize the hospital.'' As for NOW, he said, ''we admit to being somewhat baffled by their involvement in this crusade against BIDMC and Paul, given that their organizational ideals are so closely aligned with BIDMC's reputation and Paul's track record.''

Women make up 70 percent of Paul's senior management team and total employment, Kay said.