Unionists tell NRLB of election delays, intimidation

[Omaha Steve]

http://www.workdayminnesota.org/index.php?news_6_4940

By Mark Gruenberg
25 July 2011

WASHINGTON - Sometimes, something very simple – like taking away peanut butter – can turn a person into a union activist.

That was the case for an oncology nurse at Backus Hospital in Norwich, Conn., whose nurses just voted to affiliate with the American Federation of Teachers, said her colleague, John Brady, an RN and bargaining committee member for the union.

“Management brought in this efficiency expert” to cut costs, just before the union organizing drive started there last fall, Brady told Press Associates Union News Service after a July 18 National Labor Relations Board hearing in Washington on union recognition elections, procedures and obstacles. He testified at the hearing.

“The expert started cutting everything, from night pay down to removing peanut butter from the kitchenette.

“That got one of the oncology nurses mad. She said that for extremely ill patients, sometimes they have only half-an-hour to get food into them” before the patient “becomes sick to their stomach” and can’t keep food down. So the nurse wants to make sure her patients get as much protein as possible.

FULL story at link.