Hill Alderwoman Dolores Colón saw the need to intervene in a power struggle. “We have to shed light on what the hospital has been doing, otherwise the rich will get away with whatever they’ve been doing, just get away with a slap on the hand.”
“The process is broken,” chimed in Westville Alderman Tom Lehtonen, referring to the historic labor peace treaty the city and aldermen helped broker after years of strife.
Downtown Alderwoman Bitsie Clark took issue with that stance. She saw the arbitrator’s ruling as proof that the process worked. “I do not believe that the aldermen should inject themselves at this point. I think the hospital did a terrible thing, and the arbitrator told them that.”
“I cannot make myself vote for this because I feel that the process is going [forward].”
Goldfield, too fired up to wait his turn to speak, said “the process could not be upheld” because of the hospital’s actions.
After the meeting, he drew a distinction: The process was designed to handle occasional incidents, such as when a union organizer was found guilty of getting into a fight with an employee, and was dismissed. But the hospital “took advantage of the process” by overloading the arbitrator with complaints to investigate.
On the aldermanic floor, Hill Alderman Jorge Perez agreed “the process didn’t work.” The agreement was designed to allow for “speed bumps,” not "a cement wall."
“It’s just something that happens, it comes with the unions,” countered Quinnipiac Heights Alderman Robert Lee. Lee suggested the election take place anway, violations or not.
The resolution passed, with Clark voting “no” and Lee and three others abstaining.
SEIU/1199 organizer Bill Meyerson, joined by rows of union supporters, embraced the resolution and the idea that the process didn’t work. “If the process had worked, we would have had a fair election.”
Carl Goldfield also wants to call Marna Borgstrom and other high-ups before the board to give testimony on the anti-union campaign. Borgstrom wrote a letter continuing to claim, incredibly, that the incidents cited by the arbitrator were isolated incidents, not part of a larger campaign, and perpetrated by hapless mangers "trying to do the right thing." She defended holding 'voluntary meetings' on work time and both she and Petrini continue to call for an election, rather than the card check agreement DeStefano demanded last week.
The board was skeptical of Borgstrom's "trustworthiness."
And there's even a cool picture.
In an interview, Goldfield said these violations were not simple misgivings, but a purposefully lawbreaking anti-union campaign. “It was a tactic — you get up to the last moment and bam, you can overwhelm the arbitrator.” The bulk of the union’s 200 complaints occurred within the last two weeks....
East Rock Alderman Ed Mattison called Borgstrom’s letter “not satisfying.” “It was far too timid, and failed to recognize the breadth of the violations.”
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