Nurses Win 4-Year Fight to Have Health Care for Themselves, with Help of Local 671
With David A. Lucas
The nurses at Saint Mary Home wanted health care for themselves. They voted to unionize to push harder for the benefit, but their employer said their vote was illegitimate.
A federal court ended the four-year conflict last month when it ruled the nurses were employees and could unionize, and were not supervisors and thus part of management as St. Mary had claimed.
The ruling went into effect immediately and applies to all St. Mary's nurses, including those who started working in the four years following the vote.
"We met with 90% of them that day. They came in after their shift. It was really, really nice to see the response," said Dave A. Lucas, principal officer of Teamsters Local 671, which represented the nurses.
"All the credit goes to the people who hung in for that long. They really believed in us when someone said we'll get there."
Lucas believes the ruling by the Second Circuit Court of Appeals is significant because many non-unionized nurses do not have health care and other benefits afforded to Teamster members and do not have the power as individuals to get it. In contrast, most unionized nurses have health care and numerous other benefits enumerated in a Teamster contract. employer health care.
"It's a great decision so that other locals can go out and organize. There are a lot of unorganized nurses out there. They get abused pretty good with health care... This should take off and other locals should pursue this."
The case was "quite a battle," Lucas said. "[The employer] continued to deny it. I wrote them letters continually. They kept combating this thing."
With matters settled, Lucas said, "I want to credit the whole local," citing Dave Randolph and Roger Fenalson, for their particular efforts. "We do everything as a group around here and we back each other up. This positive result was attributed to a full team effort."
"[It's] an excellent story. It illustrates the combination of the perseverance and commitment of the Teamsters and the tenacity of perspectives members to continue to fight for their rights."
Resource: Click here to read the complete ruling by the Second Circuit Court of Appeals.