HEART is Healthcare Employees Acting at Resurrection Together, a committee of Resurrection employees who are working to improve their working conditions and hospitals by organizing a union with AFSCME Council 31. They are joined in their efforts by the Friends of HEART, a network of labor and community allies, along with religious leaders, who believe in the importance of community health care and workers' rights to form a union.
Resurrection Health Care is the largest Catholic health care system in Chicago. What started as a single community hospital on Chicago's Northwest Side has grown into a six hospital, 8,000 plus employee corporate health care corporation with revenue over $1 billion a year.
Sponsored by two orders of nuns, RHC's mission draws on Catholic principles. Yet with growth has come a departure from Catholic social teaching. Catholic doctrine is clear on the rights of workers to organize a union to better their lot in life. Unfortunately Resurrection management has repeatedly tried to silence the voices of their own employees who want change, waging an aggressive and expensive anti-union campaign and hiring the notorious union-busting law firm Seyfarth Shaw.
RHC employees are calling on Resurrection management to adhere to guidelines the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops (USCCB), in conjunction with the Catholic Health Association (CHA) and representatives of the labor movement, including AFSCME, have established in a document titled Respecting the Just Rights of Workers: Guidance and Options for Catholic Health Care and Unions (link to the PDF of the document on the bishops' webpage).
The document outlines seven key principles as the basis for a free and fair process:
- Respect. Both the employer and the union commit to respecting each other's mission and legitimacy.
- Equal Access to Information. The employer and the union should agree on an equal number of communications with employees, and both sides should have access to the same means of communication.
- Truthful and Balanced Communications. Employees should not be misled on matters regarding unionization.
- Pressure-Free Environment. Employees should not be coerced.
- Fair and Expeditious Process. The process for determining the will of the majority of employees should be fair and move quickly without delays or legal roadblocks.
- Meaningful Enforcement of Local Agreement. Unions and employers should determine how disputes, if they arise, are resolved, for example through a neutral third party.
- Honoring Employee Decisions. Neither the employer nor the union should attempt to reverse the outcome of the vote.
Special Procedures for Contentious Campaigns
Respecting the Just Rights of Workers addresses potential difficulties in implementing these principles during a long and contentious campaign, such as employees have faced at Resurrection. The guidelines specifically suggest measures beyond the framework listed above to create a clean slate so that employees may organize based on the facts.