ITHACA, N.Y.—On a frigid December morning a week before Christmas, Cayuga United—a nurses’ union at Cayuga Medical Center—held a rally on the front steps of the Ithaca Town Hall. Angela Grupe, a nurse at CMC, spoke to the crowd of community supporters gathered around.
“So, we’ve all seen it before: The abusive relationship where one person has all the control. One person gets to make all the decisions; one person takes advantage of the other to benefit themselves. And when the abused finally tries to advocate for themselves, the abuser uses threats, lies, and manipulation to get their way. Today, the abuser we speak of is the management at Cayuga Medical Center….”
The rally came less than a month after nurses at the Cayuga Medical Center in Ithaca announced that they had formed a union, Cayuga United, Local 1111 of the Communication Workers of America (CWA). CWA is a major healthcare union representing over 15,000 workers across their Northeastern district—District 1—including workers at the nearby Arnot Ogden Medical Center in Elmira, N.Y., which recently merged with Cayuga Medical Center, forming Centralus Health.
Reasons for unionization include chronic understaffing, high turnover, burnout, loss of pensions, price increases in health insurance, dangerous nurse-to-patient ratios, persistent supply shortages, the need for a cost-of-living wage increase, and a desire to have democracy in the workplace.
One nurse detailed how there had been a “four-fold increase [in price] for [Cayuga nurses] to visit their own ER,” how ER nurses are sometimes responsible for “up to 20 to 30 patients at a time, treating people in hallways and waiting rooms,” and how nurses’ union victories at Rochester General represent a possibility for “better retention and better working conditions for nurses which benefit the entire Ithaca community.”
The emergent Cayuga United represents more than 350 registered nurses, a supermajority of which—over 70%— signed union authorization cards and sought voluntary recognition from hospital management in hopes of an amicable start to contract bargaining.
As Tia Soprano, an organizer and nurse at CMC, recalled, the petition for voluntary recognition was handed to management during a “march on the boss,” after which hospital management hired Labor Relations Institute, a union-busting consultant, who “came in and started trying to break down our effort.”
In a statement to WSKG, hospital management articulated their rejection of voluntary recognition with the claim that they “fully respect [the nurses’] right to pursue a secret ballot vote following National Labor Relations Board (NLRB) rules.”
Only a few days after the nurses handed in their petition, CMC held a captive audience meeting—a federal offense which violates Section 8(a)(1) of the National Labor Relations Act (NLRA)—according to a CWA press release. It is public record, and common knowledge among Cayuga nurses, that this year’s union drive is not their first, and that it is not the first time hospital management levied a vindictive, illegal anti-union campaign in response.
Between 2015 and 2016 alone, nurses—at the time affiliated with 1199 SEIU United Healthcare Workers East—filed five lawsuits against CMC over violations of labor law, eventually consolidated into one case where a federal judge found that CMC indeed violated the NLRA to deter nurses from forming a union.
The NLRB found that CMC had implemented such union-busting tactics as the prohibition of union literature, the reprimand of nurses for talking about their wages and conditions, and a code of conduct that “prevented RNs from speaking out about things they saw that were wrong.”
In her speech at the town hall rally, Grupe shared a more recent incident:
“…Many people are well-aware of what happened in 2017, when some brave nurses tried to unionize at CMC. The initial organizing effort did not get very far, as the hospital retaliated against the nurses who were involved, obstructing their federally protected right to unionize. Two nurses were targeted and wrongfully terminated. After a lengthy legal battle, these nurses were given their jobs back. Since then, CMC has remained union-free….”
In a conversation with People’s World, nurse Jackie Thompson displayed the sign she had held throughout the rally. With yellow text laid on a purple base, the sign read “We Support CMC Nurses’ Right to Organize!” with a familiar slogan in smaller text below, “Work Conditions = Patient Care Conditions.”
“So, this poster right here is from ten years ago,” she said. “I mean, there have been other efforts, but since I’ve been here, we tried to organize 10 years ago. We were definitely not as organized, and they came with fists up and fired staff. It really put the fear of God in the staff…. We never even got to file! But we did stay in the court system for several years.”
As Thompson explained, the union (at the time) had won each case they put forward. Despite CMC’s claims that two terminated nurses—Anne Marshall and Loran Lamb—violated hospital policy, the NLRB found that CMC had unlawfully fired them “in an effort to rid itself of the union organizing drive.”
It was revealed that those practices used to justify the firings were, in fact, common practice. CMC management stalled any resolution of the conflict by appealing each time the courts found them at fault, all while continuing to violate the NLRA back at the hospital and leaving nurses to file more complaints as a union.
Of course, this was never enough for CMC management; the real aim was to prevent the nurses’ union from taking root. Thompson, however, remains optimistic and expressed confidence in the union’s organization this time around. “They [CMC] got what they wanted, there was no union. This time, this is not going to happen. We are so much more organized, and we are so much more powerful at this point…I know we’re going to win.”
The unity and strength which the union now flexes were born out of much hard work. Nurses had formed an organizing committee and started working with CWA since at least the early fall, according to Soprano. They developed and handed out informational packets about workplace issues and FAQs, consistently showing up until—over time—they had built pro-union sentiment to its current rate.
Still, nurses from Cayuga United emphasized the unrelenting pressure from CMC management, aided by LRI. Rochester General had reportedly spent $1.3 million on the same firm, desperate to crush their nurses’ union campaign in 2022. Of course, the nurses at Rochester General persevered through the union election anyway and won a historic collective bargaining agreement which saw “huge” improvements to wages, staffing grids, and accountability.
LRI has deployed their typical tactics in Cayuga Medical Center since the first days of the union’s public campaign. Groupe described LRI’s maneuvers in her speech:
“[CMC] is paying these outside contractors—essentially businessmen—tens of thousands of dollars to hold around-the-clock meetings to spread lies and fear about unions. Nurses are being pressured to attend these meetings in the middle of their shifts. [CMC] has been trying to divide and conquer by spreading misinformation and telling nurses that their jobs would be cut or that they would be paid less…. [CMC] even told us [they] would rather collaborate directly with [their] nurses than involve a ‘third party,’ our union…. Yet here they are, paying a third-party consultant to do their dirty work! We are the union. What could be more direct than bargaining over working conditions together as partners?”
Both Thompson and Soprano have dealt with the anti-union meetings throughout the fall. As Soprano explained, the firm has been promoting them as “voluntary educational meetings,” despite the well-understood pressure for nurses to attend.
Thompson went further:
“So, we get to have new people coming in, yet we can’t get lunches. No one can break us for lunch. I’ve been asked to go on the floor and relieve nurses to go to these meetings. Fortunately, over 95% of my floor is in favor of the unions, so there’s not many that want to go.”
LRI does not schedule their interventions for convenience; they are held during night shifts and day shifts, taking nurses off the floor while they already face extreme patient ratios and understaffing. “They’re doing the meetings through January. And every week, it’s a new topic,” Thompson added.
Issues with patient ratios have only gotten more severe. As Margaret Ellis, a CMC nurse in the Behavioral Services Unit, detailed in her speech later in the rally:
“Conditions at the hospital have been deteriorating over the last few years in spite of what it might look like on the outside…. Corners have been cut everywhere. We have been hemorrhaging staff. There is no future for nurses at CMC because there is no reward for staying. We lose excellent experienced, skilled nurses to other hospitals with better pay and benefits. Staffing is a nonstop problem as floats are juggled around from other floors as a stop gap. You don’t know fear until you look at the staffing book and see that you’re the only nurse scheduled for a night shift with 16 agitated patients and support staff who may or may not come in.”
Nurses at the rally recounted LRI’s practice of intervening in existing staff meetings, which nurses like Thompson rely on to communicate with each other. After the rally, Thompson would describe how a director suggested that the meetings were “not mandatory,” and that the nurses could “leave at any time.”
Such lines of defense have long been repeated, reflective of legal advice a firm like LRI might give CMC to avoid another clash with labor law. “Well, really, I can’t [leave ‘at any time’],” Thompson said, “because you’re hurting my career, and you’re hurting my job.”
Margaret Ellis ended her speech by expressing the shared optimism nurses will carry into their NLRB election, scheduled for Jan. 14 and 15. “We will not be shut down. We are a community service, not a vehicle for making money for a few already wealthy people. We are proud of our work. We won’t be shut up, and we won’t rest.”
The rally closed with a CWA tradition, a chant intuitive to all workers: “When we fight, we win!”
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