Website updated 5/2/2009 @ 10 AM
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GUARANTEE ALL EMPLOYEES' WORKPLACE RIGHTS!  VOTE DOWN THE EMPLOYEE FREE CHOICE ACT!

DOES THE EMPLOYEE FREE CHOICE ACT GIVE POWER TO EMPLOYEES OR UNION ORGANIZERS?
ARE ORGANIZERS WORKING FOR THE GOOD OF EMPLOYEES OR THE GOOD OF THE UNION?

FOR THE ANSWER TO THESE QUESTIONS, READ ON....

It has been a year since the SEIU attempted to organize our workplace.  To understand the method they tried to use, just read through the copy on this website.  You'll see that their organizing method was simple -tell us ANYTHING that might convince  us to sign union cards.  Apparently, it didn't matter to the organizers whether what they said was true or misleading.  We can only surmise that they felt that this was a case where the end (adding SFH employees to their membership - dues paying - roll) justified the means.  And, at first, it worked.  A large number of our coworkers signed the cards, some because they were promised the sky, some because they were told "it was only fair" that all employees had the chance to vote and "that was all the card did - just guarantee a fair and impartial vote" and others because the organizers told them they had to sign a card to get in union-sponsored informational meetings - "We have to have your signature so we can be sure management isn't getting in our meetings," to quote the organizers.  Fortunately, those of us who neither wanted nor felt the need for union representation had an opportunity to get out our side of the issues.  Armed with the truth, many of those employees who signed cards confronted the organizers and demanded the return of the cards they had signed.

During the past year, the SEIU has joined with the CNA in pushing federal legislation called the "Employee Free Choice Act" that basically would allow a union into a workplace on the strength of the signed cards alone.  When they tried to organize our workplace, it seemed to us that the SEIU's philosophy was that it deserved to be in our workplace by the simple virtue of the fact that it exists and is a union.  Whether the workplace had issues that needed a union's involvement didn't seem to matter.  To us, their message was that it didn't matter if we wanted or needed them or, in some cases, could afford to pay union dues.  To us, the SEIU organizers' message was "If the SEIU wants you, you should join for the good of the SEIU itself."

Does this make any sense to anyone other than the union leadership?  We obviously are not a union and we are not union members.  However, it seems to us that a union should exist for the benefit of its members, not the other way around.

Our question is this:  Where would the employees of SFH be today if the Employee Free Choice Act had been law a year ago?  We would be under the thumb of a union that, too late, we would have discovered had hoodwinked us with half-truths and misrepresentation.

So what about the Employee Free Choice Act?  In our case, at least, the Act would have just made it easier for the union organizers to succeed in their efforts to organize using misrepresentation and half-truths.  Not that they seemed to us to care about truth and employee needs, but the Act would have made them care even less about those things.  If you are a congressman or congresswoman, ask yourself why this is needed?  The unions say the law would protect the rights of employees who want a union.  Surely, you can see by our experience that the Act would greatly weaken the rights of employees like us, employees who do not want to be represented by a union.  Current law guarantees a fair organizing/anti-organizing campaign among employees, ultimately decided by a secret ballot that, if properly overseen by the Labor Board, can happen without undue pressure from management or the union.

Guarantee all employee's workplace rights.  Vote down the Employee Free Choice Act.
                                        
                                                       
IT IS OVER!!!!  THE SEIU HAS LEFT THE BUILDING!

Note: For as long as this website is up, we can still be contacted via the site's Contact Us page. 

We are excited to announce that the SEIU WILL NOT be representing Saint Francis Hospital-Memphis employees!!!  In fact, there WILL BE NO VOTE!!!  Why?  Well, we can't Ask the Organizer because the organizers are gone (from Saint Francis, not from Memphis).  However, we can look at the facts (many of them as reported by the union) and guess the answer:

1. Employees who were described by the SEIU as members of the "service unit" were told by the union that a majority of them had signed union cards and could expect a vote very soon.

2. An RN who supported and worked for the union told a member of ENUSF that the nurses would not vote because the union had not gotten enough of them to sign cards.  That RN also said that the reason the nurses would not get a union (the SEIU) was not because of anything ENUSF had done or said.  It was because nurses in the south "are ignorant and stupid" or words to that effect.  Was she voicing the opinion of the SEIU?  We don't know but we do know that the SEIU organizers treated all of our co-workers as if they thought we were going to accept everything they said without researching and without asking questions.  Was she voicing the opinion of the SEIU?  Read through this site and see what you think.

3.  The SEIU also failed to get anywhere close to 30% of our professional employees to sign cards.

Which brings us to the only conclusion we can reach.  The SEIU did not call for a vote at Saint Francis because if they did, the only group voting would be the "service group".  And, despite all of their promises to "represent" and "take care of" that group, the SEIU wasn't interested in them if they couldn't get the higher paid nurses and professionals.  So they bailed on them.  If more than half of that group of employees (never mind the minimum 30%) signed SEIU cards and the SEIU walked away from them, then the SEIU denied them their right to vote for representation. 

If the SEIU didn't get "a majority" of that bargaining unit to sign cards, then it lied to them.  (If the union did and didn't call for a vote, then we can only assume what we have believed from the beginning is the truth - the SEIU's main priority in trying to organize Saint Francis was to fill its bank account with our hard-earned money via union dues.)

But throughout their effort to organize Saint Francis, the union organizers misled, misrepresented, and miscommunicated to our employees through their promises.

Even now, some of our employees believe that if the SEIU had come in, they would have gotten free family healthcare insurance.  That, of course, was never true, but the organizers told them that the SEIU would get them free insurance, "just like they have in Florida."  They apparently never mentioned that the free insurance in Florida was Tenet insurance that is available to all employees already.  And, the SEIU apparently didn't clarify that the free insurance was for employees without families.

The organizers were very good (?) at making promises that individual employees and groups of employees wanted to hear.  And some employees chose to believe the promises.  But most asked the questions, did the research, looked into the SEIU's history, and decided not to ask the SEIU to settle into our workplace.

It may interest some to know the reasons why most of our employees chose not to support the union.  The following list is not all inclusive, but it does include the most common reasons expressed to us:

1.  A union has no place in the healthcare setting.  Patients must come first, but by definition, the union must place employees (and the union itself) first.  Many pointed to the nurses' strikes in California.

2.  I can represent myself to my manager/administration.  I can take care of my own career.  I don't need anyone to speak for me.

3.  The union lied to me.  (Mostly about what signing the union card would or could mean.)

4.  I trust our Administration, especially Dave Archer.

Employees who supported the union did so mostly because of one or more of the promises made by the organizers.  Others said their mothers or fathers (or family) had a long tradition of supporting unions and they intended to continue the tradition.

While one union supporter said she had worked in a SEIU organized facility in New York and liked it, many non-supporters said they or a friend or family member worked in a SEIU shop and found the experience to be negative.

HOWEVER, NOW NONE OF THAT MATTERS AT SAINT FRANCIS HOSPITAL-MEMPHIS! 
IT IS IMPORTANT TO NOTE THAT, NO MATTER WHAT THEIR REASONS, OUR EMPLOYEES HAD A RIGHT TO SUPPORT OR NOT SUPPORT THE SEIU IN ITS ORGANIZATION EFFORT.  DESPITE WHAT THE UNION SAYS, ALL OF US HAD AN OPPORTUNITY TO EXPRESS OURSELVES IN ACCEPTABLE WAYS.

NOW THAT THE SEIU HAS DETERMINED THAT THE OVERALL RESPONSE FROM US HAS NOT BEEN AS SUPPORTIVE AS THEY WOULD LIKE, AND NOW THAT THE SEIU HAS DECIDED TO LEAVE US WITHOUT CALLING FOR ANY KIND OF VOTE,

IT IS IMPORTANT FOR US TO COME BACK TOGETHER FOR OUR PATIENTS, OUR HOSPITAL, AND OURSELVES.  IT IS IMPORTANT TO LEAVE HARD FEELINGS BEHIND.

THE ENUSF BELIEVES THAT NO EMPLOYEE SHOULD BE VIEWED NEGATIVELY FOR HAVING SUPPORTED OR OPPOSED THE UNION EFFORT.

IT IS TIME FOR US TO COME BACK TOGETHER UNDER THE TARGET 100 UMBRELLA AND MAKE OUR HOSPITAL THE BEST IN MEMPHIS AND THE BEST IN THE TENET ORGANIZATION!

E.N.U.S.F. members welcome you!  We are employees of Saint Francis Hospital-Memphis who are opposed to the SEIU's attempt to unionize our workplace. Our goal is to provide a resource for all SFH employees who want to educate themselves on positive aspects of our corporate culture, including employee benefits, recognition, inclusion and support; and on the facts about the SEIU nationally and in Tennessee. It is our hope and expectation that employees who have ALL the facts will decide, as we have, that SEIU will be bad for Saint Francis, and they will choose not to sign union cards, and, if there is a vote, will choose to vote against unionization by the SEIU.

Join us Saturday, April 5th from 8:00 pm to Midnight in the Oak Room!  Great hot PIZZA will be on the menu, along with soft drinks and water, all on us!  We will be talking "SEIU - Pro and Con" and we would like to share thoughts and FACTS with YOU.  All SFH-Memphis employees are welcome!  You will not have to sign in to share our food and company!  Hope to see you there!

IS THE SEIU GETTING DESPERATE?
The SEIU must be getting desperate.  Several of our co-workers report that the union has accused them, in writing, of violating the Tenet/SEIU agreement by participating in anti-union activities on campus.  Only problem is, these employees were not on campus when the events were reported (by the union) to take place.  Why would they do that?  Why have union organizers been rude, belligerent, and disrespectful to our co-workers who have educated themselves and asked for the return of the union cards they signed? Our employees are reporting this to us, and the only explanation we can come up with is that the SEIU is desperate.

They are also reporting that SEIU organizers are telling them not to talk to members of the ENUSF or read the information we have or look at this website.  Why not?  Is the union afraid of the facts?  Are they afraid that our information might spur our co-workers to think about what the union has told them? 

We feel that the SEIU and its organizers have shown complete disrespect for all of us.  They promise to deliver benefits and pay increases that they can't deliver and that are often unreasonable.  Why?  The only thing we can figure is that they think we are stupid and will jump at these promises without questioning how they can be delivered or why management would agree to them or where and when they have delivered these promises in the past.

In fact, we and many of our co-workers have tried to get the union's side of these questions.  Unfortunately, the only answers the organizers seem to have are "I'm not sure" or "I don't know" or "That's really not comparable" or "Don't worry" or "That's not true" or "That's a lie"

They have promised a couple of things that they can deliver.  One, of course, is that they will try to get you to sign a union card so they can collect dues from you.  Another is that your dues will be payroll deducted and will be based on your gross annual salary, not your net.  Another is that you will get free insurance.  They can deliver this one because you already have it through Tenet and that is the same insurance you'll have if the union comes in.  Of course, the union has apparently implied to many employees that the insurance will be free for employees and their families.  It is free now to employees who do not have families, but it is not free for family coverage and it will not be free if the union comes in.  So why would you want to pay SEIU lots of money to "get you" something you've already got?

We don't know and can't figure it out.  If you are considering supporting and joining the SEIU based on their empty promises and the likelihood (as their history suggests) that they will actually get you what you now have or less, please go to the "Contact Us" page on this website and send us a note explaining why.  The form asks for a lot of information but you can leave all that blank so that your identify will remain unknown. 

MORE ASTOUNDINGLY UNREALISTIC SEIU PROMISES!!!
The more we hear from our co-workers about promises made by SEIU organizers, the more amazed we become!  (It wouldn't surprise us if we hear they are promising ownership in the Grizzlies to all card signing employees, once they are voted in.)  It appears they will promise anything to get our co-workers to sign union cards.  Now, we are being told that the organizers have promised 4% raises every 6 months!  They CANNOT DELIVER ON THESE PROMISES!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Here is the one simple fact that the SEIU organizers do not want you to think about or believe:  NO UNION, NOT THE SEIU OR ANY OTHER UNION, CAN NEGOTIATE ANYTHING THAT COMPANY MANAGEMENT IS NOT WILLING TO GIVE!  THE UNION CANNOT GET ANY MORE THAN YOU AND YOUR COWORKERS CAN GET.  BUT THE UNION COULD GET YOU LESS!

THE ORGANIZERS WANT YOU TO BELIEVE THAT WHEN A UNION REPRESENTATIVE APPROACHES MANAGEMENT WITH A PROBLEM, MANAGEMENT WILL SEE IN THAT REPRESENTATIVE ALL THE EMPLOYEES THE UNION REPRESENTS.  WRONG! WRONG! WRONG!  MANAGEMENT ONLY SEES THE UNION, AND THE UNION BY DESIGN IS ALWAYS CONFRONTATIONAL.  THEREFORE, MANAGEMENT IS ON GUARD IN ITS DEALINGS WITH THE UNION.

IN A GOOD COMPANY LIKE SAINT FRANCIS, MANAGEMENT ALWAYS PREFERS WORKING DIRECTLY WITH EMPLOYEES.  ALTHOUGH SOME WILL TELL YOU DIFFERENTLY, OUR MANAGEMENT WANTS TO DO THE ABSOLUTE BEST THEY CAN FOR THEIR EMPLOYEES AND FOR PATIENT CARE.  BUT ONCE A UNION IS IN PLACE, MANAGEMENT CAN NO LONGER DEAL DIRECTLY WITH EMPLOYEES.  BY LAW, THEY HAVE TO DEAL DIRECTLY WITH THE UNION.  THE ORGANIZERS WILL TELL YOU THAT'S GOOD.  HOW CAN THAT BE GOOD?

THINK ABOUT THIS.  IF YOU PERSONALLY OR WITH A GROUP OF YOUR COWORKERS GO TO MANAGEMENT WITH AN ISSUE, YOU AND MANAGEMENT WILL LOOK FOR WAYS TO ADDRESS THE ISSUE IN THE BEST INTERESTS OF PATIENT CARE, IN YOUR BEST INTEREST AND IN THE BEST INTEREST OF OUR HOSPITAL.  WHY?  BECAUSE THAT IS WHAT YOU BROUGHT TO THE TABLE AND YOU AND MANAGEMENT HAVE A VESTED INTEREST IN MEETING THE NEEDS MENTIONED.  THE WHOLE DISCUSSION AND ANY ACTION REVOLVES AROUND YOU, OUR PATIENTS, MANAGEMENT, AND OUR HOSPITAL.

HOW WILL THAT GO WHEN YOUR UNION STEWARD TAKES THOSE SAME ISSUES TO MANAGEMENT AS YOUR "REPRESENTATIVE"?  FIRST, THE UNION DOESN'T COME TO THE TABLE JUST REPRESENTING YOU AND YOUR ISSUES.  THE UNION IS ALSO REPRESENTING EVERY OTHER SFH EMPLOYEE IN THEIR BARGAINING UNIT AS WELL AS ALL OF THEIR MEMBERS AROUND THE COUNTRY AS WELL AS THE INTERESTS OF THE STEWARD INVOLVED AS WELL AS THE INTERESTS AND AGENDAS OF THE UNION'S LEADERSHIP.  AND, OF COURSE, ONE OF THE UNION'S BIG AGENDA ITEMS IS MAKING MONEY BECAUSE IT IS A MONEY MAKING ENTERPRISE (AT LEAST FOR ITS LEADERSHIP AND ANYONE DRAWING A SALARY AND BENEFITS FROM YOUR DUES). 

IN THE NON-UNION SCENARIO, MANAGEMENT AND EMPLOYEES WORK TOGETHER TO SOLVE PROBLEMS AND MEET PATIENT AND EMPLOYEE NEEDS.
 
IN THE UNION SCENARIO, MANAGEMENT AND THE UNION NEGOTIATE OVER EVERY LITTLE ISSUE.  NEGOTIATION MEANS COMPROMISE AT BEST.  ONLY THE COMPROMISES AGREED TO BY MANAGEMENT AND UNION REGARDING YOUR ISSUES WILL, FROM THE UNION'S SIDE BE BASED FIRST ON WHAT IS GOOD FOR THE UNION, SECOND WHAT IS GOOD (by the union's definition) FOR ALL OF ITS MEMBERS, THIRD WHAT IS GOOD FOR ITS SFH MEMBERS, AND FOURTH WHAT IS GOOD FOR YOU.  (And, since we are all human, somewhere in there will be what is good for the union representatives at the table.)  AND Management WILL ALSO HAVE TO CONSIDER THE SAME ISSUES BECAUSE THOSE ARE THE ISSUES THE UNION WILL BRING TO THE TABLE.

SO, WITHOUT THE UNION, YOU AND MANAGEMENT DISCUSS AND WORK ON YOUR ISSUES.  WITH THE UNION, YOU AND MANAGEMENT DON'T DISCUSS OR WORK ON ANYTHING.  MANAGEMENT IS FORCED TO WORK WITH THE UNION FROM THE UNION'S PERSPECTIVE.  WHICH WOULD YOU PREFER?


FREE HEALTH INSURANCE PROMISE FROM SEIU???

Many of you are telling us that SEIU organizers are promising free health insurance.  Many of you believe this free health insurance will cover you and your families.  APPARENTLY NOT TRUE!  According to an organizer we spoke with, the free SEIU health insurance is available for individuals ONLY.  Coverage for an employee and his or her family will be available under SEIU (we assume), but it will not be free.

So, THINK ABOUT THIS.  Tenet and Saint Francis already offer free health insurance to employees who only need individual coverage.  The insurance has an $800.00 deductible.  What is the union's deductible?  We don't know,  but you may want to Ask the Organizer.

You should also consider that getting the Tenet/Saint Francis free individual coverage doesn't cost anything.  The free SEIU individual coverage insurance, whatever its deductible, will actually cost you a minimum of 1.3% of your annual gross salary every year.  You have to decide how all this balances out.

ALERT!!!   CNAs, RNs, ANCILLARY SUPPORT EMPLOYEES!!!

    The new information we have regarding loss of CNA and ancillary support positions in California is so important, it requires it's own page!  Please click on the DANGER tab and read the facts.  Then, if you've supported the SEIU and still think the SEIU has your interests at heart, continue to support them.  If not, sign the ENUSF card ASAP!  Then demand that the union return any union card you may have signed.  By the way, when you Ask the Organizer about this stuff, the likely response will be "Saint Francis and Tennessee are different.  It won't happen here."  The question you have to ask is "Am I willing to risk my job on the word of a professional salesman I hardly know?"  Remember, compared to past actions, promises don't mean much! 

SIGN THE ENUSF CARD! CONFIRM YOUR STAND AGAINST THE SEIU AT SAINT FRANCIS

ALERT!!! --  This is critical!  If you are against the SEIU organization effort at Saint Francis,
SIGN the ENUSF Declaration Card today!  This is something you can do that WILL make a difference!  Read below!

   The Union wants you to sign their card.  As many of you have learned, their card has a lot of strings attached.  The Employees for a Non-Union Saint Francis (ENUSF) invite you to sign our card.  There are no strings.  When you sign the ENUSF Declaration Card, you will be making it absolutely clear to the Union that you do not want them in your workplace!  Hundreds of your coworkers have already signed.  Here is what the card says:
   "I declare my stand against the SEIU's organizational effort at Saint Francis Hospital-Memphis.  As a potential member of this union's bargaining unit, I declare that I neither need nor want SEIU representing me in my relationship with hospital management or making decisions that affect my job."
    We are collecting these cards in response to the Union organizers' and others' statements that the employees against the Union are small in number and not representative of the SFH employee population.  Well, they are wrong about that and they are more wrong every day!
    Your signature on the ENUSF Declaration Card will help get the word to other employees that standing against the Union puts them in the majority, not the minority.  
    If you love our hospital, value your right to speak for yourself, and have made the decision not to support the union's efforts, we need your signed card!  You can get a card from just about anybody wearing a anti-union button.  Or email this website (Contact Us), let us know where we can find you, and we'll bring you a card!  This is critically important!
    Thanks for helping us keep our 4-Star, Target 100 hospital out of the hands of the SEIU and in our hands.  Your signature on your card will make a difference! 

GETTING BACK YOUR SIGNED UNION CARD
    
More and more of our coworkers are successfully retrieving the Union cards they regret signing.  Some have retrieved them by simply asking one of the union organizers.  Others have called the SEIU office.  If neither of these methods work for you, try the link below.  You'll find information and a letter template you can use to request the return of your card in writing.  IF YOUR SIGNED UNION CARD IS STILL NOT RETURNED, let us know.  (Click the Contact Us tab on this website.)  Here is the link:  http://www.nrtw.org/a/a_9_letter.htm
 
PROMISES, PROMISES

Our co-workers are reporting lots of promises made to them by the SEIU organizers.  Free health insurance, $10 an hour raises, no forced overtime for nurses, a better nurse/patient ratio, nurse involvement in patient care and safety issues –  that’s a bunch of promises.  Of course, promises are easy.  Delivering on them is something else.  And, lest we forget, if the Union is voted in, we will be paying them to deliver on these promises.  And union dues will be a percentage of our Gross Salary, not our net (take home) pay.  Let’s take a look at these reported SEIU promises.

$10 Raises – Sounds good but how does the union plan to deliver these pretty amazing raises and will EVERYBODY get them?  Where will the money come from?  Our hospital is a for-profit corporation.  There is only so much profit to go around.  So, Ask the Organizer where this money WILL come from.  Maybe some folks will get the raise while others lose their jobs?  Will our benefits be cut or will their costs rise, or both?  The money will have to come from somewhere.  When you spend more on one thing, you generally have to spend less on something else.  Ask the Organizer what we would be spending less on.  HOWEVER, our opinion is that the union will not deliver $10 an hour raises to anybody.  At most, they may get a few cents above what we would get anyway.  Of course, we’ll be paying the union around 1.3% give or take, of our gross income from the start, so our prediction is that anyone paying union dues will actually lose money when all is said and done.  (At other facilities, the union dues have risen significantly, in some cases within months of the Union coming in.)  If you are promised any specific raise, Ask the Organizer how the raise will be delivered at Saint Francis.  Ask how much, on average, the SEIU has gotten for new bargaining groups in the past.  Ask who’ll get the raises and what will be sacrificed for them.  You have a right to the details.  If you can’t get them, maybe you should walk away.

Free Health Insurance – This one sounds good, too.  Free health insurance and a $10 raise.  Wow!  If you’re promised free health insurance, Ask the Organizer how the Union will make it free?  Would the free insurance come through the Union?  What kind of deductible would it have?  What kind of coverage?  As a member of the bargaining unit, would you have to sign up for this free insurance, even if it didn’t meet your needs?  And who WILL pay for it.  Somebody has to pay somewhere down the line.  So we come back to the question of what or who will get sacrificed.  And Ask the Organizer if the Union will make money on the free insurance?

Oh, and one other thing.  Saint Francis and Tenet already offer free insurance to single employees.  Why should they pay the Union to deliver what they already have?

A Better Nurse/Patient Ratio – Can’t argue with that.  Of course, Saint Francis and every other hospital in Memphis would have better nurse/patient ratios if there were enough nurses to go around.  Now, some of our co-workers have reported the SEIU organizers insist there isn’t a nurse shortage in Memphis.  Really?   Ask the Organizer exactly how they figure we have plenty of nurses in the Memphis market.  But back to the Union’s promise to improve nurse/patient ratios.  Ask the Organizer how this would be accomplished.  We can tell you one way the SEIU has delivered on this promise elsewhere.  First they eliminated all CNA positions.  (And yet they are asking our CNAs to support them here.  Maybe our CNAs should be a little concerned.)  Of course, that meant that the people in the CNA positions were put out of work and the nurses had to start doing the work that the CNAs had done.  Then, they put in forced overtime for nurses to make sure the nursing levels stayed up. Which, by the way, brings us to the next reported SEIU promise.

No Forced Overtime for Nurses – OK, but how about the better nurse/patient ratio promise?  Ask the Organizer how this works.  Of course, some of our co-workers have asked about all these promises.  The Union answer most commonly reported:  “Don’t worry.  That won't happen here.”  Are you willing to gamble?  Unions come in a lot easier than they go out.

Make It Possible For Nurses To Be Involved In Patient Care and Safety Decisions – That’s a long one.  Of course, nurses at Saint Francis are already heavily involved in the decision making process when it comes to patient care and safety.  In fact, just about any nurse who wants to get involved beyond the bedside only has to step forward.  There are teams, committees, and subcommittees who work tirelessly to evaluate, test and change care procedures and protocols to improve safety and outcomes.  So how will the Union make this better?  Ask the Organizer.

There is one promise that's been reported a lot, but we didn’t include it in the above.  That’s because it really does seem to sum up all the reasons why the SEIU says you should join their Union.  The promise:  “The Union will take care of you.”  Ask the Organizer how this Union is taking care of the members they already have.  Ask them how they got Tenet to let them attempt to organize our hospital without management objection.  Ask them where more than two million dollars in Local 205 member dues went.  Ask them about the contract they negotiated for their members at the Methodist Medical Center of Oak Ridge in Oak Ridge, Tennessee.  Until a week or so ago, we were telling our coworkers to go to the SEIU website and read the Oak Ridge contract for themselves.  Now the contract has disappeared from the site.  Coincidence?  Ask the Organizer.

And what do the SEIU organizers mean by saying the Union will “Take care of you”?  How do you want to be taken care of?  Saint Francis Hospital already encourages employee participation in decision making, respects our skills and talents, offers  competitive benefits, has a comprehensive open door policy, doesn’t hide financial and other information from employees, recognizes and celebrates employee and company successes (and sees them as one in the same), provides numerous opportunities for employees to give back to our community, and, yes, expects us to take responsibility for the work we do and the mistakes we make.  We have a CEO and administrative staff who care about us as individuals and who set up an Employee Assistance Fund to help any of us in times of extreme personal tragedy.  So why do we need a Union?

The truth is, the employees at Saint Francis do not need the SEIU.  It’s the SEIU that needs us.  Not one of our employees made the first contact with the Union.  The Union came in of their own volition.  They didn’t find real issues, so they are making broad promises, at least as reported by our coworkers.  So why is the Union here?  In our opinion, the answer to that question is simple.  (But by all means, Ask the Organizer.)  In our opinion, the Union needs our names to grow its member role and our money to grow its bank account.  If the SEIU truly cared about us, we believe they would have witnessed our exceptional corporate culture, our Team and family spirit, and our Target 100 attitudes and gone away.  So are we willing to sacrifice much of what makes our hospital special along with a sizable chunk of our paychecks to help the SEIU continue to grow?

We think not, and we hope you will agree with us and join in our struggle to literally save Saint Francis Hospital-Memphis as we know it.  We don’t want to give the SEIU our hard earned money because we do not need their services.  We can handle being responsible for our jobs and careers.  We don’t need the SEIU holding our hands.  At least, that’s our opinion.  What’s your’s?

This site is owned, constructed and maintained by Saint Francis Hospital-Memphis employees. The site is operated without the consent, involvement or approval of Saint Francis Hospital-Memphis management. All content has been researched by E.N.U.S.F. members and is believed to be accurate.  Opinions expressed are those of individual employees (as credited) or of the E.N.U.S.F. group as a whole.