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| Mito Gonzalez and family |
If past is prologue, Santa Rosa Memorial Hospital is liable to repeat its mistakes, according to Mito Gonzalez, and it will avoid giving caregivers their fair share.
A clinical lab assistant for the last 12 years, Gonzalez has lived through two unsuccessful organizing campaigns and too many inequities against him and his co-workers to lay it to rest. This single father of four and grandfather of two is committed to see the day when the hospital agrees to a fair union election with no management interference.
Hospital managers have illegally meddled in the workers’ affairs since the first campaign in 1998, according to Gonzalez. "I wasn’t as involved as I am now, but I was in favor of having a union," he says.
Back in ’98, the hospital got all lovey-dovey and promised workers—in intimidating captive audience meetings—an eight percent wage increase if they voted against union representation. Workers lost but St. Joseph Health System, owner of Santa Rosa Memorial, fired managers, supervisors, directors, and the CEO because they would have preferred a resounding union defeat to send a clear message to workers and organizers alike that unions were not welcome. The wage increase never materialized.
The second largest Catholic healthcare systrem in the state, St. Joseph Health System ran up $206 million in profits in 2006, but very little of it trickled down to caregivers, the hospital’s essential players.
Santa Rosa’s Second Chance
Because the National Labor Relations Board issued its customary and meaningless slap on the wrist against Santa Rosa Memorial for breaking the law, the hospital didn’t change its anti-worker ways. "We got chastised for demanding improvements," Gonzalez recalls.
At their yearly evaluation, employees didn’t get the positive reviews they needed to get a substantial increase and improve their working conditions. The new managers taunted workers, suggesting that, "we were not educated enough to have a contract," even though registered nurses they worked with side-by-side did.
"That’s unacceptable to me," Gonzalez says. A manager gave Gonzalez the ultimate brush-off: "If you don’t like it here, go somewhere else."
"How can a manager say those kinds of things to my dad?" asks Sara, Gonzalez’s eldest daughter and mother of an 18-month old son, Charlie. "He’s got a title, he’s raised us all, we have jobs – how much better can a father be?"
A Family Man of Action
Gonzalez’s kids are up in arms about the way the hospital treats their dad and his co-workers. They know their father put himself through college while he was a homecare attendant and a certified nursing assistant. Today, he’s a state-certified phlebotomist. "For someone to say he’s not smart enough hurts my feelings," says Joleen, another daughter who started working at a local retail store shortly after graduating from high school.
"To see my dad out there, giving speeches, risking his job makes me feel real proud," adds Mito Jr., who works for a local contractor and says he usually runs into people who have seen his dad on TV or at a rally. "My friends think dad’s a cool dude." "I think he’s got a way with words," Joleen adds before revealing a secret: "He rehearses his speeches with us."
There is mutual trust between father and children. "We know it’s stressful for him to do his job and try to get the union in," says Sara, adding that they do their share. "He’s always trusted us, even when we make mistakes, because he knows we are responsible. No matter what’s going on, or how busy he is, whether he’s sick, or he comes home late, we know his family comes first."
Thick-Skinned Hospital
"Patients are our number one concern," Gonzalez says. "They get the type of care—from me and others—that has no match in our community. Our work has given the hospital its good name. It just riles me that they don’t give us what we deserve."
Mito’s two daughters were still in high school when workers filed for a union election with the NLRB in 2004, and the hospital immediately launched an intense anti-union campaign. Workers had to cancel the election in early 2005. The hospital reached a settlement with the labor board to avoid prosecution for violating federal labor law.
Last summer a majority of workers at Santa Rosa Memorial signed a petition supporting a union and demanding that the hospital accept ground rules to have a fair election. Instead, the hospital—like many others before it—has balked, saying the broken NLRB system is the only fair process.
"They just refuse to cede power. All workers want is fair treatment and the opportunity to provide our patients with an even better standard of quality care", says Gonzalez. "We’ll prevail. Like my family, my co-workers’ wishes to join the union will continue to inspire me." |
