THE stalemated labor dispute at Garfield Medical Center is heating up.

The Service Employees International Union and Tenet Healthcare Corp. have been fighting for two years over the union’s efforts to organize and negotiate a contract for the hospital’s 450 registered nurses.

The nurses voted 201 to 154 a year ago to form a union, but the two sides have yet to reach a contract. In fact, they have yet to sit down and talk.

Hospital administrators object to the inclusion of so-called “charge,” or supervisory nurses in the bargaining unit and challenged the union’s certification. The National Labor Relations Board rejected that challenge in August, but hospital officials still won’t come to bargaining table.
“They won’t even say they won’t negotiate,” said Jim Moreau, an organizer for the union, which has negotiated RN contracts at other local Tenet hospitals.

The hospital says it disagrees with the NLRB decision. But under the complexities of federal labor law, the case cannot be heard by a U.S. Appeals Court unless the union formally alleges an unfair labor practice for failing to negotiate.

“The courts are the place to settle this dispute,” said Eric Jian, the hospital’s director of marketing.

Moreau says the union won’t make such a formal allegation, because that would play directly into Tenet’s strategy, which he believes is to tie the matter up in the courts and wear the nurses down.

What’s ahead?
The union has the support of state Sen. Gloria Romero, D-Los Angeles, who said she would seek hearings to see what could be done to bring Tenet to the table (even though federal law supercedes state law in the case).

And after complaints by the union, the NLRB has alleged other unfair labor practice charges against Tenet that are to be heard at an April 1 hearing. Those include Tenet allegedly firing an employee for union activity.