Let Med School Workers Decide

IN 1973 Local 880 of the Service Employees International Union began organizing kitchen workers, nurse's aides, secretaries and other service personnel at Beth Israel Hospital. Shortly afterwards the hospital, one of several teaching hospitals affiliated with the Harvard Medical School, hired the consulting firm of Modern Management Methods, Inc. to advise supervisory personnel on employee relations strategy.

Modern Management Methods consultants essentially showed hospital supervisors how to stay within the letter of national labor laws while violating them in spirit. The consultants advised supervisors not to threaten employees who voiced pro-union sentiments, since such threats would violate National Labor Relations Board (NLRB) rules. At the same time the consultants instructed supervisors to present the administration's viewpoint and to inform employees when the administration feels union claims to be unjustified. According to Dr. Mitchell T. Rabkin '51, director of the hospital and associate professor of Medicine, the union makes baseless claims "virtually all the time."

In addition to mounting "educational" campaigns to persuade Beth Israel service employees that the union does not truly represent their interests, the hospital administration has also harrassed union organizers. In one such instance the hospital and a security guard recently filed charges of trespassing and assault and battery against Gerald Shea, staff director of Local 880. Although Roxbury District Court Judge Feeney effectively dismissed the charges against Shea, the court action still had the desired effect of diverting Shea's energies from his unionizing activities.

In a NLRB-supervised election the workers voted against the union after being subjected to a well organized, heavily funded "education" campaign directed by Modern Management Methods. A second NLRB election will be held this winter and the hospital administration apparently has decided to follow a similar strategy.

If, as the hospital administration claims, it favors a free choice for its workers on the question of unionization, there should be no need for special "education" programs or for harassment of union organizers. Beth Israel Hospital should terminate its contract with Modern Management Methods and allow the workers to decide for themselves whether they want union representation.