The Service Employees International Union was brimming with confidence about unionizing 8,300 workers at nine Ohio hospitals through elections that were scheduled for this Wednesday and Friday. But then organizers from a rival union, the California Nurses Association, swept into town, buttonholing workers and maneuvering their way into hospital wards, to press the workers to vote not to join the SEIU. Thrown off balance, the service employees union on Tuesday suddenly asked to postpone the vote by workers at the nine hospitals, all part of the Catholic Healthcare Partners system. Andy Stern, the service employees? president, said the nurses association?s efforts were ?nothing more than a flimsy cover for out-and-out union busting that we normally see from employers, not organizations that claim to care about workers.?
See "Rival Unions Battle in Ohio Over Workers at Hospitals", Steven Greenhouse, The New York Times, March 11, 2008