1. Seventh-day Adventist Teachers Win Union Rights in Australia
    
2. Adventists try higher-powered union Busting at Ukiah Valley Medical Center in California, USA

Church teachers win union rights

A GROUP of minister-teachers with the Seventh Day Adventist Church have won
the right to be covered by a union award, with access for the first time to
paid maternity leave.

And the decision could flow on to more than 800 Seventh Day Adventist
minister-teachers employed across Australia.
The Independent Education Union (IEU) had taken a case to the NSW Industrial
Relations Commission (IRC) on behalf of 37 minister-teachers in Sydney's
north.

The union argued that minister-teachers of the church had the same rights to
be covered by an award as any other teacher employed by an independent
school.

IRC Deputy President John Grayson rejected the Seventh Day Adventists'
argument that the minister-teachers should not be covered by the award
because it would represent an undue influence of the state on the workings
of the church.

NSW IEU state secretary Dick Shearman said the decision would bring the
Seventh Day Adventist teachers into line with all other churches that
operated schools.

"It sets a clear demarcation between the intersection of religious duty and
industrial rights," Mr Shearman said.

"Just because you serve the church as a teacher doesn't mean you don't have
any rights as a worker."

Mr Shearman said under the Seventh Day Adventist rules, minister-teachers
had been exempt from award coverage and were employed the same way as nuns
and priests.

"It was a test case and it now opens up the way for other minister teachers
to come through and ask for award coverage and to be members of a union," he
said.

Mr Shearman said the 37 teachers involved in the case would now be paid on a
higher salary and have access to paid maternity leave and carers' leave.

Seventh Day Adventist national associate education director Dennis Reye said
the church accepted the right of minister-teachers to seek award coverage.

"The tribunal has made its findings and we accept that," he said.

"We hold no ill will towards any of the teachers because they were just
exercising their legal right."

But Mr Reye said the findings could impact on the way the church pays other
minister-teachers across the country.

"We will now need to decide where we go with this - not just in NSW but
across Australia, because we operate on a national pay scale within our
system," he said.

"This ruling is going to mean we are going to have to rethink how we do all
that."

Oct. 4, 2002: Herald Sun

------------------------------------------------------------------------

Church Hospital Challenges Labor Law
Nurses want union -- facility says it would violate faith
Ilana DeBare, Chronicle Staff Writer
Thursday, October 29, 1998
©1998 San Francisco Chronicle

URL:
http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?file=/chronicle/archive/1998/10/29/BU76787.DTL

A Ukiah hospital owned by Seventh-day Adventists says it should be exempt
from U.S. labor laws because of its religious affiliation, in a dispute that
could become a test case for worker rights in religious hospitals.

Ukiah Valley Medical Center, a 101-bed hospital owned by Adventist Health,
has asked federal labor officials to reject a request by 75 percent of its
registered nurses for a union election.

Hospital administrators say requiring them to recognize and bargain with a
union would violate their constitutional right to religious freedom.

``The teachings of the Adventist faith prohibit Adventist institutions such
as Ukiah from recognizing or bargaining with a union,'' hospital lawyers
wrote in a brief submitted last week to the National Labor Relations Board.

Meanwhile, the California Nurses Association is arguing that the nurses

--most of whom are not themselves Adventists -- have as much of a right to
organize as any health care workers.

``This is such a misuse of religion that it's astounding,'' said Rose Ann
DeMoro, executive director of CNA. ``There isn't anything in the law that
says employers should be able to force their religious beliefs (about
unions) on their workers.''

With about $38 million in revenues, Ukiah Valley Medical Center is one of 14
hospitals in California and 159 hospitals worldwide operated by the 10
million-member Seventh-day Adventist church.

It is not the only religious hospital currently facing a union drive. Union
organizing has been on the upswing at all kinds of health care institutions
in recent years as workers chafe against the cost-cutting that has
accompanied the spread of managed care.

But the Ukiah Valley union dispute is different from others because so far,
only Ukiah Valley has claimed a religious exemption from the National Labor
Relations Act, which gives workers the right to organize.

The Seventh-day Adventists -- an evangelical Christian denomination founded
in the 19th century -- strictly prohibit their members from belonging to
unions. They say individual union membership runs counter to Jesus'
teachings.

``The Church believes that the self-sacrifice required for its healing
mission is inherently incompatible with the economically self-serving goals
of unions,'' the lawyers for Ukiah Medical wrote in their NLRB brief.

The Adventists also say collective bargaining with a union would interfere
with hospital administrators' ability to receive policy guidance directly
from God.

``We are required to seek God's direct guidance and direction with how we
employ our resources,'' said Alan Reinach, an Adventist official testifying
before the NLRB. Union negotiations ``would be a direct interference with
our process of seeking God's guidance and leadership for the operation of
the institution.''

Although run by the Adventist church, Ukiah Valley Medical Center plays an
important role in the broader non-Adventist community that surrounds it.

The only hospital in Ukiah, it was formed when Ukiah Adventist Hospital took
over secular Ukiah General Hospital in 1988. It receives a significant
portion of its revenues from federal sources such as Medicare.

Of its 170 registered nurses, fewer than 20 are Adventists.

``I've lived here for 21 years and raised my family here,'' said Cinda
Johansen, a non- Adventist nurse who has worked at Ukiah Valley Medical
Center for 11 years. ``When I went back to school to become a nurse, I
wanted to stay in Ukiah. This is the only game in town. We're sort of a
captive audience here.''

The Ukiah nurses decided to form a union last spring when budget troubles
led the hospital to cancel a planned pay raise and a long-standing bonus
program. Most nurses at Ukiah Valley earn about $20 an hour, according to
the hospital, several dollars less than at some other rural hospitals.

``I've been at the top of our pay scale for four years, and the only raise
I've gotten in that time was on my 10-year anniversary, and that was 20
cents,'' Johansen said.

Hospital officials say they intend to give their staff raises as soon as
finances stabilize. ``We are working to square things around so we can
reinstitute step increases,'' said ValGene Devitt, CEO of the hospital. ``We
anticipate being able to give raises before January.''

The nurses say their complaints also extend beyond wages to concerns about
staffing levels and patient care. ``We're asked to do more and more with
less and less,'' said Linda Webster, a nurse who has worked at Ukiah Valley
since 1991.

Last summer, about 75 percent of the nurses signed cards requesting a union
election.

The company responded with its request for exemption from the National Labor
Relations Act.

The legal arguments are fairly complex and revolve around a 1993 law passed
by Congress called the Religious Freedom Restoration Act, which said
government must show a ``compelling state interest'' before requiring
someone to obey a law that clashes with his or her religion.

Before passage of RFRA, the courts had ruled that religious hospitals were
clearly covered by federal labor laws. In one 1980 case, a Wisconsin nursing
home run by the Adventist church was ordered to let its workers unionize.

Ukiah Valley Medical Center is arguing that RFRA now imposes a higher
standard on government when it comes to enforcing laws that would violate
religious practices. The hospital says that under RFRA, it should not be
required to let workers unionize.

Lawyers for the nurses say the argument holds little water. ``It's
questionable whether RFRA is even constitutional,'' said Jane Lawhon, the
Oakland lawyer representing CNA.

But Ukiah Valley says it intends to pursue its case through the NLRB's
hearing process and appeal it to the courts if necessary -- even to the U.S.
Supreme Court. ``I wouldn't rule that out,'' Devitt said. ``The
ramifications are larger than one little hospital.''


©1998 San Francisco Chronicle  Page B1

http://www.calnurse.org/news/sfc102998.html
------------------------------------------------------------------------

Adventists try higher-powered union
busting

Adventist Health System/West (AHS), owned and operated by the Seventh-day
Adventist Church, is putting a new twist on high-powered union busting.

When nurses at its Ukiah Valley Medical Center filed for representation by
the California Nurses Assn., AHS asked the NLRB for a religious exemption
from labor law. "[Collective bargaining] would be a direct interference with
our process of seeking God's guidance and leadership for the operation of
the institution," AHS attorneys wrote in their brief to the board.

The NLRB and federal courts have consistently ruled that First Amendment
protections for freedom of religion don't excuse church-run hospitals from
following labor law. But in this case, the Adventists invoked the 1993
Religious Freedom Restor-ation Act, passed by Congress to stiffen the
Constitutional bar on government interference with religious institutions.

"The decision in this case could affect thousands of workers in the service
sector, particularly those who work for religious-based non-profits," said
CNA attorney M. Jane Lawhon.

The Adventists are major players in health care, Lawhon noted. The 19 AHS
hospitals in California, Oregon, Washington state and Hawaii belong to an
international network of close to 600 health care institutions. AHS alone
employs some 13,000 people and brings in around $1 billion per year.

In Ukiah, the largest town in northern California's rural Mendocino County,
AHS cornered the health care market ten years ago when it acquired Ukiah
General Hospital and merged it with Ukiah Adventist to form UVMC. Only a
handful of UVMC's 170 RNs belong to the Adventist church-but in a
three-month union drive last year, close to 75 percent of the nurses signed
cards to bring CNA to the hospital.

Anger at economic takeaways and concern for declining standards of patient
care fueled their drive. The nurses hadn't had a cost of living increase
since 1996, said Cinda Johansen, R.N., an operating room nurse with eleven
years at UVMC. Last January the company froze wages, stopping step increases
as well.

"But it wasn't just about the money," Johansen said. "What it comes down to
is the safety of patients, wanting to give the best care."

Following the industry vogue of "restructuring," the hospital fired lots of
nurses a couple years ago and replaced them with nurses' aides, Johansen
said. One nurse had to supervise a team of less-trained people caring for
12-15 patients per shift, a situation the RNs found stressful, distressing
and ultimately unsafe.

Local union and community members lined up behind the nurses, said CNA
organizer Bonnie Castillo. The firefighters' union sent a public letter to
the hospital's CEO, and letters to the editor of the Ukiah Daily Journal ran
heavily in the nurses' favor.

"Lots of doctors-who are Republicans and not for unions-are behind us too,"
said Johansen.

Regional NLRB Director Robert Miller backed the nurses as well, with a Dec.
8 ruling that denied AHS' request for an exemption.

Applying the RFRA requires a balancing act: the government must have a
compelling interest in applying a federal law that interferes with free
exercise of religion, and no less restrictive way to satisfy that interest.
In this case, Miller wrote, "We must balance the employer's First Amendment
rights against the public interest in having health care services protected
from disruption from industrial strife and disputes...and the First
Amendment rights of employees to associate with other employees in
organizing a union."

The board's Washington, D.C. office, however, ordered Miller's ruling stayed
while it decides whether to grant a review. At press time the UVMC nurses
were still waiting to hear whether the decision would stand and their
election for union representation scheduled.

"Why the NLRB is allowing more delaying tactics is the big mystery," said
Johansen. "But we still want to vote, and we're ready."

If the nurses win their election, the Adventists will almost certainly
appeal. "But CNA plans to stick with the case, even if they try to take it
to the Supreme Court," Castillo said.

-Marcy Rein