Kitsap Business and Economy

By Rachel Pritchett
rpritchett@kitsapsun.com
EAST BREMERTON — The National Labor Relations Board has dismissed a charge of unfair labor practices against Kitsap Mental Health Services, but the agency’s struggle with the Service Employees International Union appears far from over.
“I’ve been told that this can be expected to go on for a year or two,” said Executive Director Joe Roszak.
Charlotte Anibas, a therapist at Kitsap Mental Health and a member of SEIU Healthcare 1199NW, said, “This regional decision was expected and was a step we had to go through in order to be able to appeal to the full National Labor Relations Board in Washington, D.C. We are confident that the NLRB will ultimately find that Kitsap Mental Health Services violated workers rights, and that they used public dollars to do so. Our focus continues to be advocating for our clients and mental health services.”
But so far, the NLRB has leaned toward Kitsap Mental Health.
SEIU Healthcare 1199NW represented more than 200 employees who worked in various jobs at the agency since about 1991, and last year was involved in negotiations on a contract that had expired.
But as negotiations wore on, some workers called the union too adversarial. By year’s end, a majority of them signed a petition to kick out the union, a decision management accepted.
The workers today are working without a contract, but did receive a wage hike last month and enhancements to their benefits packages, according to Kitsap Mental Health spokeswoman Rochelle Doan.
On May 28, the union filed a charge of unfair labor practices with the NLRB it alleged took place during the 2009 negotiations for a new contract.
The union alleged the agency’s management dragged its feet on information requests from the union, misrepresented union positions to workers and stuck to proposals it knew would be unacceptable to the union.
The charge also alleged that Kitsap Mental Health illegally encouraged workers to break away from the union.
The NLRB ruling stated evidence did not support the charge and dismissed it.
The union has until Aug. 13 to appeal.
This was the second round of unfair labor allegations made by the union against the agency over the 2009 talks.
Last last year, the union filed charges containing a dozen allegations and at the same time alerted high-profile lawmakers in Olympia that it believed Kitsap Mental Health Services was union-busting and possibly above the law in handing out taxpayer-funded $1,000 bonuses at a critical time during talks.
On April 30, the NLRB dismissed eight of the dozen allegations, including the issue of the bonuses. Other allegations focused on whether management unlawfully withdrew union recognition.
The remaining four were conditionally dismissed, and a final decision on those is expected this fall.
Roszak said he is pleased with both rulings so far by the NLRB, and expects the issue hasn’t ended.
“But we’ll just stay the course,” he said.
Roszak said fighting the allegations has caused the agency to redirect its effort, “which then takes us off our mission.”
“It wasn’t our fight to begin with, as management goes, but we’re paying the price for it.”
While workers at the county’s only public mental-health agency no longer are under a union contract, a union spokeswoman said members, including some from Kitsap, continue to work for mental-health interests, including threatened federal cuts to community mental-health programs.
“Our union, including members at (Kitsap Mental Health), continue to advocate for our clients and for services, said SEIU Healthcare 1199NW spokeswoman Linnae Riesen.

This entry was posted on Wednesday, August 4th, 2010 at 9:00 am by Rachel Pritchett and is filed under Uncatagorized. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.