Petaluma Valley Hospital workers vote to unionize

Service and technical workers at Petaluma Valley Hospital have voted overwhelmingly to join the National Union of Healthcare workers, which represents other workers at the hospital.

In an election Wednesday night, 78 workers voted for union representation and 13 voted against it. The NLRB must certify the election results before they become official.

If certified, which is expected, about 130 technical and service jobs including emergency room, operating room, respiratory, cardiology, radiology and lab techs will be covered, as will nutrition services workers, housekeepers and registration staff.

Management at St. Joseph Health in Sonoma County, which leases and operates Petaluma Valley, said they respect the workers’ decision to unionize.

“We at Petaluma Valley … appreciate everyone who took the opportunity to vote,” said Jane Read, vice president of operations, in a statement. “We will continue to respect one another’s views and unite through our shared commitment to maintain a healing environment for our patients and their families.”

Petaluma Valley is an 80-bed hospital that provides acute care to patients in southern Sonoma County and surrounding communities. It offers 24-hour emergency and critical care and other inpatient and outpatient services.

Radiology tech Patti Barnett said workers sought unionization after hospital management announced changes to health care benefits in June, followed by a series of cuts in August that cut short-term disability benefits, sick time and vacation accruals and retirement benefits.

“Part of the concern came from the fact that a lot of these were earned (benefits) they’d already earned,” she said. “They didn’t just stop accruing, they took them away.”

Union workers at Memorial didn’t lose those benefits, she said.

St. Joseph said it reduced some nonmedical benefits “that affected employees across our system.”

“These were very difficult decisions made in light of continued downward pressure on reimbursements that health care providers across our country are facing,” said spokeswoman Katy Hillenmeyer. “In spite of these changes, St. Joseph Health continues to provide employees with a highly competitive benefits package.”

Two other unions represent workers at Petaluma Valley, including the 132-member California Nurses Association and three engineers in the Operating Engineers Local 39. The hospital employs 464 people.

At Santa Rosa Memorial Hospital in Santa Rosa, another St. Joseph property, the NUHW represents 613 employees, the Staff Nurses’ Association represents 645 and 14 engineers are represented by the Operating Engineers Local 39.

Tech workers at St. Joseph Eureka recently voted 53-13 to join the NUHW as well, the union said.

Last year, optical workers at Kaiser Permanente in the North Bay voted to remain with the NUHW instead of moving to Service Employees International Union. SEIU had earlier won a bitter two-year battle to represent about 45,000 statewide Kaiser workers instead of NUHW.

You can reach Lori A. Carter at 762-7297 or lori.carter@pressdemocrat.com. On Twitter @loriacarter.