SEIU and CNA in ugly inter-union fight

An unsuccessful union drive of nurses in Ohio has pitted the politically influential Service Employees International Union against the California Nurses Association.

In Oakland this week, an Alameda County Superior Court commissioner lifted an order against SEIU officials accused by CNA of harassing and stalking CNA organizers. Court commissioner Jon Rantzman wrote the temporary restraining order against SEIU last week after Oakland-based CNA claimed that SEIU members were threatening their members at home and work.

SEIU and CNA were on opposite sides of a failed attempt to organize nurses at a Catholic hospital chain in Ohio, and the SEIU sent organizers out to California to confront CNA leaders. The two-state fight has put Democrats in the middle between the two unions, and the SEIU has denied the harassment/stalking claims.

The nurses union said in a statement Thursday that the commissioner’s vacating of the restraining order for procedural reasons should not be, “construed as a license to continue behavior and a pattern of threats and harassment that has become an SEIU trademark.”

The SEIU’s press statement said that, “CNA leaders have made inaccurate and exaggerated claims trying to cover up their own anti-union tactics in Ohio and other states.”