The management at Parkview Community Hospital in Riverside, Calif. is on a union-busting drive. In early January, worker Deirdre Kirkwood was fired from her job for “poor morale.” Kirkwood is a primary organizer of the effort to form a union with United Nurses Associations of California/Union of Health Care Professionals, an affiliate of AFSCME, at the hospital.
After firing Kirkwood, hospital management kept up the campaign of harassment. An administrator and two managers tried to break up a private meeting of union organizers at Kirkwood’s church. The police have forced organizers off the hospital grounds, and the security guards have intimated nurses who have spoken to union supporters.
Kirkwood and other supporters of the union held a press conference on Jan. 18 to announce plans to file charges against the hospital for harassing union organizers.
