When executives at Northern Berkshire Healthcare received word that the nursing home staff at Massachusetts Sweet Brook Care Centers petitioned to join 1199SEIU in January, they wasted no time before launching an anti-organizing campaign.

Their thinly veiled effort to strip caregivers of their voting rights didn't fool anyone--including the National Labor Relations Board. The Boston Regional Office of the NLRB issued a decision in favor of the long term care workers at Sweet Brook Nursing Home in Williamsburg, MA, on Monday, ruling that registered nurses, licensed practical nurses, and lead certified nursing assistants will be eligible to vote in an upcoming union election.

In their 19-page decision reached after lengthy hearings, the NLRB rejected all arguments presented by executives at Sweet Brook and Northern Berkshire Healthcare (NBH) as part of an effort to exclude the caregivers from exercising a voice at work. NBH argued that registered nurses, LPNs and "lead" certified nursing assistants have supervisory authority that would prevent them from becoming union members.

"They were trying to say that we manage the other CNAs and have the power to change things," said Betty Higley, a lead certified nursing assistant in the dementia unit at Sweet Brook. "But you're just there to make sure the paperwork gets done. There was nothing that the hospital brought up that proved we were managers -- I still work weekends, I still work holidays. You can't dispute the truth."

Caregivers estimate that Northern Berkshire Healthcare has now wasted many tens of thousands of dollars in taxpayer and patient care funds on executive junkets and a discretionary, totally meritless and unfounded legal battle against the voting rights of NBH employees at the Sweet Brook Nursing Home. Health system officials' defense is that they wanted to ensure the local's establishment was done correctly, and that the $500 an hour specialty lawyers were needed for last week's National Labor Relations Board hearings on union organizing at Sweet Brook that were held in Boston.

What were some of the many tactics Northern Berkshire Healthcare, led by CEO Richard Palmisano, employed while workers fought for the right to hold an election to have a voice at work?

1. Threatened service reductions and layoffs by hospital executives due to budgetary shortfalls at North Adams Regional Hospital.
   
2. An internal campaign of intimidation waged by the nursing home's own CEO, to guilt-trip employees by convincing them that forming a union would be equivalent to giving up their goals of improving resident care and jobs at the home.
   
3. One-on-one meetings with workers about their private voting choices, conducted by NBH executives.
   
4. Six days of NLRB hearings and testimony in Boston and Leominster, where testifying caregivers were kept away from their families and the nursing home residents for whom they care. During this hearing, NBH officials also tried to bar 35 nurses and certified nursing assistants from the election.

The answer: all of the above.

The overwhelming majority of eligible staff at Sweet Brook have already expressed, in writing, their support for forming a union at the nursing home. "Management at Sweet Brook has been doing everything in their power to prevent us from voting in a union election," said Betty Higley, a lead certified nursing assistant at Sweet Brook who attended the hearings, "They kept us away from home for almost a week. Enough is enough. Let us vote!"

Tremendous support from the workforce in question isn't stopping NBH, however--- Vice President of External Affairs Diane Cutillo said on Monday that the health-care system is appealing the decision to the National Labor Board in Washington, DC.