Registered nurses opposed to their union at Ascension St. Agnes Hospital in Southwest Baltimore have asked a federal agency to allow a vote over whether employees can be forced to join and pay dues.
Nurses voted last year to join National Nurses Organizing Committee/National Nurses United the country’s largest and fastest-growing registered nurse union, citing severe staffing shortages. It marked the first time that registered nurses have unionized a hospital in Baltimore.
A team of unionized nurses is bargaining with management over a labor contract.
At the same time, others now say they no longer want to be represented. A hospital nurse has petitioned the National Labor Relations Board to hold a decertification vote, which would strip union officials of their ability to bargain on nurses’ behalf and to require payment of dues.
The nurse, Jennifer Delaney, submitted a petition Nov. 15 saying at least 30%, or 180 of the 600 members in the unit, agree, a threshold the National Labor Relations Act requires to trigger a decertification vote.