Union Movement

Re “Unlabor Day: The High Costs of Union Organizing,” Opinion, Sept. 5: As both a union organizer and union representative, it is painfully clear that what killed the labor movement in America was the perception that unions are third-party entities, like insurance companies. The current rebirth of labor referenced by Robert Borosage has occurred because many workers are beginning to realize that they are the union and that it is not an outside entity.

Employers like Catholic Healthcare West continue to spend millions of dollars to intimidate workers from forming an employee organization enabling them to speak for themselves and have a voice in working conditions.

Ironically, Columbia HCA, a huge for-profit health care system that is not Catholic and therefore does not need to adhere to Catholic social teachings, which state that unions are “indispensable,” agreed to an election free of employee intimidation last year in Las Vegas at its Sunrise Hospital facility.

In that election workers voted 3 to 1 to join the Nevada Service Employees Union, SEIU Local 1107. I know, I was there.

DANA HOHN

North Hollywood