SEIU NURSE LOCK-OUT: Who is Brent Yessin?

This coverage sponsored by the SEIU.

Meet Chris Moore

SEIU nurses in both Desert Spring and Valley Hospitals, both of which are run
by Universal
Health Services, will tell you this isn't about unions.

It's not even about
money.

What it is about these nurses providing the best patient care possible.

There's just one catch. Universal Health Services, which is run by David Bussone,
has decided to make it about the union. UHS and Bussone have decided that they,
not the nurses, know what's best for patients. So, not only are they pressuring
nurses to care for too many patients, but they've brought in the big guns to
make sure the nurses know they mean business.

Enter Brent
Yessin and Brent
Yessin & Associates. He's also a former Vice President of the Burke Group, an anti-union firm. People at these anti-union firms are sometimes called \”persuaders.\” Quaint, isn't it. In California, these \”persuaders\” have been used repeatedly to undermine the California Nurses Association. In California, nurses are made to attend mandatory meetings where they are lectured by these \”persuaders,\” whose fees range from $118 – $210 per hour, with expenses going into the millions for these anti-union campaigns. Mr. Yessin has earned quite a reputation.
He's a master of anti-union campaigns.

It had been brewing for years. Notorious union-busting consultant Brent Yessin was hired by VHS in January 2006, when the two hospitals' contracts with nurses gave up, but the union says agreements were made in the summer of 2005 to bring him in. In September of that year, 39 nurses at Desert Springs made news when they were suspended from work for wearing SEIU pins on their uniforms. In 2003, Desert Springs tried without success to rid themselves of the union, and in 1999, when SEIU was defying the medical field's historical resistance to unions, they and Valley led an unsuccessful charge to keep unions out of hospitals. Caring for the Caretakers Nurses and hospitals continue the war over union demands

I've learned a lot about David Bussone's Universal Health Services in a very
short period of time. Brent Yessin comes part of the package. They're fighting
very hard and mean, but the really tragic thing is that Bussone's UHS is the
only group willing to take down nurses and their patients in the process.

Unlike Bussone's Universal Health Services, Catholic Health Care West adopted
specific nurse-to-patient ratios, which are enforceable through nurse contract;
banned mandatory overtime; and ensured that nurses won't be floated to stations
beyond her/his expertise.

Unlike Bussone's UHS, Hospital Corporation of America (Sunrise Hospital) also
agreed to improve staffing levels by mid-contract, while also banning mandatory
overtime, with \”true partner floating.\”

Only Bussone's Universal Health Services refuses to bring Desert Springs and
Valley hospitals up to standards already adopted by the other hospitals. According
to the SEIU, UHS has refused to make any guaranteed staffing improvements. To
give you an idea of how understaffed UHS is regarding nursing care, they would
have to hire 198 nurses to reach an equivalent staffing to Catholic Health Care
West. UHS has also refused to ban mandatory overtime. In addition, UHS, through
a contract loophole, allows nurses to float across the hospital, \”including
areas where they lack expertise,\” according to SEIU.

Feel safer, Las Vegas?

Well, I've got a news flash for you. This isn't just about Las Vegas.
It's about what could happen across this country to U.S. healthcare once we
try to make it accessible to everyone. If hospital conglomerates aren't made
to understand that profit is important, but not nearly as important as patient
care, we could all be looking at a situation like Las Vegas in every small town
and big city across this country.

Brent Yessin came in to Las Vegas to help David Bussone keep control over
UHS facilities. Evidently, Yessin and Bussone think they know best. Are they
nurses? Do Yessin and Bussone know what it takes to care for patients? It's
their business, but to SEIU nurses locked out in Las Vegas, it is their calling,
their passion. What Yessin is doing for Bussone is intended to keep unions out
of UHS hospitals, or break the unions when they do. Their threats are powerful
and they back them up with actions. Don't like UHS policy? Tough. You're fired.

Special procedures nurse Christina Schofield, one of SEIU's nurses recently fired, says that Yessin tries to intimidate and oppress the nursing staff. She says: \”Six to eight months ago, the union-busters came in and started holding these mandatory meetings where they pulled nurses away from their patients and filled them with anti-union propaganda. Then they'd send around petitions for the nurses to deny allegiance to the union. Five of them in two weeks, each two hours long. They never let me attend them because I kept asking: ‘Who's taking care of the patients during these meetings?' \”Then they started with the one-on-one meetings, where they for instance would pull an international nurse inside, huddle around her, and ask her: ‘You like your visa? You want to keep it, don't you?'\” Schofield, who says she had never had a write-up prior to the \”countless\” formal reprimands she received this year (\”for things like retrieving a Diet Coke from the ER\”), says that management made an extra effort to suppress union literature, and posted their own propaganda every day with yellow fliers on the walls. Moreover, she says, she had to get used to security following her out on her breaks. \”The nurses are terrified now,\” she says. \”They know this regime's threats are not empty, because, well, they fired me, didn't they?\” Caring for the Caretakers Nurses and hospitals continue the war over union demands

One of the most important issues across this country is healthcare. Making
healthcare accessible and affordable for every American, especially children,
regardless of ability to pay is one of our priorities. But within this argument
brews a much missed element of the story. What kind of healthcare will we receive
for this universal coverage? If one nurse has to take care of 10 very sick patients,
what kind of care do we each individually receive?

David Bussone's UHS lock-out of SEIU nurses in Las Vegas is just one part of
this story; a microcosm of what could happen on a much larger scale as we move
forward into the healthcare debate in this country. We had better pay attention
to this fight and make certain the outcome is something we can all live with,
because our lives could quite literally depend on it.

UPDATE (1:55 p.m.): Please check out Julia's post, which adds some valued stats on the SEIU nurse lock-out.

NOTE: Chris Bowers and Matt Stoller of MyDD have hired me to cover the lock-out of SEIU nurses by Universal Health Services and David Bussone. I feel privileged to help in this fight.