HOSPITAL WORKERS DEMAND REPRESENTATION BY UNION COMPETING LABOR GROUP ASKS FOR RECOGNITION AS WELL.

Byline: Marci Wormser Staff Writer

LANCASTER - Antelope Valley Hospital employees delivered a demand Wednesday that hospital administrators recognize a union to represent them.

Workers, including respiratory therapists, licensed vocational nurses, housekeepers, dietary workers and radiology technologists, said at a news conference that they had signed authorization cards for the Caregivers and Healthcare Employees Union.

``A majority of ancillary workers at the hospital have expressed that they want to unionize at the hospital,'' said CHEU staff organizer Nick Wirz, accompanied by more than a dozen hospital workers. ``(The prior hospital board) set up legal obstacles for the employees. We have seen a change in the board that they're not trying to set up the same obstacles. This is a formal demand for recognition.''

CHEU is the sister union to the California Nurses Association, which engaged in a months-long battle last year with hospital officials over whether it can represent registered nurses.

The CNA won a legal dispute with the hospital over the validity of authorization cards signed by workers seeking to let the union represent them, but now a competing union, the Service Employees International Union, has said it wants to represent hospital workers.

CHEU officials say they have authorization cards signed by more than half of the hospital's 1,000 ancillary workers.

Hospital trustee Steve Fox, who had been part of the board majority last year trying to require a secret-ballot election among nurses over the CNA authorization, said Wednesday that the board has taken a neutral stand on employees' efforts to unionize.

Trustees will let the workers decide what union they want to represent them, he said.

``We are following whatever legal procedures we are required to follow,'' Fox said.

Hospital administrators must determine which ancillary employees will be covered in the bargaining unit before state mediation services can count the cards, according to CHEU Director Fernando Losada.

Union representatives say the law requires them to submit a written request for union recognition and that administrators must recognize the unionization attempts.

Hospital mental health department employee Virginia Alonzo said hospital managers have been unresponsive to workers' concerns.

``We all feel overworked, underpaid and understaffed,'' Alonzo said. ``It's just getting out of hand. We don't even have the right equipment we need.''

Registered nurse Gycela Ethridge said she supports CHEU because of its affiliation with the CNA.

``It's important they work together because if they have the same philosophy, it makes everything easier,'' she said.

``We want a group of individuals who will work with us and won't go with administration only but will do what we need,'' said Rosibisa Thompson, a nursery secretary.