Unions Lawyers Clash Over Allegations of Violence
OAKLAND, Calif. - Lawyers for two large unions locked in a bitter battle, the Service Employees International Union and the California Nurses Association, squared off in a courtroom here yesterday over claims the nurses abused the legal system when they obtained a rare workplace violence restraining order against the Service Employees and their high-profile leader, Andrew Stern.
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Andrew Stern participates in a news conference at the Hyatt Regnecy Hotel on Captiol Hill in February 2007 at Washington, DC.
A county-level magistrate granted the stay-away order in April after officials at the nurses' union complained of harassment by SEIU members angry that the nurses disrupted an organizing campaign the SEIU had under way at nine Ohio hospitals.
However, the same magistrate dissolved the order a few days later, after SEIU officials complained they were given no opportunity to contest the order before it was issued. Attorneys for the SEIU have now turned the tables on the nurses' union, demanding legal fees on the grounds that the nurses' legal action was an improper effort to silence the SEIU and Mr. Stern.
In a tentative ruling prior to yesterday's hearing, an Alameda County judge, Stephen Dombrink, sided with the SEIU. "Neither the Petition, nor any of the admissible evidence submitted in support of it or in opposition to the instant motion demonstrates that there was any credible claim of violence by Respondent Andrew Stern or by SEIU's agents," the judge wrote.
A lawyer for the nurses, James Eggleston, said his clients were legitimately concerned for their safety after fleeing what he called the "storming" of a labor conference in Michigan by SEIU members. He said leaders of the nurses' union were followed and visited at their homes. Some also got calls at the hospital units where they work.
"That fear was very real. There was great pressure to do something," Mr. Eggleston told the judge. "These are not acts that are intended to inform, persuade, or convince in the First Amendment sense. ... The home is a special place."
"Violence is not, 'I want to talk to you.' It's not ringing a doorbell," an attorney for the SEIU, Scott Kronland, countered. "People were going to homes to talk about a public issue."
Judge Dombrink ultimately said he would "take another look" at the evidence before deciding whether to stand by his ruling, but he suggested the nurses had gone too far by suggesting that Mr. Stern posed a physical threat to nurses in California. "He wasn't even in the state," the judge said.
