12127: Board rejects voodoo claims (fwd)

[Bob Corbett <corbetre@webster.edu>]

From: leonie hermantin <lhermantin@hotmail.com>

Board rejects voodoo claims

By Madeline Baró Diaz
Miami Bureau
Posted May 22 2002

MIAMI · The National Labor Relations Board has rejected a nursing home's
claim that union organizers used voodoo threats to intimidate workers into
approving a union.

The decision by the board's hearing officer, David Weitzner, dated and
mailed on Friday, found that union supporters and organizers might have used
voodoo symbols and rituals at the nursing home, but they had no effect on
the outcome of the election at Mount Sinai-St. Francis Nursing and
Rehabilitation Center.

"It's our hope that at this point the employer will accept the hearing
officer's decision, abide by it and come to the bargaining table," said
Monica Russo, president of the Service Employees International Union Local
1199.

On Feb. 28, certified nursing assistants and housekeeping, dietary and
laundry workers voted to form a union at the nursing home in Miami Shores.
The nursing home filed objections with the labor board, saying the union
intimidated and harassed workers.

Union officials said the nursing home's accusations were racist since many
of the workers and union organizers are Haitian. They also said it was a
delay tactic.

At the hearing on the objections in March, some workers testified they had
seen coins on the floors and half-filled cups of water, symbols they
associated with voodoo and which they believed to be evil.

Weitzner wrote that he thought the coins and cups had been at the nursing
home for years and were not a factor in the election.

Susan Potter Norton, the nursing home's attorney, said Mount Sinai-St.
Francis is glad the hearing officer recognized that voodoo rituals were
used.

"We strongly believe that Local 1199 raised the twin specters of fear and
fright and created a climate in which a fair election couldn't be held," she
said.

But Weitzner also expressed concern about the government being put in the
position of monitoring and judging religious beliefs. Vodou, also referred
to as voodoo, is a religion practiced in Haiti that has its roots in African
rituals. Voodoo followers believe in a supreme God and a world of powerful
spirits, but some people associate it with dark elements.

"To grant a rerun election in these circumstances would send the message
that, this agency and by extension the government of the United States,
holds to the belief that if union supporters or its agents engage in and or
practice Vodou, the union is unable to proceed to an uncoerced election
where the employee compliment is in large numbers Caribbean nation
immigrants," he wrote.

Mount Sinai-St. Francis can appeal the decision. Norton said the nursing
home is keeping its legal options open.

Madeline Baró Diaz can be reached at mbaro@sun-sentinel.com or 305-810-5007.



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