Word: bethe
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Rabkin, however, says the real issue is not delaying the unions, but rather the quality of the health care Beth Israel can give to its patients. "It cost a hell of a lot of money and time to go through the appeals process, and we wouldn't do it for the purpose of delaying," he says. The hospital argued in its brief to the Court that patients' health could suffer if they heard violent arguments about unions, or if they read what he terms "scurrilous" pamphlets questioning the quality of Beth Israel's health care...
...April 1975, the NLRB heard the case and ruled in favor of the union. The hospital appealed the case to the U.S. First Circuit Court of Appeals, which supported the board's decision, and then Beth Israel appealed the case to the Supreme Court, which held oral hearings in late April...
Shea and Rabkin disagree over the hospital's motives for carrying through the long appeal process. Shea says "Beth Israel was using legal procedure to delay and harass us--the issue was decided against them at every step." He adds the history of hostility between the hospital and the union shows a hospital bias against unions and a willingness to use any tactic to prevent hospital workers from joining unions. By appealing the case, Shea says, the hospital effectively prevented any distribution of union literature for four years...
...NLRB and the union, in their briefs to the court, however, remain skeptical of this argument. They point out that according to a survey of cafeteria use, less than 2 per cent of users of the cafeteria were the patients at Beth Israel, while at least 77 per cent of the users were employees. They also argued in their briefs that the cafeteria was physically removed by a corridor from the main lobby of the hospital, and that the hospital administration often used the cafeteria to distribute literature of its own, including the employee newsletter, which represented the management point...
...main reasoning behind the Justices' opinion seems to be the fact that comparatively few patients visit the Beth Israel cafeteria, and that the locker room area provides inadequate space for communication between employees about the union organization efforts. The opinion also stated the hospital "was unable to show any evidence" that distribution or solicitation had caused actual harm...