On Friday afternoon, we learned that National Nurses United filed a petition
with the National Labor Relations Board (NLRB) for an election to unionize
our Registered Nurses at Mission Hospital. Because this issue will
fundamentally impact our hospital, our community, and all of our team
members, I wanted you to hear from me personally.
We respect the right of every nurse to make their own decision regarding
whether or not union representation is right for them. They will have that
opportunity in the secret ballot vote that will be scheduled within the next
few weeks.
I was discouraged when I first learned that some of our nurses felt the need
for a third party to speak for them in the workplace. But I understand. This
past year has brought a great deal of change at Mission Hospital. In prior
communications, I’ve shared the steps we are taking to improve how we
support you in providing patient care. But it is clear that we have more to do
to explain our vision and the path we are taking to get there. While we
cannot rewrite history, I am confident that we can, and will, do better.
Simply put, we don’t believe union representation is right for nurses at
Mission Hospital. I say that not out of disrespect to nurses who support the
union, but out of my firm belief that unions can be divisive and undermine
the very relationships that strengthen our patient care teams.
As you may know, I previously worked at HCA Healthcare affiliated hospitals
in Florida. It has been mentioned that some of those hospitals are unionized.
That’s true. But what the union may not have told you is that those elections
were different than this one. In those elections, the hospitals could not share
factual information regarding unions. I strongly believe that if our team
members in Florida had the benefit of hearing all of the facts, they would
have made different decisions and would have voted “No.”
Our nurses have the opportunity to be fully informed on this critical issue. So
I urge each of you to carefully examine what union representation would
actually mean for our nurses, their families, our hospital, and our patients.
We’ll be sharing facts about unions and resources you can explore to learn
more on your own.
What comes next? The NLRB will schedule a secret ballot election and it will
count the ballots after the vote. Every vote is extremely important. The
union will represent our Mission Hospital nurses with just a simple majority of
those nurses who turn out to vote – 50 percent plus one. If only 100 nurses
vote, those 100 nurses will determine the outcome for every nurse at Mission
Hospital, so every nurse’s voice is critically important. The choice each nurse
makes in this secret ballot election is theirs alone.

 I hope and trust our dedicated nurses make a well-informed decision and
urge everyone one of them to vote when the time comes. I greatly
appreciate your passionate dedication to Mission Hospital and the care we
provide in our community.