Stale Cookies Don’t Stop Nurses From Voting Union

January 26, 2016
By Steven Wishnia and Neal Tepel

Philadelphia, PA- Nurses at Hahnemann University Hospital voted overwhelmingly Jan. 20 to join the Pennsylvania Association of Staff Nurses and Allied Professionals union.

The 516-117 vote came six years after an unsuccessful organizing campaign by PASNAP and the California Nurses Association. Management at the 496-bed Center City hospital, owned by the Dallas-based for-profit chain Tenet Healthcare, had tried to discourage nurses from supporting the union by handing out red, white, and blue cookies iced with the word “NO,” along with flyers directing them to an anti-union Web site. But the effort backfired when the nurses discovered that the cookies were re-iced leftovers from another hospital’s 150th anniversary celebration the week before. Read more