Deirdre Kirkwood
Nurse, AFSCME
Parkview Community Hospital
Riverside, Calif.
'Choose courage over fear'
United Nurses Association of California/Union of Health Care
Professionals-AFSCME
As a nurse in the neonatal intensive care unit, Deirdre Kirkwood cares for babies who weigh as little as two pounds and who are so sick they can’t breathe on their own. These fragile children are hooked up to highly specialized equipment, tubes and monitors. NICU nurses such as Kirkwood not only care for these babies, but also counsel and educate worried parents.
Kirkwood loves her job as an NICU nurse at Parkview Community Hospital in Riverside, Calif., east of Los Angeles. So it's natural as a strong nurse and patient advocate, she joined with co-workers in their efforts to form a union with United Nurses Associations of California/Union of Health Care Professionals, an affiliate of AFSCME.
Soon after, Kirkwood became the first target of the hospital’s harassment and intimidation campaign. Late on a Friday afternoon, the hospital’s human resources manager called Kirkwood into a meeting, presented her with her last paycheck, and fired her for “poor morale.” A well-respected, seven-year nurse with a spotless performance record, Kirkwood was incredulous. Poor morale hardly describes Kirkwood, who spearheaded the department's holiday gift-giving to managers!
“I am going to fight for my job back,” Kirkwood says, who has filed an unfair labor practice charge with the National Labor Relations Board. She is encouraging her co-workers not to give up on their efforts to form a union. “Please choose courage over fear,” she implores them. “The most important thing you can do now is learn more about what it means to form a union, sign a union card and vote ‘Yes’ once the election occurs.”
Hospital management has not ceased its attacks on the nurses' campaign. When Kirkwood, her family and friends went to Parkview to hand out fliers telling her story to fellow employees, three police cars showed up to expel them from outside the hospital. When the nurses held a private organizing meeting at a church, three administrators showed up and tried to muscle their way in as a way to keep tabs on—and intimidate—union supporters. The managers eventually were persuaded to leave. When union supporters leaflet at the hospital, administrators turn on the sprinklers full-blast to soak them.
Kirkwood and her co-workers continue surmounting these obstacles and fighting for a union at their workplace. If the Employee Free Choice Act was law, employers such as Parkview would face stiffer penalties for their behavior, and nurses such as Kirkwood would not have to risk their careers to stand up for their patients and communities.
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