Amid a throng of politicians, clergy and labor supporters gathered outside Yale New-Haven Hospital Thursday to denounce the hospital’s coercive anti-union meeting techniques, state Sen. Martin Looney mentioned a law he tried to get passed in Hartford protecting workers from such coercion.
The bill, introduced in 2005, would “prohibit employers from requiring employees to attend employer-sponsored meetings to hear the employer’s opinion about religious, political, or union-organizing matters, i.e. “captive audience” meetings.” Specifically, the law would have prohibited employers from firing employees who refused to go to such meetings.
What Yale New-Haven reportedly did is a variation: Call the meeting to order as a mandatory meeting on non-union subjects, then allow employees to leave “” with managers watching “” when the anti-union portion of the meeting starts.
Would the bill have prohibited YNHH’s style of meeting? “I think so,” said Looney. The meetings were “certainly something that would have violated the spirit of that law anyway.”
After opposition from the business and hospital lobbies, which feared communications with employees would be limited, the bill failed, said Looney. Would the senator bring it up again?
“I’m not sure whether it’s going to be a priority issue next session, but it’s worth doing, partly because of instances like this that point out how employees do intimidate employees in the workplace.”
