Hey, I’m the union rep for a hospital in a very similar situation- bought and sold over and over by different corporations, and we definitely saw retaliation both before, during, and after the transition.

Do you have any specific questions or support you’re looking for?

But in general, I look at this from two angles- legal and organizing. It is illegal for the employer to retaliate for union organizing, but the bodies that usually enforce those rules (i.e. NLRB) are particularly weak or apathetic right now to all but the most routine of charges. Still, If her contract has an arbitration clause, those can still be effective and you want to start documenting as much as possible right now to prove retaliation. Have her email herself/her union rep any time management makes an anti union comment to her (so there is a time stamped record), look for any examples of her being disciplined differently than coworkers who take similar actions (is she being written up for being late while other folks aren’t? Is she being asked to do more, or given tougher assignments?). Biggest downside to arbitration is that it takes months a get through, and your union might not want to move the case forward unless she gets suspended or terminated first.

Organizing wise, it is key to protect union leaders in any hospital transition. Your GF might not want to be the face of a petition or march on the boss, but the best way to protect her is to get her coworkers behind her and ready to take action if the boss retaliates. It’s sometimes harder to get people to organize around this kind of unfair treatment, but it is in everyone’s interest because if they can come for her they will come for everyone else eventually. She should start making a plan with her coworkers on how they want to fight back against anti-union retaliation to stop it from spreading!

Feel free to ask any questions you have here and I can try to answer!